LSU left Baton Rouge Monday for the SEC baseball tournament even though the Tigers don’t have a game scheduled until 4:30 p.m. today.

And why not?

Hoover, Alabama, has become the go-to vacation spot for Tiger baseball.

Might as well get a head start on the fun.

Sure, your average LSU college kid dreams of a good time in Alabama, he thinks of the Gulf Coast — Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and the white sands and honky-tonks of the Redneck Riviera.

But LSU’s baseball players seem to have more fun in the Hoover Met baseball park than their classmates could ever enjoy trashing down at the world-famous Flora-Bama down on the coast.

Who needs Jell-O shots when you can take shots at the rest of the SEC with wild abandon?

LSU might want to think about buying a condo in the upscale suburb of Birmingham, an upscale bedroom community centered around a mega-mall.

Are there any timeshares to invest in there?

It really has become LSU’s home away from home.

Drive through and it doesn’t look like much of a trendy vacation spot. Mostly business-oriented hotels and that huge mall.

But let LSU get to town and it’s Tigers Gone Wild, the sequel.

To get to the ballpark, the Hoover Met, you meander to the back of a sprawling neighborhood, past Hoover High School where the ballpark sits somewhat down in a small valley.

Nice ballpark. For some reason that surely involves petty politics. The Birmingham Barons minor league team abandoned it for a controversial ballpark built in Birmingham proper.

That pretty well leaves the place for the exclusive use of the SEC these days.

LSU might want to think about buying it.

To LSU baseball, a trip there after the rigors of the SEC regular-season schedule always seems more fun than an all-inclusive beach resort.

“We can enjoy the experience,” head coach Paul Mainieri said, as if the Tigers were heading out on spring break.

And do they ever enjoy it.

Mainieri gushed about the way all of the teams are put up in the luxury hotel built into that mall, a high-rise that’s posh enough to handle something really important to the SEC, like Football Media Days.

The players, he said, enjoy the first-class treatment, the police escorts to the stadium.

Mainly, though, LSU can’t wait to get out to that ballpark.

Why isn’t so clear.

The tournament really doesn’t mean much to LSU’s future.

Rarely does.

This year it’s not even splitting hairs or jockeying for position.

The Tigers probably have the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA tournament locked up even if they’re two-and-out and home by the weekend.

If not that, then surely they’ve clinched one of the eight national seeds, which is really all that matters in the long run.

But that’s never stopped them from trashing the tournament like a cheap hotel room in the past.

LSU basically owns this thing.

“We love playing in Hoover,” Mainieri said. “It’s fun. We feel like we’ve had some success.”

You think?

LSU has won five of the last seven SEC tournaments, most years with little more at stake than this year.

There is, after all, a trophy for the tournament champion that a week from now nobody will remember who won.

“We like winning championships at LSU,” Mainieri said.

The Tigers have won five of the last six in which they participated. They missed the 2011 affair. That was back before the SEC took a summer camp approach to participation, when only eight of the then-12 SEC teams got to go, as opposed to now with 12 of 14 getting in under the current looser entrance requirements.

But that’s not the half of it.

Since Mainieri got to LSU, he is 26-4 in games played at the Hoover Met.

Forget the condo thing. Maybe LSU ought to move there permanently.

If LSU wins this thing again, the Tigers might want to think about putting in a bid to host a super regional six hours from home.

Mainieri’s record at the Met for tournament games is 23-4, but LSU catches a break this year with a double dip.

Alabama played its home games in the Hoover Met this season while doing a major makeover to its on-campus ballpark in Tuscaloosa, about 50 miles away.

Fortunately, LSU was one of the Tide’s “visitors” this year.

The Tigers made themselves right at home, as usual, sweeping Bama in three games. They probably stole the good silverware, too.

LSU doesn’t normally leave much behind after a visit to Hoover.

Mainieri said he likes it because of the tough competition, a nice walk-through for the day-to-day competition of next week’s real tournament.

At the risk of getting ahead of themselves, it could also be seen as a dress rehearsal, on the odd chance they find themselves in Omaha, for the spacious challenge of TD Ameritrade Park at the College World Series.

That place has frustrated LSU before.

The Hoover Met is also a big ballpark.

This year the fences were moved in five feet all the way around as per Alabama’s wishes to spend its season there.

But it’s dimensions are still bigger than any other SEC ballpark.

It surely hasn’t bothered LSU in the past.

“For some reason, our guys just play well there,” Mainieri said. “We don’t need any hidden motivation to inspire our kids. They like to win. They like to compete. It’s built into them as a everyday way of life.”

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com

LSU head baseball coach Paul Mainieri. (Associated Press)