For the first time ever, the Nothing But NESCAC will be crowning a baseball champion virtually. With no NESCAC baseball being played in 2020, everyone across the league is left thinking that this could have been their year. Fortunately, we have a way to bring some sort of satisfaction to those who are feeling this lack of closure. We’ve decided to hold the 2020 Nothing But NESCAC baseball tournament online via MLB the Show 20. For those of you who don’t know, MLB the Show has been the best baseball video game franchise on the market ever since Backyard Baseball stopped releasing new editions. This will allow us to have the most realistic tournament that we can possibly have, played over the weekend when the actual NESCAC baseball tournament was supposed to have been played. Each of the 10 NESCAC baseball teams have selected one member of their program to represent them for a chance to bring home the only baseball championship trophy that will be handed out this year.
The tournament format looks like this:
-NESCAC East and NESCAC West will remain separate and each team will play everyone else in their division on Friday, May 8th and Saturday, May 9th to determine seeding and eliminate the 5th place team on each side
-Remaining teams will be seeded 1 through 4 on each side based on pool play record with tiebreakers being head-to-head results followed by overall run differential (and a coin flip if still tied)
-Bracket play will take place on Sunday, May 10th
-The bracket will have two sides: on one side the top seed in the East will face the fourth seed in the West, while the second seed in the West will take on the third seed in the East…the other side of the bracket will look identical except the seeds will be flipped (i.e. 1 West vs 4 East, 2 East vs 3 West)
-We plan to stream the bracket play games online so that anyone can tune in and follow what’s going on
Not only will this tournament let us recognize a champion for the season, but it is also intended to provide a platform for us to give as much help as we can to those who are most affected by COVID-19. We’ve started our own fundraising page through GlobalGiving (link below) to help get masks, ventilators, and other lifesaving medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, deliver essential items to struggling families and older individuals in quarantined cities and refugee camps, feed children that rely on school meals as their only source of nutrition, and much more.
Obviously we all would have liked to play baseball as usual this year (take it from me, a senior who lost his final season), but something much bigger than us is going on right now. The NESCAC is a family and I trust that our family understands the type of difference that we can make. If you like the idea of this tournament or if you’ve enjoyed our content here at NbN, please consider donating even just a few dollars because – as cliché as it sounds – every bit really does count.
Donation link: https://www.globalgiving.org/fundraisers/nescacbaseball/