Greg Goldsmith and the rest of the Christopher Newport Captains earned the first ticket to the 2012 NCAA playoffs. CNU athletics photo

Gregg Kaye was selected as the new Division III baseball national selection committee chair in August 2011. Kaye, the Commonwealth Coast Conference commissioner since 2007, has represented the New England Region on the D-III baseball committee since 2010 and remains the region’s chair.

Kaye’s baseball roots run deep. Prior to his D-III baseball chairmanship, Kaye spent nine seasons with the Triple-A Columbus Clippers, served as the official scorer for the Orlando Rays and Kissimmee Predators minor league teams, and was a four-year member of the Division II baseball committee during his tenure as associate commissioner of the Sunshine State Conference.

In a press release announcing his D-III baseball appointment Kaye said, “I have had the great opportunity to work in college and professional baseball in numerous capacities for nearly 25 years and consider the opportunity to serve Division III baseball as the NCAA national chair to be my highest honor.”

In the first of a two-part conversation, Kaye talks about his interest in baseball, the delicate dance of science and art that is the selection process, selection transparency, the “a game is a game” proposal, and more.

Ricky Nelson: You’ve worn many hats in the game of baseball. What is it about baseball that draws you and what made you want to be a part of the D-III baseball selection committee?

Gregg Kaye: In a general sense baseball is something that I was introduced to when I was a real, real young kid. The experience playing the game constantly and the experience going to big league games – having grown up in New York and having two teams at my disposal – it was something that I always, always enjoyed doing a great deal. When I eventually got to college, I didn’t have the ability to play at that level. But I was always able to be around the game either from a statistician’s perspective, helping coaches out and that sort of thing. One day when I started working on my master’s degree in an unrelated field – computer science – I learned that there were ways to stay active in the game. And I was fortunate enough that I was able to switch my master’s program to sport management and get involved at the Triple-A level as an intern, and then later on as an employee. And it’s just something that I’ve always enjoyed. It’s just something that I’ve always been a part of.

Five years ago when I made the move from being an assistant commissioner at the Division-II level to being commissioner at the Division-III level, I actually had to abandon a term on the D-II committee. That was an appointment that I really, really enjoyed – just digging inside the numbers, watching games, trying to evaluate teams. As somebody growing up that always followed the men’s basketball selections and whatnot, I found that the chance to be on the D-II committee was a way to really tie my love for baseball, my love for numbers and things like that into something that I really enjoyed – something that was a great experience. When I moved to Division-III, I actually stayed away from pursuing other opportunities, hoping that there would be an opportunity to chair the New England Region [baseball selection committee]. And, fortunately, within a couple of years terms expired, and I was fortunate enough to get it. So really it’s kind of a way for me to continue being close to the game, continue committee work that I had started, really, 10 years ago at the Division-II level.

And I enjoy it. I think anyone who works on a committee can tell you that on one hand it’s a way to really invest yourself in a particular sport, and it’s a way to really help create a tremendous opportunity for student-athletes. It’s a way to get to know people that have very similar interests to you. And, really, it’s just a wonderful experience. It’s just the next step in a baseball journey that really started, for me, when I was seven years old. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a tremendous, tremendous amount.

RN: You mentioned a lot of the good and best parts of being on the national committee. Are there any downsides?

GK: I think the downside is that, for me personally – and I would think for many people that are probably involved in committee service, whether it’s regionally or nationally – is that we take a lot of pride in what we do and, as a result, some of us, depending on our personalities, can really be perfectionists. You spend so much time trying to make sure that, when you’re dealing with rankings and selections, that you’re producing something that is as good as it possibly can be, knowing full well that however you go there could be somebody that is really taken aback or very upset or blindsided by the result that comes out. So, I think the biggest negative has really been, you know you want to serve the sport, you want to serve the student-athletes, you want to reward student-athletes and, unfortunately, when the end of the line comes every year, there’s always going to be somebody that gets left out. It’s certainly never an intentional decision that winds up being made; it’s the way the numbers and committee deliberation plays out. So it’s always difficult to see that there’s somebody that doesn’t get an opportunity to make their case on the field once we get to the postseason time of year. That’s the part that’s probably the most difficult to deal with.

Certainly it’s great being at the regional and going onto the national championship and getting to study teams throughout the year. But it’s always very difficult when you get to the end of the line and you spend a lot of energy, and then there’s somebody that winds up being disappointed, especially, like I said, those of us that are perfectionists, we want to make sure that we get it right. I think for the most part we do get it right, but there’s always going to be times that somebody’s going to step away from it not necessarily understanding or seeing the same thing that we saw as a committee.

RN: That takes away one of the questions I was going to ask. I’ll ask you the same question I asked NCAA assistant director of championships Anthony Holman. How much of the selection process is science and how much is art?

GK: I think it’s a combination. I really do. We have so much information that is at our disposal. The NCAA system provides us with a tremendous amount of data. And frankly numbers, in a lot of ways, are black and white. That’s the science of it. The art is digging inside those numbers, trying to figure out what they represent, trying to make sure that eight groups of people around the country are being consistent in the way that they are applying all of those things. And as you look at those numbers, and as you dig inside, you try and find things that help you to make decisions. The art is tying those numbers back to the criteria. You can’t just pick something out of thin air because it fits your argument. It has to always come back to the criteria that were being used. And someone like myself, and I think for many of our committee members, going back to the science of it, I think are those of us that would love to have even more information at our disposal. And one of the challenges on that scientific end is that, really as an arm of the D-III championships committee, we have to be consistent in the way we apply our criteria, the way we make out decisions.

So sometimes it’s disappointing when there are things that are out there that are not wrapped up in the criteria or if there are certain things that we as a baseball committee wish we were able to hang our hat on. But ultimately we have to make sure that we are providing the same access, the same experience and the same evaluation for student-athletes in our sport as other committees are doing across the board. And the championships committee probably has a bigger challenge than we have because they’ve got to make sure that what groups are putting in place, and what they’re approving, are consistent with the divisional philosophy, the division feeling of how selections should be done. 

I think the science is great. I think many of us wish we could even go further with that. But really the challenge is working with the tools to really try and come up with what the best possible decision you can make.

RN: How sure are you that the correct teams have been selected in your time on the national committee?

GK: Last year was my first year. So really it was the first time that I’d seen, up close and personal, how the Division-III model works. Division-II, where I came from, was a little bit different, simply because of the way the regional philosophy works, keeping teams within a particular region during the postseason. So I think it’s always difficult when you’re part of a committee and maybe what you’re viewing personally, or what you think is the answer, may not be the same as what other people on the committee feel and sometimes you wind up being in the minority on these things. But I think as committee people, we all have to understand that we are trying to do things collectively. We are trying to do things as a group. If the science of it was a mathematical system that just automatically spit out 56 teams, they wouldn’t need a committee. So I think that the disagreements, or the differences in opinion, that’s part of the beauty of the whole process. I may have my opinion on something. But if others disagree, we do things collectively. And I think that’s one of the things that in my full-time role as a conference commissioner, that’s one of the things that you learn early on is that you’re trying to make decisions and you’re trying to lead the group through a process that has a conclusion that satisfies the most people.

So I think there are always times that you step away and you think, “I may hear from that school” or “That’s not the way that I saw it originally, but the conversation that we had as a committee took us in a different direction.” So I think there’s always going to be the sense of, “Maybe there’s something we could have done differently” or “Maybe something that I didn’t really agree with when we started.” But I think as a committee we work together and I think we wind up trying to do the best job that we can. And I think most times we wind up doing the best job that’s possible.

But there’s always going to be somebody that gets left behind. If it were strictly science and there were not art – there was no art involved – we wouldn’t spend hours on ranking calls and selection calls, talking to each other offline, studying numbers, working with our regional committees to follow the protocol. You’d be able to push a button and it would spit out something that everybody was happy with and everybody understood. So it is disappointing sometimes when things may not work out the way that you originally saw them. But I think as committee members, we respect each other and we respect the power of the group to come to a good decision.

RN: Holman had stated that he strived for transparency in the selection process. Do you think having the Pre-Championship Manual password protected runs counter to that transparency?

GK: Are you talking about the committee manual that we use or which publication are you talking about?

RN: The championships manuals that had always been available to the public from the NCAA.org site are now password protected for just people who have NCAA credentials [the page that formerly housed Pre-Championship Manuals by season and sport warned of the impending switch to a password system in early 2012. Current attempts to access the Manuals that detail, among other things, how championship fields are determined now either return 404 errors or a prompt to provide NCAA emails and passwords “to complete the transaction.”] 

GK: OK. Personally, I think it’s the sort of thing that any of those documents should be available to people so that they know what to expect, they know what to plan for, they know the criteria the committee uses, they know the directions that are given to host institutions. As far as something being password protected or not being available to the public, I would say that that’s something that really is out of the domain of our committee and that is something that is probably decided upon by championships or the national office staff.

I wasn’t aware that that was the case to be honest with you because I’m certainly able to access whatever I need as a committee member or as a commissioner. I have not heard from anybody that that’s an issue. But my feeling is certainly, if you’re trying to be transparent, that information should be out there. I think we’re even seeing it now with the NCAA trying to do a lot more with some of their – what the public and the media would consider to be – some of the higher-profile championships. They’ve taken media inside the process, so I would certainly be supportive of many of those things being available to folks to see what’s out there, especially in the sense that there are people who aren’t on the committee that one day may have an interest in joining a particular committee. And I think it’s helpful to see what those tools are and what that committee service would entail.

[Holman provided D3baseball.com a PDF copy of the 2012 Pre-Championship Manual.] 

RN: In about two weeks the management council will vote on whether to make all games between D-III teams count in the primary criteria while at the same time mandating teams play 70 percent of their games in region. Well, you know the [proposed] rule. What are your thoughts on the paradigm-shifting vote?

GK: I think we put our trust in the championships committee to really come to the decisions that they feel are best for the division as a whole. I think from a committee perspective, and I think from a baseball committee perspective, it would make our life a lot easier if everything carried equal weight. It’s difficult when you see a power from one part of the country taking on a power from another part of the country and maybe that result doesn’t really manifest itself in the primary selection criteria. So I think that’s something that would be a positive from that standpoint.

I think one of the challenges of a policy like that is, for many programs, especially in the northern parts of the country, they are really at the mercy of when they can take advantage of perhaps picking up quality games against quality opponents from other regions. And what I mean by that is if there’s a New England school – and that is my region – if there’s a New England school that is only able to leave the region during their spring break period, they’re really at the mercy of those individuals that are scheduling spring break tournaments or those schools that are on spring break at the same time as they are. So in some ways the 70 percent rule could make it a lot more of a challenge because teams certainly are going to have to figure out, “What is the impact of my going to Florida and maybe playing 10 games against strong teams from other parts of the country? How will that affect me?” So I think it were to move into “a game is a game,” that would be one thing that would be eliminated.

I think the other thing that would be very helpful from the committee perspective with something like that is it’s a challenge sometimes when you are essentially building a national bracket but you’re using regional data to get you there. Certainly when we start comparing teams cross-region, and when we take a look at the secondary criteria, it accounts for that. But I think it would be really, really helpful if building a national bracket, you had the ability to really look at everything for what it’s worth, right up front. The issue – and this is really what the championships committee, what their charge is, and one of the challenges that they face – is that Division-III is based on the regional philosophy. So, essentially, when you depart from that and you start giving equal credit, for lack of a better term, to games across region, their challenge is really to identify whether or not we’re departing from that regional philosophy. That’s where I think the 70 percent rule would kind of negate that challenge a little bit. So I think those two pieces really kind of work together.

I think it would be very, very helpful for the smaller regions, the geographically challenged regions, like the West, where it may not be as easy for them to pick up in-region games. If it’s easier for a team, say in Texas, to go east as opposed to having to go all the way out to the west coast, and get credit with that, that could certainly help a lot of the concerns and the challenges that we have when we evaluate a small region like that. So there are really a lot of positives I think from the committee perspective. I think from our committee perspective, we would probably be very supportive of the “game is a game.”

But what we have to remember is that we’re an arm of championships. What makes our sport a little bit different than some of the others is the size of our schedules. We have teams that are playing 30-plus games. You have other sports that may only be playing 15 games. That’s where the challenges come in. When you have a smaller schedule, it can be more of a challenge to fit those cross-region games in.

I’m confident that our friends and our colleagues with the championships committee will come to a good conclusion and a good resolution to that whole issue. But I think from the committee perspective, being able to look at things that you’re seeing in terms of black and white, right up front I think that can only help you come to a good decision.

Minors spotlight:
Updating the top five minor league alumni performers through April 15.
1. Otterbein relief pitcher Dan Remenowsky, Double-A Birmingham (White Sox). 
Stats: 0-0, 0 SV, 0.00 ERA, 3 G, 5.1 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 8 K, .067 OBA.
2. Keystone first baseman Yazy Arbelo, Single-A Advanced Visalia (Diamondbacks).
Stats: .259 AVG, 9 G, 29 AB, 8 H, 8 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 8 RBI, 8 BB, 7 K, 1.240 OPS.
3. Alvernia infielder Zach Lutz, Triple-A Buffalo (Mets).
Stats: .306 AVG, 11 G, 36 AB, 11 H, 7 R, 3 2B, 0 3B, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 8 BB, 12 K, .987 OPS.
4. Marietta relief pitcher Mike DeMark, Triple-A Reno (Diamondbacks).
Stats: 0-0, 0 SV, 0.00 ERA, 4 G, 5.1 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 3 K, .050 OBA. 
5. UW-La Crosse outfielder Vinny Rottino, Triple-A Buffalo (Mets). 
Stats: .333 AVG, 11 G, 42 AB, 14 H, 6 R, 4 2B, 0 3B, 0 HR, 7 RBI, 4 BB, 7 K, .883 OPS. 

Next week: The chairman conversation concludes with his thoughts on seeding the World Series, building a national bracket, and more.