BOWLING GREEN — The baseball program at Bowling Green State University will be eliminated effectively immediately, the school said Friday.
The program will be cut as part of the school's effort to shave $2 million off the department of athletics budget following the coronavirus pandemic. The university as a whole is projecting a $29 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.
The school says the decision to cut baseball will save about $500,000 annually.
Bowling Green director of athletics Bob Moosbrugger — a former Falcons baseball player — said the move was needed.
“Clearly, I know that fans and donors and certainly baseball alumni will be disappointed in this decision, and in me,” Moosbrugger said in a virtual press conference. “Personally, I had to put my personal bias aside for the sport that I love and one of the reasons why I came here, and do what I thought was best for the entire athletic department.”
No other sports are being cut at Bowling Green, which will now will sponsor 17 varsity sports, but Moosbrugger said extensive cuts are coming to every sport.
Moosbrugger said administrators and coaches, even those under contract, will take part in the university’s furlough plan, starting with 20 days for the department’s highest earners. University president Rodney Rogers announced a 15-percent pay cut, while other senior administration will see 10-percent decreases.
More than 100 university employees were laid off or were informed their contracts would not be renewed.
Asked if any other sports were considered, Moosbrugger said cutting baseball was in the best interest of the entire department.
“Obviously on the men's side, you have football, men's basketball, and hockey that is pretty important to this community and this university,” he said. “Then you had baseball, men's soccer, men's golf, and men's cross country. For us to try and hit those projections of what we need to reduce our budget by, it became obvious, unfortunately, that baseball was the sport [to cut].”
All of Bowling Green’s sports teams were asked to make cuts to their budget of between five and 25 percent, Moosbrugger said, and the school still is working through the scenarios and projections for future years.
“Looking at those 20 and 25 percent scenarios, you worry about the ability to provide a student-athlete experience that you want to provide,” he said. You worry about, in some cases, safety. We knew that to make that big of a cut to all of those sports was not in the best interest of the department totally.”
Baseball was Bowling Green’s first school-sponsored athletics team, with origins dating to 1915.
BGSU’s decision to cut baseball will eliminate positions for four coaches and leave 34 players and two signees without a home. The school will honor scholarships should any players elect to remain at Bowling Green, which extends to recruits if they choose to enroll despite the news.
Through tears, Moosbrugger said the people affected by the decision left him heartbroken.
“My heart goes out to the families affected by these decisions,” he said. “They didn't have a choice in this decision.”
Since the 1991 season, the Falcons’ baseball program had been coached by Danny Schmitz, who could not be reached for comment. Under Schmitz, the program’s all-time leader in wins, BG won four Mid-American Conference regular-season championships and played in the NCAA tournament three times, most recently in 2013.
The program had produced 49 Major League Baseball draft picks, including Orel Hershiser and Roger McDowell. Current Miami Marlins utility player Jon Berti and new Columbus Clippers manager Andy Tracy also played for the Falcons.
The move is the latest in Mid-American Conference cost-cutting measures. The conference on Wednesday announced it would eliminate the postseason conference tournament for eight sports, including baseball, and trim the length of championships in basketball, swimming, track, and golf.
The University of Akron — which cut baseball in 2015 before reviving the program for the 2019-20 school year — eliminated men's cross country, men's golf, and women's tennis on Thursday.
Moosbrugger said he felt a sense of letting down his fellow baseball alumni, 30 years after he arrived at Bowling Green as a student with the goals of becoming a Division I baseball player and a future athletics director.
“Never in my wildest dreams,” he said, “Did I think I would accomplish both, and then 30 years later, have to make this decision.”
First Published May 15, 2020, 6:13 p.m.
