All-Region primer

This week Around the Nation looks at candidates for All-Region teams. Cal Lutheran first baseman Nick Boggan is certainly a candidate. Boggan led Division III in total bases and runs batted in through May 5.
Cal Lutheran athletics photo by Tracy Maple 

Stop! It's tempting to overlook this jibber jabber once you see the glorious chunks of baseball stats below. Pity the fool who does. Before you send missives detailing why so-and-so deserved All-Region recognition from D3baseball.com, these teams are not official. Repeat, not official.

These rankings reflect one person's opinion before the season is over. But it's late enough to stir the pot. And it's never a bad time to nerd out over baseball stats, especially ones that don't lead to many definitive hierarchies or answers.  

Stats are through May 5 because of the time it takes to compile and sort the info before reaching decisions. It also takes awhile to go through 370 teams' stats.

Even though this early All-Region pot stirring is based on one opinion, this one opinion also counts when the D3baseball.com All-Region and All-America teams are decided for real. Of the various tasks on this site, debating the postseason awards – alone and with others – ranks right up there on the anticipation list. 

One minor qualm is that, for whatever reason, some potentially deserving players did not get nominated for D3baseball.com postseason awards last season. Rest assured that a very, very high percentage of deserving candidates did get nominated for our postseason awards, but here's to hoping we get all of the deserved nominations. That way the debate can be universal and not couched behind, "Sorry, but he wasn't eligible because we didn't get a nomination."

The debate is where you come in. Now that you've read the disclaimer stating that this...

[full column]


Ricky Nelson

Brian Falzarano

Ricky Nelson has been a D3baseball.com contributor since 2008. He has missed just three D3 World Series games since the tournament moved to Appleton, Wis., in 2000. Nelson is a 2008 journalism graduate of The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Besides Midwest Region and national contributions to D3baseball.com, Nelson has had bylines in dailies, weeklies, bi-weeklies and Volleyball magazine. He has also created blogs dedicated to D3 baseball and D3 volleyball.


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