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Site: Regions Park (Hoover, AL) Dates: May 20 (Wednesday) - 24 (Sunday)
The Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament returns for a 12th straight year to Regions Park in the south-Birmingham city of Hoover, Ala., May 20-24.
The SEC Tournament will follow an eight-team double elimination format that is modeled after the College World Series. The tournament field includes the top teams from the SEC's Eastern and Western Divisions plus six at-large bids based on conference winning percentage.
Located eight miles south of Birmingham, Regions Park is regarded by many sports experts as one of the best of its kind in the nation. It seats 10,800 for baseball, but can accommodate over 16,000 when the patio, banquet and side grassy areas are used. The stadium also houses 12 suites and state-of-the-art dressing and training rooms. Wireless internet access was added in 2004, concourse and signage renovation was done in 2005 and a second-level pressbox expansion, new stadium seating and an exterior facelift in 2007 completed a $4.5 million renovation project. A new video scoreboard is set to be added for 2008.
The 2008 SEC Baseball Tournament, held in Hoover, Ala. drew 124,139 fans. Four times time in the last six years the tournament has surpassed the six-digit mark in total attendance. The 2002 SEC Baseball Tournament total attendance of 124,440 was the largest total in tourney history. The championship game pulled in 13,023 and was the second largest title game crowd in tournament history. It was also the third largest single game attendance in tourney history at the time.
The SEC athletic directors recently decided to extend, for five years, the SEC's contract to hold the baseball tournament at Regions Park. The Southeastern Conference will keep its baseball tournament in suburban Birmingham through 2011 with the newly signed deal.
TIE-BREAKERS
SEC Tournament Seeding: The two division champions shall be automatically seeded number one and number two based on winning percentage in conference competition. The rest shall be seeded numbers three through eight based on winning percentage without regard to division. Ties will be broken in the following manner:
2009 Tournament Bracket
* - If both bracket winners are undefeated, there will be no 5 p.m. or 8 p.m. games on Saturday and the championship game Sunday would be Game 13.
All Times are Central
[FSN/FSN HD] - FSN South, FSN Southwest, Sun Sports [CSS/CSS HD] - Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast
Field Dimensions Foul Lines: 340 Power Alleys: 385 Center: 405 Playing Surface: Natural Grass Year Built: 1988/Renovated 2006-07