Joe Carbone has played in the College World Series, broken the all-time school record for wins and is now finishing out his 17th season as head coach with the Bobcats. Recently, the baseball enthusiast sat down with the The Post's Kyle Jepson to discuss his team, his love for the game and twirling Fungo bats.
Post: If you could change one thing about the way baseball is played in the Mid-American Conference, what would it be?
Joe Carbone: We'd go back to wood bats. The game has changed with the aluminum bats. Wood bats are still real baseball. It's kind of not fair to the pitchers. The pitchers who throw hard, they're still developing their breaking balls; they don't have any success in college baseball.
Post: What is it about baseball that separates this sport from others?
Carbone: Time doesn't run out in baseball; there's no clock. That's one thing I like about it. You have to get 27 outs, and you have to score more runs. It's a game where someone can be a great hitter or a great pitcher, but not have to be bigger than everyone else. It's a game that's played with the mind as well as the body.
Post: I understand that your wife gets on you sometimes about the way you're quoted in the newspaper.
Carbone: All the time. All the time. If she reads something that doesn't look like it's properly pronounced or good English, she gets on me. And, in defense of myself, usually, for some reason, when I get quoted, I talk fast, and it runs sentences together. And it'll say things in there like 'You got.' And I don't say, 'You got,' I say, 'You've got.' And you guys leave out that part of it. So I have to call people and defend myself on my quotes.
Post: I also heard you were a drum major in high school as well.
Carbone: No. That is a real fallacy. My cousin who lived next door to me was a drum major and twirled a baton. She, when I was playing baseball, would be practicing with her baton. And she taught me how to twirl a baton. So when I twirl a Fungo bat -which nobody on my team can do other than me, and I can twirl a Fungo bat like a ballet baton, I can do it with one hand, between my legs, behind my back -sometimes, then, I take the bat and act like a drum major. And the guys go nuts, and I tell them that I was a drum major in high school, but I never was.
Post: Of all the players you've coached, is Ben Crabtree the best pure hitter you've seen?
Carbone: He's one of them. I wouldn't say he's the best. We've had some good hitters since we've been here, and Ben's right up there.
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