Colleague Zach Landres-Schnur posed an interesting question on the Seattle Times’ high school sports blog this week. The question: why isn’t college baseball as rabidly popular and profitable as football and basketball? He brings up the case of former U-Dub pitcher Tim Lincecum, who was an All-American for the Huskies and a No. 2 overall draft pick by the San Francisco Giants, but toiled in relative anonymity at Montlake before becoming a starter in San Francisco.As a self-proclaimed college baseball fanatic, let me speak to both sides of the debate.Why people don’t watch college baseball1. Too many teams, too many players.2. Not on TV enough. Until you get to the very end of the season, the only way you can watch college baseball is to pay extra per month for Fox College Sports, ESPNU or one of these niche networks.3. Not enough exposure. Although the ratings for the College World Series in Omaha go up every year, there just aren’t enough people that know about the sport.Why you should be watching college baseball1. Purity of the game. In a weird way, high school and college baseball are purer forms of the sport than Little League baseball. The college game features a lot more “smallball” nowadays that the NCAA has imposed restrictions on bat size and raised the mound to help out pitchers. No one likes to see 24-20 baseball games.2. Some of the players are really, really good. Major league GMs are leaning more and more toward older, more mature college players than raw high school draftees. The theory that college players that might have lower ceilings but are more major league ready seems to be prevailing over choosing high school players with big upside but who need 4-5 years to mature and learn the game.