Baseball Strikes Out at UC-Berkeley

In the continuing saga of athletics at UC-Berkeley, it appears the game is over for baseball. Berkeley has subsidized athletics and is cutting back for budgetary reasons. The article below has the story and updates previous posts.

Cal to save 3 sports, cut baseball, gymnastics

John Crumpacker, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 12, 2011

An effort by Cal sports supporters and officials to save five teams ended Friday with mixed results. UC Berkeley announced that men's rugby, women's gymnastics and women's lacrosse would remain as varsity programs, less than five months after Cal announced the teams would have to be cut or demoted to varsity club status because of the UC system's financial crisis. But baseball and men's gymnastics will not be retained, officials said. As of July 1, Cal will be the only NCAA Division I school in the state without a baseball team. It will be without a national power in men's gymnastics, in which it has won four NCAA team titles.

The decision on which teams to keep and which to drop was based on a mix of financial and gender-equity issues. After a fundraising push on behalf of all the teams, rugby was deemed to have met Cal's financial standard for reinstatement. The resurrection of women's lacrosse and women's gymnastics keeps the school in compliance with Title IX, a federal law that has played a key role in providing equal opportunity for women in college sports.

…UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary said Cal baseball, which with a net annual loss of about $1 million cost the university more than any other team… The university holds that baseball needed $10 million to be resurrected for at least the next seven seasons…

Full story at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/02/12/MN531HM02C.DTL

Apparently, Who won't be on first at Berkeley: