Maybe college baseball never can be king in the northeast. But that hasn’t stopped Binghamton University from making one heck of a run at it.

In February and March, when college teams in the south are beginning to practice on the field, Binghamton is still plodding through freezing temperatures, snow and ice. The Bearcats are forced to practice indoors, and when the season begins, they have no choice but to pack up and head for the sun, to places like Tennessee and Louisiana.

‘It’s life on the road,’ BU head coach Tim Sinicki said last winter before the voyages started. ‘I know I hear a lot of coaches in other sports complain about playing three or four games on the road. We open up with 22 or 25 games typically on the road.’

And through all that traveling, Bearcats baseball has seen nothing but success. After going 10-40-1 in 2003, the team’s second year in Division I, Binghamton has increased its win total each season ‘ an NCAA-record seven straight ‘ and won the America East regular season title each of the last four.

Perhaps more important to not only the program, but the school, baseball’s success hasn’t been limited to the team’s play. Binghamton is on the brink of producing its first Major Leaguer in 60 years, and the timing couldn’t be better.

If BU wants to be relevant on the national stage, baseball might be our surprising last hope.

Basketball roped us in, invited us to dance, then broke our hearts. NCAA hockey here was a short fling and it didn’t last. Football never even returned our calls. Of the four major American sports, baseball is the only one standing at BU with a shot at making a ripple in the pros.

Jeff Bagwell (Hartford) and Joe Nathan (Stony Brook) have shown you can parlay a career at an America East school into MLB stardom. Those names are quite a bit more impressive than the Jose Juan Bareas (Northeastern) and Speedy Claxtons (Hofstra) who starred as America East basketballers only to fight for minutes in the NBA.

Scott Diamond could be next.

A BEARCAT IN THE SHOW?

It started in 2008 with BU’s big left-hander Jeff Dennis.

Dennis, then a junior, was drafted in the 40th round by the Oakland A’s. Dennis didn’t sign, but the A’s came back for more, drafting Bearcats right-hander Murphy Smith in the 13th round in 2009. Then this past June, the Cleveland Indians took burner center fielder Henry Dunn in the 50th.

Smith finished the 2010 season with a 4.49 ERA at two levels of Class A. Dunn, in 39 games in Rookie ball, hit .176 with two homers, 16 RBIs and four steals.

Compared to the left-hander Diamond, though, they’re worlds away. And Diamond wasn’t even drafted. The Atlanta Braves tracked the Canadian southpaw during his college summer league days, and when no one called Diamond’s name in the 2007 draft, the Braves signed the BU junior.

This summer, Diamond was a stone’s throw from the show. The 24-year-old from Guelph, Ontario, went 4-1 with a 3.36 ERA in 10 starts for Triple-A Gwinnett (Ga.). Between there and a stint in Double-A, Diamond struck out 123 and walked 54 in 158 2/3 innings.

Diamond has already pitched on the world stage, with the Canadian National Team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. He struck out Mark Teixeira in an exhibition game against the Yankees that spring, and he’ll pitch for Team Canada again this fall at the qualifiers for the Pan American Games.

In 2011, four years removed from Varsity Field across from BG’s Pizzeria and Denny’s, Diamond could make his Major League debut. And he won’t have forgotten his Southern Tier roots.

‘I’ve always been a Bearcat and I always will be,’ Diamond said. ‘They really taught me discipline and dedication to everything that I do in terms of how hard I work and scheduling. How to really balance everything, and help me find my own routine to help get me prepared for my next start. The coaches there have been very helpful with everything through my three years there with mechanical stuff to mental stuff.’

Sinicki, entering his 19th season, is the longest tenured head coach at BU. He has never had a former player make the Majors, and he’s overwhelmed by the possibility.

‘My greatest thrill would be to know that he’d have an opportunity to put on a Braves uniform ‘ for him to someday take that field,’ Sinicki said. ‘I’d be overjoyed for Scott. ‘ To know that even if I was a small part of his success, I’d be absolutely thrilled.’

In a September edition of Baseball America’s weekly Prospect Hot Sheet, Diamond was ranked No. 10, ahead of the Mets’ Jenrry Mejia. The magazine wrote that Diamond had possibly entered ‘the organization’s long-term plans.’ Kurt Kemp, Atlanta’s director of player development, didn’t disagree.

‘With each step up the ladder, he has made the adjustment to be a better pitcher and usually that comes from command, more than anything else,,’ Kemp said. ‘He’s continued to grow and improve. ‘ He’s an extremely hard worker, a very good competitor and has adapted to the increased competition at each level.’

It’s true that the alma maters of Major Leaguers aren’t as widely known as those of players in the NFL or NBA. You won’t see big leaguers naming their college in a baseball telecast as you would football ‘ imagine Ray Lewis saying ‘The U,’ for the University of Miami, right after kickoff as the camera pans around the defense. It takes years for baseball players to reach the pros after college, at least for anyone not named Dave Winfield or Stephen Strasburg, because of the minor league system.

But make no mistake: a Bearcat in the Majors is a Major deal. The trick for BU will be turning the individual success of Diamond into further success for the team ‘ and more future Major Leaguers. The progression is simple: Diamond’s trailblazing gives other BU players hope that they can reach the show, and that will draw more talent. With more talent comes more wins.

‘I think our administration is no different than the average fan: everybody loves a winner,’ Sinicki said. ‘I think that while our administration does a great job supporting all of our programs, I think there’s a heightened level of support when you’re able to go out and continually represent the University in a positive way. No one wants to support a program and not see ‘ return on their investment.’

THE TURNAROUND

It wasn’t always Field of Dreams for Bearcats baseball. More like Bad News Bears.

In that dismal season in 2003, they achieved that almost impossible feat of a tie in baseball. But everybody starts somewhere.

Over the last seven years, BU owns the highest win percentage in the America East: 65 percent. In the last four years, two Bearcats have won conference Player of the Year and two have won Pitcher of the Year. Three were named Rookie of the Year. The result last season was a 31-20 overall record, the best mark in school history.

The turnaround was no accident; it was a change in philosophy. For years, the coaching staff focused on recruiting junior college transfers, going with a win-now attitude that resulted in too few wins. The shift to snatching talented but under-recruited high school players turned the tide.

‘I think we all felt like we wanted to win right away, and that probably was the wrong approach,’ said Sinicki, who himself once played for Binghamton. ‘I think what happened after a couple years of struggling, we decided we were going to rely on high school recruits and just fill in with junior college guys. And so what we committed to doing is trying to recruit the best freshman class we could.’

The 2009 America East championship team featured seven true freshmen, led by America East Rookie of the Year Dave Ciocchi. He hit .381.

The Bearcats even won an NCAA tournament game, downing George Mason in the first round. A month later Oakland drafted Smith in the 13th round, the highest a Bearcat had gone since Dan Gray went to the Dodgers in the seventh round in 1990.

‘We were in one of the toughest regionals in the country ‘ George Mason had maybe the best winning percentage in the country,’ assistant coach Ryan Hurba said of making the NCAAs. ‘It’s a huge deal. It’s our goal ‘ when we finally broke through to the tournament, we felt it needed to happen.’

SCOTT DIAMOND FIELD?

Still, hurdles remain, mostly because of the stigma ‘ and realities ‘ that come with playing in the northeast.

Binghamton is ranked No. 6 in the northeast by Ping! Baseball, ahead of schools like Rutgers, Stony Brook, Villanova and Georgetown. But only one school from the region is in the site’s national top 30.

‘The scouting community is going to make sure that they cover the big schools, and you’re going to try and get to as many of the smaller schools in your area you can,’ Kemp said. ‘But sometimes you’ll see them early and maybe you don’t get back to them ‘ it’s going to be harder for a guy to get overlooked at Miami, or Florida State, or Texas or Cal State Fullerton.’

Scouts in a given area, especially in the north, may have 50 to 60 schools to cover and a very limited time in which to do so. That limited Diamond’s exposure, and will likely limit the next Diamond’s exposure.

A revamped Varsity Field, at least, could give the Bearcats a lift ‘ from the luster the program has to recruits, to the drainage on the field. A multi-million dollar upgrade is planned for 2012, but already budget constraints have scaled back the project. In the current plan, the field is to be wired for lights, but they won’t be set up. A turf field may not be possible either.

‘It’s still going to be great,’ Sinicki said.

Either way, it’s a program on the upswing.

‘I feel like when recruits come on, they say, ‘You know what, we’ve asked a lot of people since you’ve been contacting us, and you guys have an outstanding reputation as a school that is dangerously close to turning the corner on a national level,’ Hurba said. ‘I don’t know if John Q. Public is going to ever look at Binghamton University and say, ‘Wow, great baseball.’ I can’t tell you that. I just know in baseball circles, I think we’ve earned the respect because we’ve been pretty consistent.’