See the baseball stars of tomorrow take to the field in NCAA Baseball competition. Played between higher education institutions, NCAA baseball is an exciting and competitive tournament which culminates in the season-ending tournament known as the College World Series. There are three divisions of NCAA baseball; Division I, Division II, and Division III. Rules for college baseball are very similar to the MLB with a couple of notable exceptions such as the mercy rule, occasional seven-inning games, and the use of the designated hitter. Join the stars of tomorrow and witness some excellent baseball with NCAA Baseball Tickets on StubHub!
NCAA Baseball History
College baseball has bee played for over 150 years. the very first intercollege game took place in 1859 between Williams College and Amherst College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Astonishingly, the game ended with a huge scoreline of 73-72 in favor of Amherst College. This game was played under a set of rules known as the "Massachusetts Rules". The first ever college game played under the current "Knickerbocker Rules" occurred just a few months later between Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club of St. John's University and The College of St. Francis Xavier.
While college baseball was traditionally played in the early part of the year, a huge surge in popularity during the 1980s led to a rethink of the structure of the tournaments. In many warm weather regions across the United States, college baseball became a major sport, on par with basketball and football. Even notable non-warm weather schools began aggressively recruiting athletes for their baseball programs including Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Oregon State. This led to an influx of excellent players into the college system who would later go on to play in the MLB. From 2008,
the NCAA assigned the season's start date for Division I baseball as thirteen weeks before the selection of the NCAA tournament field which occurs on Memorial Day.
NCAA Baseball Milestones
The surge in popularity of NCAA baseball has led to attendance records falling on an almost yearly basis. The biggest attendance for a college baseball match, 40,106, occurred in 2004 when Houston met San Diego State at the first ever game at Petco Park. Opening matches in stadiums account for the second and third most attended college baseball games of all time also. In 2010, 36,056 turned up to watch Louisiana Tech at Minnesota for the first baseball game at Target Field and in 2017 33,025 watched Missouri at Georgia for the opening of SunTrust Park.
The longest college baseball game occurred in 2009 when Texas took on Boston College. The match took place during the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship regional tournament and finished 3-2 to Texas after 25 innings and seven hours three minutes.
Share