Four.

My personal definition of schadenfreude is crushing the hopes of ECU baseball fans who drove a hundred miles to watch a game into a million pieces with a 10th inning walk-off single.

It also involves eight and a third shutout innings from a future first rounder. Kent Emmanuel was smokin’ last night, and a tip of the cap to ECU starter Jeff Hoffman, as well — he and Emmanuel combined for 15.1 shutout innings, scattering nine hits and striking out 12 between them.

(I should note that I actually have nothing against the ECU baseball program themselves; they’re a solidly competitive program stuck in a conference with one of the titans of college baseball coaching, Wayne Graham at Rice, and in a region that was, for years, dominated by South Carolina and Clemson and has been, of late, by Carolina and Coastal in addition to the former two. Clark-LeClair Stadium was the gem of the Carolinas … and then USCe built their theme park and UNC renovated the Bosh. They’ve got little brother syndrome bad.

ECU deserves respect, but their fans are horrible; the height of comedy and smack talk to them is to refer to a starting pitcher as a woman. South Carolina has earned their arrogance with their back to back CWS titles, much as it pains me to type that; Clemson fans have the cleverness that comes of having to, you know, live in Clemson, South Carolina and entertain oneself; Florida State fans are simply strange; and Carolina has been to Omaha 5 of the last 6 seasons. ECU fans don’t have shit compared to that, and their inferiority complex turns nasty and unpleasant to be around quick.

So props to ECU, and a hearty up yours to their fans, except for the three old dudes we sat behind last night. You guys were cool.)