Giving the ball back?

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Feb 17, 2014
551
28
Maybe legally they can't give them away? Ohio St. being a state university means that softball is the state's property?

Just a guess?
 
Jan 17, 2012
165
0
Kansas
Kids at DDs games like to retrieve foul balls so they can go drop them in the ball-return-tube-thingee by the dugout.
 

Greenmonsters

Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
Feb 21, 2009
6,168
38
New England
not alot of money out of the university budget but its probably a lot to the softball budget

College softball is not a revenue generator. The question boils down to whether the softball program would rather use that extra several K/yr for softballs or scholarships.

Buckeye - seriously, the only $2 NCAA balls that colleges are buying are knock-off counterfeits from China that explode upon contact with a bat.
 
Apr 17, 2014
17
0
Ross Ohio
Me and my DD try to make a couple games at Oxford University here in southwest Ohio and when ever the ball is hit out of the stadium they have volunteers that will retrieve the ball you don't get to keep them.
 
Jul 10, 2014
1,283
0
C-bus Ohio
It is about the money.

Ohio State Softball does not have nearly the funds you expect it to have just because it is a Big10 program or because it is in the same athletic department as the football team. A dozen balls cost Ohio State about $84 or $7.00/ball. Every NCAA Division I team in the country is required to use the same ball, so teams will not be afforded a discount because they wear a certain jersey. With the amount of foul balls that go out during a single game, if none were returned they are probably using 20 balls/game. They always have five readily available for the umpire, so this is assuming 15 foul balls have been hit and not returned. So each game costs about $140 for balls which comes out to about $3000/year on game balls. Because those balls are not being returned, they can never be cycled into practice, so they now have to buy new practice balls every year (as balls will break down about every six months with the amount of repetition a team like Ohio State will have). Assuming Ohio State uses ten buckets of balls for practices, that's 240 balls. Every six months. So that's about another $3500 of balls. Now we are up near $6-7000.

Ohio State softball doesn't have the huge budget you might expect them to have. You mentioned their uniform combinations, but those come for free or at a deep discount because of an athletic department wide sponsorship - the same can not be said about the balls.

Sources? Or just guessing? 20 balls/game? I saw maybe 5 that went out of play foul (not going to mention how many TTUN hit over the fence), 3 into the stands last game I was at.

I know that in 2011 OSU had a $126 MILLION budget for athletics (How Profitable is Ohio State University Athletics Department? -). $7,000 is 0.0055% of that. I cannot find the athletic line item budget used there, so I don't know what % $7,000 is of the softball budget. Nor am I convionced that the school pays what I do for the balls, but I have no data to back that up. So I'll use $7,000 as an arbitrary number, but I don't believe it's that much.

As for the uni's, nothing is free. If Reebok is donating uniforms, then they can take that cost and apply it to buying some balls.

Not convinced it's about the money until I see numbers not pulled out of thin air.
 
Jul 10, 2014
1,283
0
C-bus Ohio
Buckeye - seriously, the only $2 NCAA balls that colleges are buying are knock-off counterfeits from China that explode upon contact with a bat.

Source? Seriously, are you just guessing, or do you know what the schools actually pay? If you know, how do you know? I know that my rec league pays less for regulation balls than I do at any sporting good's store I can find.
 
Mar 25, 2011
304
16
Well, we can always just buy them from Walmart! Worth Softball So, that's a dozen....

What about bats? Every now and then a bat flies into the stands in baseball.. and the fan has the choice to keep it... or get it traded back to the player in exchange for lots of perks, and autographs... anyone seen this in softball or college baseball?

I've come close to catching a foul ball 2x. One was Todd Helton's... it was about 3' over my glove. The other I don't even remember. I've got numerous batting practice home runs... Pujols and the like when the Cardinals came to Coors Field. My daughter was handed a Prince Fielder foul ball by a field attendant, and it has some special meaning to her... but, actually catching your own foul ball or homerun has it's own special significance. I do think that the uniqueness of it being a MLB ball has merit. I do think the young ladies or boys could gain inspiration by getting a foul ball at a college game, and should have some consideration in giving balls back.

What if at the cost of giving foul balls, it meant a roster spot? And it was your child on the bubble of that spot? That surely would change my perspective on giving away the balls.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
Softball is NOT a revenue generating sport and it would cost them $5 every time a foul ball was hit, so they ask fans to return them. I have seen some college stadiums give fans a free drink ticket at the concession stand for returning a foul ball. As a kid I can remember diving for foul balls so I could get a free snow cone at the concession stand....good times!
 

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