By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
DURHAM, N.C. – Jack Leggett calls the current way the Atlantic Coast Conference plays its baseball tournament, “Pretty.”
Clemson’s longtime coach prefers the double elimination format the ACC played from 1974-2006. In 2007, the conference moved to its current pool-play format which will come to an end this year. In pool play each of the eight teams play three games with the two teams with the best records from Pools A and B playing Sunday in the championship game.
“Personally, I like the double-elimination tournament because it is a true tournament,” Leggett said after Clemson’s 50-minute practice Tuesday from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C. “This is pretty and all that kind of stuff. You know when you are on TV and you know what is happening, but it is not a true tournament.”
The 14th-ranked Tigers will play No. 10 NC State in their first game in the not-so true tournament Wednesday at 7 p.m. Clemson will then get Thursday off before playing No. 3 North Carolina on Friday and then Miami on Saturday to wrap up pool competition.
“Some teams don’t even play on Wednesday so a team that might not play their first game until Thursday night, it might be already determined who is the in the final or whether they have a chance or not, which happened to us a few years back,” Leggett said. “There were five games played before us and we already knew who was in the championship so I do like the tournament format if you want to have a (true) tournament.”
The ACC will be headed back to the old format next year. With Notre Dame and Pittsburgh joining the conference in July, the ACC will add two more teams to the tournament field in 2014, which led the ACC to changing the format back to the traditional double-elimination format.
“I understand the reasoning behind (the current format). You are assured three games, which is sort of like a regional. You have your TV all worked out and that kind of thing,” Leggett said. “I understand the value of both of them.”
The benefit of playing in pool play is it saves arms. Teams are able to set their rotations for not only the ACC Tournament, but the NCAA Tournament as well.
“It a double-elimination tournament with eight teams, you can play up to five or six games if you get in the loser’s bracket,” Leggett said. “One year Georgia Tech got caught playing three games in one day in Salem (VA). I think that kind of put the spear in the heart.
“So there are values to both ways. We just do what they tell us to do and go play ball.”
Clemson won the last double-elimination tournament in 2006, beating NC State 8-4 in the championship game. The night before, the Tigers played Georgia Tech twice, losing the first game in 10 innings, 7-6, before taking the second game, 16-11, which did not get over until way after midnight.
They played NC State in the championship game at noon later that day.
The Tigers pitching was shot after those two games with Georgia Tech so Leggett and then pitching coach Kevin O’Sullivan—now the head coach at Florida—got together to talk about who they might start.
“I had Sully laughing,” Leggett said. “Sully said, ‘Who should we pitch?’ I said, ‘Who do you think?’ He goes, ‘Who do you think?’ I said, ‘No! Who do you think?’ He said, ‘No! Who do you think?’ So we both decided let’s go with Sean Clark.
“So Sean Clark walks right by us and I say, ‘Sean! You are pitching today. And he goes, ‘Oh, okay! Good!”
Clark ended up pitching a gem. The senior, who was put on the traveling squad at the last minute because of an injury to a teammate, gave up one run on four hits in eight-plus innings of work as he lifted Clemson to its ninth ACC Tournament Championship that afternoon.
“The next thing I know, we are being introduced at the regional the next weekend, and he is pitching, and he gets the biggest ovation of anybody,” Leggett said. “No one knew who he was the week before.”
But it sure was pretty to see him getting one.