Seeing as how their first-ever matchup ended in a brawl with the game tied 3-3 way back in 1895 and they appear committed to playing each other at least once every year a pandemic isn’t raging, BYU and Utah will seemingly always have a rivalry in baseball.
In the mid-1980s, when current BYU coach Mike Littlewood was playing, a Utah pitcher got so fed up with razzing from BYU players that he whirled after going into his stretch and abruptly threw a fastball directly into the Cougars’ dugout, setting off another ugly bench-emptying scene.
Then there was the famous 2004 incident when a photo department employee at a Fred Meyer store in Salt Lake City was developing pictures — a long, long time before digital cameras were invented — of Utah baseball players painting the block Y red on the mountain above campus and decided to turn the evidence over to police. Several suspensions and criminal mischief charges ensued.
“It is not like it used to be, but sure it is (a rivalry). Both teams want to win. Both teams are more juiced for a Tuesday night game than if we were playing UVU or Grand Canyon or whomever it may be. Yeah, it is a different feeling when we walk into this park and they come into ours, for sure.” — Utah baseball coach Bill Kinneberg
For the record, BYU beat the Utes in all six meetings during the regular season that year, including a 5-4 win in 17 innings in Provo, to extend their winning streak to 13 games in the rivalry. But Utah got revenge for beatdowns such as 14-9 and 13-3 and showed the snitch what’s what with a 10-4 win in the Mountain West Conference tournament to end the Cougars’ season.
But the question has to be asked after the schools separated by just 50 miles wrapped up their 2021 season series on Tuesday night at Miller Park: Does anybody on either side care about the baseball rivalry anymore?
“Sure it is,” said Utah coach Bill Kinneberg after the Utes took an 11-5 win at Miller Park on Tuesday to get their first season series win over the Cougars (21-26) since 2018. Neither team is having a season to write home about, but at least the Utes (15-29) have in-state bragging rights this year after they missed playing each other last year due to COVID-19.
“It is not like it used to be, but sure it is,” Kinneberg continued. “Both teams want to win. Both teams are more juiced for a Tuesday night game than if we were playing UVU or Grand Canyon or whomever it may be. Yeah, it is a different feeling when we walk into this park and they come into ours, for sure.”
Based only on the crowd size during a picture-perfect late-spring night in Provo, it is hard to tell whether the rivalry has lost its luster. That’s because attendance was limited to 500 fans in the facility that seats 2,710. Duff Tittle, BYU’s senior manager of athletic communications, said they could have packed the place if not for the restrictions, and not just because the Cougars were hosting the Utes.
“Fans are eager to get out and enjoy the good weather,” he said.
It was quite possibly the first BYU-Utah baseball matchup that included people scalping tickets in the parking lot across University Parkway from the stadium. Such is life during the pandemic.
Unfortunately for the home faithful, they didn’t see a lot of good baseball from the Cougars.
Utah scored a bunch of unearned runs early, taking advantage of three BYU errors — all by the third baseman — and some wild pitching to jump out to a big lead and cruise to its biggest win over BYU since a 8-1 pounding in 2016.
Ogden’s Christopher Rowan Jr., who prepped at Cottonwood, got the Utes rolling with a three-run home run in the first after a walk and an error and Utah led 5-0 before BYU even got to bat.
Rowan said it is and will always be a rivalry to those who play in it, especially for homegrown Utes such as himself.
“I mean, everyone wanted to beat them today,” he said. “Winning the series (3-1) wasn’t really on our minds, but it is nice to beat them, going against our little brothers, with football and all, the streak, that is always nice. But no, they are a good ball club and it is just nice to beat them.”
Solo homers by Matt Richardson of San Diego and Kai Roberts of Lehi in the fourth pushed Utah’s lead to 10-0 and both coaches substituted liberally after that.
Richardson made a point of jumping on home plate with both feet before celebrating with his teammates in the visitors’ dugout.
One of the Pac-12’s best hitters — even though the Utes are 5-19 in league play — Richardson entered the game hitting .372 with 26 RBI.
Rowan’s homer was his team-leading eighth this season.
“For both of us (it isn’t the biggest game on the schedule),” Kinneberg said. “They are getting ready for Pepperdine this week, we are getting ready for Washington. You know, it is great to win, absolutely. I am thrilled we won three of the four games. But in the whole scheme of things, it is about conference and I know Mike is thinking about Pepperdine and I am thinking about Washington.”
For BYU, Joshua Cowden went 3 for 5 and scored three times and Freddy Achecar went 3 for 5 and drove in two runs. The Cougars were hoping to win all four games this week — they host Pepperdine Thursday, Friday and Saturday — to conclude their season with as many wins as losses after a brutal start, but that obviously won’t happen now.
BYU’s worst loss this season remains a 12-1 setback to Gonzaga.
“Tuesday games are tough, and I like the way we came out and played tonight and kinda gutted it through,” Kinneberg said. “Our pitchers are tired. Our hitters did a good job early in the game and got us a big lead and we hung on. I am really proud of our club for what they did tonight.”
Having now won six straight nonconference games, Utah has six remaining games: three at Washington this weekend and three at home (Ogden’s Lindquist Field) against USC next weekend.
There wasn’t much drama — discounting the time in the seventh inning when BYU reliever Carter Smith plunked Utah’s Tyler Thompson after Thompson attempted a bunt with the Utes leading 11-4. It came on a full-count pitch, so give Smith, who has walked 15 hitters in 40 innings, the benefit of the doubt.
Littlewood immediately pulled the right-hander from Lehi.
How close is the rivalry now? BYU won 30 of 42 games in the series from 2004 to 2013, but since then Utah leads 12-10 and there have been no season sweeps from either team. Being in the Pac-12 has clearly helped the Utes become competitive against the Cougars but has done nothing to heat up the rivalry, judging by the lack of social media chatter the games produce.
BYU now leads the series 247-124-1 and nobody has forgotten where that tie came from — or the brawl that ended it.