Can you eat 20+ apples? These players can

With spring well under way and college baseball teams turning the corner into the final stretch before tournaments, big things are happening in NAIA baseball. Records broken, teams one-upping each other, and seemingly impossible challenges set on the diamond.

We are, of course, referencing the ongoing apple-eating contest being bounced around teams in the league, which consists of players attempting to eat as many apples as possible within their time spent at the ballpark.

It apparently began with Andrew Baker of the Columbia College (Mo.) Cougars eating 21 apples in a day.

Please pause for a second and contemplate how many apples that is, truly think through it. How many apples before a regular person feels like they never want to eat an apple again ... 5 or 6? Maybe fewer than that? So 21 apples, while doing baseball activities, is a lot.

Next up was sophomore catcher Matt Scally of Sienna Heights University (Mich.) who topped Baker's tally by one. Scally did so during a doubleheader on Saturday, and showed off his bag of apple cores while looking exactly like someone who just realized they will need to digest 22 apples at some point.

But the race isn't over yet, with Avila (Mo.) senior right-hander Kylan Harper not just one-upping Scally but adding two whole apples to the tally. Sure, he had a tripleheader (three seven-inning games) in which to do it, but also pitched a shutout inning (1 SO) in the final game of the day, a 6-2 win for Avila.

Once again, imagine eating 24 whole apples in a day. Now, pretend you also have to stand up (already questionable!), head to the mound (downright ridiculous) and contort your body while throwing a baseball very fast and very hard (unbelievable to fathom). Not to mention not allowing any runs late in a game too.

There might be a little too much meat left around the cores as Harper got later in the day, but if you're quibbling with that you still haven't entirely absorbed the "24 apples" part. We can probably cut Harper some slack if a few of those pieces of fruit are only 90% eaten.

Which NAIA player will take up the mantle next? Will someone try to hit or field after chowing through dozens of apples in a day? With the NAIA tournament coming up, who will be so brave as to do this on a tournament game day? And most importantly, who is in charge of sourcing all of these apples and bringing them to the field?