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Vanderbilt Baseball Game by William Caldwell and Jake Eder
Posted by William Caldwell on Sunday, April 7, 2019 in 1010 blog posts.
On Saturday, March 23, William Caldwell and Jake Eder attended a Vanderbilt Baseball game where the Commodores took on the Florida Gators. At the time of the game, the Commodores were ranked #9 in the country and the Gators were #14, so it made for what people thought was going to be a close game. However, Vanderbilt dominated Florida every game they played in, and they won the game that William and Jake attended by a score of 14-4. The audience consisted of a handful of Florida fans but was mainly dominated by the black and gold of the Commodore faithful. William and Jake met in Rand Dining Hall to discuss their experiences at the baseball game.
William Caldwell is a junior from Dallas, Texas majoring in Economics. He loves watching any sport in his free time and hanging out with friends.
Jake Eder is a sophomore from Ocean Ridge, Florida majoring in Human and Organizational Development who loves listening to music and playing baseball.
William: I think both of us can know that that game and that entire weekend of baseball was pretty incredible. Y’all were on a roll for those three games against Florida. That Saturday was definitely one of the most fun baseball games I have been to here. What’s it like playing in front of a sold-out crowd like that?
Jake: Yeah that was super fun. That was the first time the stadium had been sold out this season and it was cool to see the crowd like that. Where were you sitting?
William: We sat in the outfield—in like left-center near the new beer tent thing. But being in the crowd was super fun. My parents were actually in town, so I went to it with them and it was interesting that it was sold out like that because it gave them a real feeling of being a true Vandy fan I feel like. How are y’all able to feed off of a crowd like that?
Jake: Having so many people there makes the games really fun. I think having such a huge crowd like that makes it easy for everybody to get excited for the game. Not that we don’t get amped for all of our games, but with crowds like that, it really lets us have a kind of edge that we might not have on a typical weekday game where the stands aren’t nearly that full.
William: Yeah. I definitely get that. That’s awesome.
Jake: How many Florida fans were sitting in your section?
William: Umm, no not really I don’t think. It was mainly a bunch of Vandy fans. There actually so many families there. I guess because it was such a beautiful, sunny day lots of people thought it would be a good way to spend the day, and I don’t blame them because it was an incredible way to spend the Saturday.
How do you think y’all, as a team, can impact our community? Either Vanderbilt specifically or even like Nashville?
Jake: I mean I think any Vandy sport, not just baseball, can bring everybody together. I think that’s just what sports do as a whole—like everybody rooting for one team lets everybody kind of join together.
William: Yeah, I completely agree. Any kind of sporting event is such a special kind of live performance. It brings together all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds who really want to just enjoy their time watching something that they like. I think it’s super easy as a fan to kind of feed off of the crowd’s energy too. For any game I go to, if people are cheering or booing, it’s almost impossible not to join in.
Jake: We love it when our crowd gets animated. Kind of like what I said earlier, whenever the crowd gets into the game it just makes it that much easier for us to get into it and to play our best.
William: What were y’all’s expectations for the team coming into this year?
Jake: We knew we were going to be pretty good. Obviously, for any college baseball team, the College World Series in Omaha is really our end goal. This season so far has been super fun, though. We really are playing well and are playing together and that makes it just that much more fun to play baseball every day.
William: I feel like everybody at that game was super excited for you guys. I think most people there know how good the team is this year, so it really adds to the eagerness that the fans had that day at the game. It also helped that y’all really blew Florida out, so I think that the crowd there got excited that you guys really dominated a good team.
[Jake Chuckles]
Jake: That was a fun series for sure.
William: How do big games affect you?
Jake: I mean I think any big game is somewhat nerve-wracking.
William: I bet but I’m sure you have some way to cope with that.
Jake: I think being an athlete and having been an athlete for basically my whole life, I know how to, kind of, control my nerves. It’s just something built in for most us. Like we know when we need to lock in and how to do it. A lot of controlling our nerves is just being with the team. At least that’s what I find to be most helpful.
William: When you go to other Vanderbilt sporting events, do you think that you being a student-athlete changes the way you watch these games?
Jake: For sure. There’s such a bond between the different athletes. Whenever I go to basketball games or football games or whatever sport, it’s cool to be able to cheer them on because I can relate to what they go through. I know how much time they devote to each practice and workout and whatever. I’m also friends with different people on different teams. It’s really cool to watch my friends compete, and I love it when we win, obviously.
William: How do you think a baseball game can be viewed as a stage with an audience?
Jake: I never really have thought about it like that until this class. On a surface level, people are watching other people do what not the average person can do. Not everybody can throw a 90 MPH fastball, and I think crowds for baseball games know that, so they enjoy watching whatever it might be that they can’t do because it’s such a cool thing to see.
William: I definitely agree with that. I mean I know I can’t throw anything nearly that fast, but I love and respect the people that can. I think a lot of it also revolves around the crowd. Essin has talked about how performers feed off of the audience, and we’ve talked about it a little bit today too, but it just makes it super easy to get excited whenever there are thousands of people doing the same thing right next to you too.
Jake: Yeah it just makes everything so much more fun.
William: Agreed.
Jake: Well, awesome. Do you think we have anything else to cover?
William: Nope. I think that should be good! Enjoyed chatting with you.
Jake: You too, man. See you around.
4 Comments on “Vanderbilt Baseball Game by William Caldwell and Jake Eder”
Jackson Winrow on April 8th, 2019 at 4:06 pmI agree with what William said about the environment of the games that weekend. With Florida coming in being a top notch program in baseball as well as other sports and Vandy being good year in and year out in baseball gave this game more hype than one would expect if they knew nothing about college baseball going into the game. As William mentioned in the beginning. I also thought it was going to be a close game as well but Vandy’s nasty were on na another level that game. The environment of that game was very unreal. I always thought baseball games were boring and long but when you have an atmosphere like there was against Florida it changed my perception on how intriguing a baseball game can be if it has the right atmosphere around it. With that being my first game I have attended in my time here at Vanderbilt I would definitely be back for another game.
Jake Silver on April 14th, 2019 at 1:17 pmTo begin, I thoroughly enjoyed the context of the collaborative analysis. The introduction encapsulated both some context regarding the baseball season, as well as the analysis as a whole. The brief introduction allowed me, as a reader, to view the entire analysis with a specific lens that included what you were writing about, who was writing is (more than simple names), and where/when it was written. Although there were no pictures in the analysis, it took the form of a dialogue (with personality) which was extremely successful. I agreed with William when he described the “that the game and that entire weekend of baseball was pretty incredible.” The accessibility of this game allowed all fans to join in on the fun and it was actually sold out. This caused every play to be exciting as the sheer amount of people would be really involved since so many fans from both teams joined in on the fun. When Jake responded the the question about the game being viewed as a stage with an audience, I was truly captivated. I believe Jake is a baseball player so it was very interesting to read his point of view regarding his empathy with the game. Similar to him, I have not thought about that previously and was in agreement with William when he said he “respects the people that can [throw a fast ball].” Although the game I attended was not this one, I believe all the same feelings apply even though mine was not sold out. I felt alive and apart of something bigger. The “so what” of this dialogue was made stronger by the sense of community at the game as I truly felt apart of Vanderbilt and accepted. This fact really brought the “so what” into the game. Ultimately, the baseball game was incredible and great job with the dialogue.
Trent Hill on April 14th, 2019 at 11:35 pmI think this collaborative analysis is very interesting because it captures the both the perspective of Jake, a player on the team, and William, as a spectator. It is very interesting to note how the players and audience feed off of one another, with both acting as performers. Obviously the players are the primary performers, but in my experience it was really cool to see the crowd also acting as performers, cheering together and getting the team hyped up to play the best they can, or “locked in,” as Jake put it. I agree with Jake that I hadn’t thought about sports as a type of theatre until this class, but it created a new perspective for me to view a baseball game as a piece of unscripted theatre. I also had never really considered the audience as a performer, but having that perspective going into the game had me focusing on how the crowd acts as a group, chanting and cheering together in their own performance to hype up the team and get them playing their best. From the stands, its really cool to think about the players on the field as your audience, because in your role as spectator its your job to get excited about the game in front of you and let the players feel that excitement and feed off of it, and ultimately play their best and win games.
Steven Raby on April 15th, 2019 at 1:24 pmBeing on the team with Jake, i found myself agreeing with everything he had to say in this article. The crowd is a huge factor. Like he said, it’s not like we don’t get hyped up for the games by ourselves, but having a big crowd that is into the game and very animated, it makes a huge difference. It makes the game even more fun! You can tell the difference when were playing a big team like Florida from when we play a mid-major team on a Tuesday night. There’s hardly anyone there because there isn’t any hype around the opposing team. The other big thing i found myself agreeing with Jake on was how he said he felt like bond with the other athletes when he attends other sporting events. John Augestine and I said something similar to this in our Collaborative Analysis when analyzing the UT vs. Vandy basketball game. We all know how hard we all work at our craft and so it’s easy to have empathy for other athletes. I also found it enjoyable reading about William’s perspective as a fan/observer. I thought it was nice having the perspective of seeing what it’s like at one of our games since i have never been in that situation myself.