There are cer­tain indi­ca­tors that let you know that spring­time in Michigan is approach­ing. There is the con­stant com­plain­ing about the constantly-changing weather. The sight of peo­ple walk­ing around cam­pus with shorts on once the ther­mome­ter hits 45 degrees.

But while in class dur­ing Opening Day of the MLB sea­son, it was the waves of hats I saw sport­ing the old English “D” that reminded me that spring had finally arrived.

For many peo­ple in Michigan and for me per­son­ally, open­ing day for the Tigers is close to an offi­cial hol­i­day. So as I sat in class hop­ing to get back in time for the first pitch, I started think­ing about the num­ber of peo­ple with Tigers appeal on dur­ing the day.

So as I should have been lis­ten­ing to lec­ture, I started to won­der what kind of fan base could be estab­lished at Ferris if the ath­let­ics depart­ment brought back base­ball at the NCAA level to Ferris.

Now while Ferris is not the only team in the GLIAC with­out a base­ball team, as four other mem­bers of the con­fer­ence have no teams, I believe that get­ting base­ball back into the ath­let­ics pro­gram could be a wise choice.

It’s a very hard task to start up a new ath­letic pro­gram from scratch and the process could be tedious, but Ferris really wouldn’t have to worry about a bare cup­board when it comes to talent.

Right now, if you want to play com­pet­i­tive base­ball rep­re­sent­ing Ferris, play­ing for the club base­ball team is the choice that is pre­sented. But the club base­ball team at Ferris has had a his­tory of being a very com­pet­i­tive team that has had plenty of post­sea­son experience.

With this, there are play­ers already here at Ferris than can play. All that’s needed now is to get a team out there in the GLIAC and give some of the play­ers a chance.

I’m well aware of the fund­ing issues and all of the other aspects of start­ing up a col­lege team, but just on the pure con­cept of an idea, I believe that it would be a pop­u­lar move for the ath­let­ics pro­gram to at least con­sider it.

While the Bulldog soft­ball team has been a suc­cess­ful pro­gram, I believe it’s time to com­pli­ment it with a base­ball team.

It might be a great deci­sion or it could turn into a long process, but with the amount of base­ball fans that I have wit­nessed on cam­pus, the idea should at least be entertained.

Because who knows if the next Roy Halladay might make their way to Ferris cam­pus. n