Let’s begin with the elephant in the room.
It’s not too often that I am floored by news covering college baseball. The news out of Corvallis that tonight’s presumptive starter, Luke Heimlich, will not pitch tonight must seem anodyne to anyone reading this who is unaware of the situation that has arisen in the past 24 hours. As this is, ostensibly, a preview article of tonight’s game, and subsequent comment thread for Vanderbilt fans watching the game, I’ll not delve deeply into the story. Rather, I’ll post links from two of the many publications that continue to cover this story, and then return to a discussion of tonight’s pitching match-up:
Of course, once you’ve familiarized yourself with the situation, the even stranger elephant in the room is that Heimlich, himself, decided not to pitch in tonight’s game.