The debate for the best rivalries in sports—at least North American sports—tends to go in cycles.
I’m not a college football aficionado, but it sure seems like Alabama and Auburn have the best case for the title in 2014. The schools have won four of the past five BCS titles, and this year’s miracle Iron Bowl ending—you can see it in the video above—added an incredible chapter to the lore that puts it over the top.
We’re based in North Carolina, and I was born and raised here, so my conversation always starts with the Tar Heels and Duke in men’s basketball. The rivalry has plenty of elements that apply to rivalries elsewhere: geographic proximity, which breeds contempt; history; excellence for both teams over a long duration of time, which engenders generations of hatred among their fans; and championships on the line when they play.
Baseball has rivalries that fit the paradigm, chief among them the three that span from coast to coast: Red Sox-Yankees in the Northeast, Cubs-Cardinals in the Midwest and Dodgers-Giants on the West Coast. Cubs-Cardinals lacks the championship dimension, at least on the Cubs’ side, but Giants-Dodgers earns extra points from me for transitioning from New York to California and for remaining a heated rivalry even on the Left Coast.
College baseball’s best rivalry has a new contender, but the current leader renews this weekend when No. 3 South Carolina and No. 11 Clemson play their annual three-game set.
Like most college baseball hate-fests, this one didn’t necessarily start in baseball. The schools’ football series dates back to the 19th Century and has been played unbroken since 1909, despite not being in the same conference since 1971. But the baseball rivalry has gained new currency in the 21st Century.
Clemson had the upper hand for much of the 1980s and ’90s under coach Bill Wilhelm and current coach Jack Leggett, but the Gamecocks’ hiring of Ray Tanner in 1996 changed everything. Tanner’s clubs flipped the rivalry in 2002, with two wins over Clemson in the College World Series, and the Gamecocks did it again in 2010 en route to their first of two national championships.
The series keeps turning more and more in South Carolina’s favor, as it has won 20 of 28 meetings since 2007. Both schools deserve credit for expanding the series in recent years to three games in three different locations throughout the state; this is the fifth year of that format. This year, the teams open in Columbia, then play in Greenville’s Fluor Field (home of the low Class A Red Sox affiliate) before wrapping at Clemson.
The rivalry and the two programs’ excellence has made the Palmetto State one of college baseball’s biggest hotbeds, and that’s good for baseball in general. It’s resulted in a recent surge in big leaguers from the state, from college alumni such as former Gamecocks Michael Roth and Justin Smoak to prep products such as Chris Owings and Jordan Lyles.
Contenders To The Throne
The college baseball fever seems to have spread to North Carolina, where the rivalry between N.C. State and North Carolina dates back generations and was most heated in basketball, though as the Wolfpack’s fortunes in basketball have waned, the Duke-Carolina affair has gained prominence and eclipsed it.
Now the two sides have heated up on the baseball diamond, as we’ve chronicled in Baseball America the last two seasons, most prominently on last year’s College Preview issue cover. The “Tobacco Road to Omaha” cover was shot in Durham Bulls Athletic Park, where State and Carolina played an 18-inning classic in front of the largest crowd to watch a baseball game in Tar Heel State history—11,392. Then the cover line came true when the Tar Heels and Wolfpack played twice in TD Ameritrade Park, a month after the ACC tournament. Add hatred and jealousy to great teams and star players, mix and you’ve got a rivalry worthy of national notice.
The teams weren’t scheduled to meet in ACC play in 2014, but they have scheduled one neutral-site game, April 15 back at DBAP, and it’s already a sellout. It’s easy to see the rivals adopting the Clemson-South Carolina format in the future for three-game league series—one in Raleigh, one in Durham, one in Chapel Hill. Or play one in Charlotte’s new “uptown” Triple-A ballpark, as both schools rely on Charlotte as a recruiting hub.
See also: A Banner Year in N.C.
See also: College Preview index
The only rivalry that comes close in attendance to the ones in the Carolinas is the Bedlam Series between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, which again extends beyond baseball and really started in wrestling. The programs have tremendous national traditions, with the Sooners winning the 1994 national title while the Cowboys won it all in 1959 and have made 19 trips to the CWS all-time. The teams play on campus and off, with games moved to the Double-A Tulsa park and Triple-A Oklahoma City, with more than 10,000 in Tulsa and capacity crowds of up to 16,000 at the latter’s Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.
Carolina Stadium
Both programs have changed coaches in the last two seasons, and while Oklahoma’s Pete Hughes is new to it, Cowboys coach Josh Holliday grew up in Stillwater as the son of former Oklahoma State assistant and later head coach Tom Holliday and played in the series. The showdowns figure to get even more intense as he brings the State program back to prominence.
The West Coast has had its rivalries on the field; Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State was as good as it got a decade ago, before the Dirtbags program faltered a bit. And back when the Pacific-10 Conference was split into two division, the old Six Pac featured a grueling 30-game, home-and-home series setup that generated heated play between many of the nation’s top programs such as Arizona, Arizona State, Southern California and Stanford. But fan interest on the West Coast just doesn’t match Oklahoma or the Southeast.
And in 2014, no other college baseball showdown can match the passion, history and national significance of Clemson-South Carolina. As it takes center stage, baseball fans in the rest of the country should take notice.
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