What is Penn State mostly known for when it comes to athletics?

While you’d obviously want your reputation to be perennial winners across all sports, that’s an almost impossible standard to uphold across an entire athletic program, so the next best thing? An extremely passionate fanbase.

The White Out is a spectacle in football. There’s an inner circle of collegiate traditions that are entrenched in the brains of every single college sports fan, and what happens once a year at Penn State football games is absolutely one of them.

And while the White Out is perfectly designed for the Beaver Stadium atmosphere, it’s been shown to work in other sports to create a loud environment. After all, both hockey teams have created outstanding environments with the “Wear White” command, and there’s even been some bright moments with the “Return To Rec” games that create some of the best atmospheres we’ve seen at Penn State basketball games since COVID-19.

Other sports have tried to imitate it with mixed results. During the women’s volleyball team’s 2024 season, they created some great environments at Rec Hall. There are games branded as White Outs in almost every other sport, which often draw a slightly bigger crowd, but nothing too special.

The one sport that could truly benefit from a coordinated White Out effort that isn’t maximizing it? Baseball.

The final Dollar Dog Night of the year is coming up, and it promises to be as great an atmosphere as we’ve seen all year. After slightly more than 4,000 fans showed up to last Tuesday’s victory over Bucknell, the Nittany Lions are preparing to host No. 12 West Virginia as the first-ranked opponent to come to Medlar Field at Lubrano Park in 2026 on Wednesday, April 29.

Last year, Penn State pulled off a miraculous upset of then-No. 15 Mountaineers in front of a program-record 6,106 fans in identical circumstances, and even though this year has been a complete disappointment given how the first two years of the Mike Gambino era have gone, it’s still continued the progress of making baseball a more serious spring sport in Happy Valley.

Imagine, if you will. Several thousand Penn State fans donned in white, walking into Medlar Field at Lubrano Park on Wednesday, hot dogs flowing out of the concession stands, Section 814 getting to have a true student section feel against a ranked opponent. The chants, the noise, the energy. The best opponent to travel to Happy Valley this season getting greeted with the best environment in Penn State baseball history.

The weather might not be great. The team might not have the most motivating record. But there’s no better way to take some of the stress off the final week of classes than going to a ballgame and getting some dollar dogs. It wouldn’t hurt to get a big win against a regional rival, either.