College Baseball: Vols vs Dores always has some drama on Friday night.

The series that most Tennessee baseball fans look forward to all season is finally here. The basevols will play the first of three games tonight against the Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville, and if history repeats itself this will be another drama-filled Friday night. Two years ago the infamous Jordan Beck homerun that was taken off the board because of an “illegal bat” took place, and last year’s Friday night tilt saw the Vols tie the game in the 9th inning with back-to-back home runs before winning the game in extra innings.

This year’s installment will feature two teams heading in opposite directions. Vanderbilt is coming off a sweep at the hands of Georgia and is in danger of missing a regional for the first time in 17 years. Tennessee comes into this series as the number-one ranked team in the country, competing for an SEC regular season title. Both teams can’t stand each other and with Tennessee having reeled off 7 wins in a row after Vanderbilt dominated the series for most of the 21st century fireworks are inevitable. Tony Vitello is the perfect antithesis of Vanderbilt’s long-time coach Tim Corbin. Corbin emphasizes small-ball, good baserunning, and putting your head down and running around the bases when you hit a home run. Vitello on the other hand emphasizes hitting for power, only stealing when the catcher has a noodle arm, and pimping the hell out of every home run you happen to hit. I think Vitello respects Corbin as a coach but when Corbin whines about a sticker not being on a bat 2 years ago while his pitcher just got caught with a foreign substance and was suspended for 4 games you might want to save the sticker police act for next weekend.

Whatever happens in this series you know 2 things will be true. Bad blood will inevitably lead to some fireworks between the two teams, and there will be a narcissistic douchebag fan whistling the entire game wearing black and gold.