I’ve been watching a lot of SEC baseball down the stretch and into this week’s conference tournament, and it has me wondering why college baseball isn’t more popular.

I watched surefire first-round pick JJ Bleday, a Vanderbilt outfielder, go 3-for-3 in his first three at-bats against Auburn on Wednesday evening in front of Yankee legends and current Marlins executives Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada. I saw Ole Miss beat Texas A&M on Thursday morning despite getting no-hit through eight innings.

So many of these games have been decided by one or two runs, and yet, college baseball is such a minor sport on the national scale. Is it the aluminum bats? I wonder how much more popular the sport would be with wooden bats.

I understand the cost that goes into replacing wooden bats more frequently, but it might be worth it to try it for a couple of years to see how it improves (or doesn’t improve) ratings. There’s nothing more satisfying than the crack of a bat, so I’d be interested in seeing if a switch like that would help the sport gain popularity.

Anyway, here are your questions for this week’s SDS Mailbag:

Robert:

Do you think more alcohol is consumed at the Indianapolis 500 or the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party?

At first, this seems like an obvious win for the Indy 500, because the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has a capacity of 400,000, while TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville only seats 70,000. That’s a huge advantage for Indy.

However, the Cocktail Party is usually the afternoon game on CBS, with a start time of 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. This year, the Indy 500 begins just after noon Eastern time. That’s three-and-a-half additional hours of drinking for TWLOCP drinkers. Plus, the 70,000 capacity at TIAA Bank Field doesn’t include all of those drinkers with no intention of going inside.

Jacksonville Landing is another huge party site during the Cocktail Party, and the number of people there make this a fairer fight. I’m still going to give the edge to the Indy 500, but it is closer than it would seem upon first glance.

@FLMom1957:

Can y’all do anything about the Vandy Whistler?

In case you’re not following the SEC Baseball Tournament this week, the Vandy Whistlers are out in full force, supporting the No. 1 seed Commodores in Hoover. I turned on their first game of the tournament against No. 8 Auburn on Wednesday evening and only lasted three innings before getting a headache.

It’s actually two people, according to a report from the Tennessean, so good luck stopping them. Per the story, they’ve already been sucker-punched, had death threats made against them and been threatened by ESPN.

The best way to shut them up would probably be to beat Vanderbilt, and that hasn’t been an easy task this year, as the Commodores amassed an SEC-best 23-7 record in conference play and a 46-10 record overall. I really like the SEC Network baseball announcers, but if it’s a Vanderbilt game, you’d better believe I’m watching it on mute so I can prevent migraines.

Nebraska-lightning-Scott frost

Bruce Thorson-USA TODAY Sports

@Sykic_J22:

Why does Nebraska get so much love?

A quick glance at your Twitter profile informs me that you are graduating high school this year before heading to Mizzou (great choice!), so it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t consider the Huskers a power program.

However, as a wise, learned 29-year-old, I was 3, 4 and 6 when the Huskers won their last three national titles (1994, 1995 and 1997). I, obviously, don’t remember those, but I do have some vague memories of QB Eric Crouch tearing things up in 2001 and winning the Heisman when I was 11.

Since then, there have been some down years in Lincoln, though Mizzou and Nebraska took turns losing to Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game during my college days. The problem is that there simply isn’t room for many dominant programs these days, and Nebraska has fallen out of that upper echelon. Scott Frost is a guy who could bring them back to semi-relevance, but the top tier in college football these days includes Alabama, Clemson… and that’s it.

My advice to you is this: when people brag about the glory days of Nebraska, Notre Dame, or any other has-been program, just smile and nod. Soon, the planet will be populated with people like you who weren’t alive for any of Nebraska’s heydays.

@Dobbe8:

Do you think more ketchup packets are thrown away used or unused?

As someone who can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve used a ketchup packet on a meal other than the one I just purchased from the place with the packets, I’m going to lean toward unused. This would be a much easier question if it involved Taco Bell hot sauce packets, as I would bet a majority of those are thrown away unused because they are taken mostly by drunk college kids who don’t want them the following day. I may or may not know that from experience.

If you had phrased this question to make it strictly about packets of ketchup that are taken out of their original fast-food place, I think the answer would be unused. However, since we have to include packets that are used inside the restaurant and then discarded, I think more used packets are thrown away overall.

It would be interesting to know how many packets are currently in fridges across the country. I’m pretty sure my mom has a few ketchup packets in our fridge that date back to when George W. Bush was president.

Have a question for next week’s Mailbag? Tweet at us using #SDSMailbag or email me at ASpencer@SaturdayDownSouth.com.