I do not see the Aggies cutting BB for a number of reasons. Number one, eliminating $150,000++ in coaching salary is a drop in bucket even in a lean budget year; it is minuscule in the overall UCD athletic budget; Number two, not smart to cut a sport that has potentially the best BB infrastructure in the BW. It just has to be finished- Lights, for a start! Davis night BB is an automatic draw when the temp is 104 in the day. Number three, I believe Rocko is an perpetually optimistic AD. He is a great fund raiser and outreach guy. Cutting a major sport is not on his playlist. Number four, Scott Carroll, faculty athletic rep is not just your bored old faculty guy with an easy assignment, he is an activist, former college athlete and he has sons who play BB. One is on the present UCD team. Probably our best pitcher. His other son is on the Sac Metro All-League Allstar Team as a pitcher. Lastly, Chancellor May. He is also the perpetual optimist and a student advocate and is not likely to cut a major sport that our rivalry school is keeping and beating us at it. Solution: clean house. Hire a new coaching staff. Put in the lights!

I was kind of curious about how bad the budget was this year. I can't find anything specific to athletics, but as a whole, the campus took a hit of about $200M. But it appears they have found ways to plug that, at least in the near term, by moving money around. The saving graces were that, to the surprise of many I think, the state budget and endowments did better than expected. There were several campus units that had to take out loans from reserves to cover their losses - specifically the Bookstore, TAPS, and Student Housing (personally I would have been fine had they laid off all the parking meter maids). For what it's worth, Athletics wasn't on the bailout request list so I wouldn't personally predict any program cuts based on money. But I have no inside knowledge.

My friends on campus say construction / renovations were speed up all over campus, which is smart. They had to figure out how to fund those projects.

Well I don't want it to be cut either, but the program was on the list of considerations the last time programs were cut so the idea is floating out there, although it's not clear how likely it is they will act on it.

Regardless of what happens to the baseball program nothing will happen to Dobbins Stadium. They can't demolish the baseball portion in my opinion, because that would have consequences for the soccer stands, and although you could play soccer on the baseball field the sight lines would be terrible for fans. You wouldn't be able to see half of the game clearly. And if you demolished the entire structure and removed the diamond to build a soccer-only stadium that would be ridiculously expensive and unnecessary. Soccer attendance at UCD is like Sac State basketball-the crowd fills the current seating capacity but more would be a waste.

What would likely happen if UCD eliminated baseball is they would open it up to the community more (since it used to be called Community Stadium especially). I've seen it used for adult baseball leagues, a high school scouting showcase, and even a minor league exhibition game. They also have the option to open it up to other universities for tournaments (Remember the Capitol Classic they co-hosted with Sac State ?) or as an alternate site for neutral competitions, like the CCAA tournament or if St. Mary's College ever hosts a regional. To put it in perspective I went to a couple of games at Loanmart Field (home of the Dodgers' Low-A affiliate-the Rancho Cucomonga Quakes) over the weekend, and there were a few adult softball fields behind the stadium. All of them had better seating than Guisto Field. I'm just saying. And Sac State too would be unlikely to be able to host a regional or super-regional as well due to its low capacity. Active baseball program or not I could see UCD being willing to host a Sac State regional if they get paid.

Losing the program would not necessarily preclude the addition of lights either. Phil Swimley had visions of bringing minor league baseball in. If they have aspirations of bringing in college summer league games or an independent minor league team it could happen. Have you seen Bryant Field in Marysville ? It has hosted both and the only things it has on UCD are lights. Dobbins also boasts a larger capacity than Valley Strong ballpark in Visalia (Single-A affiliate of the DBACKS) and the independent Pecos league plays a great deal of games on HS fields. So Dobbins will not go to waste under any circumstances

And then would we cut a woman's program to ensure gender equity? Which one? Field hockey, equestrian?

They would just admit more women to the school so they could keep all the women's sports.