Kendall Rogers, baseball editor for Rivals.com, kicks off his top storylines of 2008. Prime among those are OSU’s efforts to produce the coveted Three-Peat.

Also featured are the Pac-10 race between ASU, UCLA and OSU; the Longhorns efforts to make it back to Omaha; Vanderbilt’s high octane offense and Miami’s charge in the ACC.

The full article may be read here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Alexandria, VA - Saturday, December 8, 2007 - The Alexandria Aces Collegiate Summer Baseball Club, the eighth and newest franchise of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Collegiate Baseball League, is proud to announce Eric Williams as the team’s first manager for its upcoming 2008 inaugural season.

“We have a very strong leader with Eric Williams, a guy who definitely knows his way around the bases,” said Aces chairman and CEO Donald R. Dinan. “Eric has a vast wealth of skill and knowledge when it comes to coaching baseball and we’re proud to have him as the first skipper of our ball club.” Read the rest of this entry »

Oral Roberts head coach Rob Walton was named the field manager for the 2008 USA National Team. He will be joined by Old Dominion head coach Jerry Meyers who will act as the pitching coach. The other two assistant coaches are San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano and Ritch Price of Kansas. The team will hold training camp in conjunction with their tour of the New England Collegiate Baseball League starting on June 10th. They will then head down to the Coastal Plain League to present the National Team Trials on June 20th. The team will be named on June 24th before starting up a seven game series with Chinese Taipei from June 25th-July 1. On the next day the team will fly over to Europe to play in the 2008 Dutch Honkbal Tournament and play a two-game set against the Czech Republic. The team will stay in Europe until July 18th when they begin competition in the IV FISU World Collegiate Championship in Brno, Czech Republic. The full release is available here.

The 2008 Mohegan Sun World Baseball Coaches Convention is rapidly approaching as it will take place from January 10th-12th at the Mohegan Sun Resort Casino in Uncasville CT. They will be many coaches from around the country in attendance including newly named Oregon head coach George Horton and Eric Wedge who led the Cleveland Indians to the ALCS. This event is one of the top coaching clinics in the country and is a most for any high school or lower level coach to get some knowledge from the best coaches in the country. The CBB has been invited to the event and will be providing full coverage of the event on this site in the future. For more information about the clinic please visit the event’s website by clicking here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
TAMPA, Fla. – Second-year head coach Lelo Prado announced Friday that the University of South Florida baseball staff has signed 11 recruits to National Letters of Intent for the 2008-09 academic year.

Prado’s second recruiting class at USF is made up of five pitchers, four infielders and two outfielders.

The class of 2008-09 includes: Adrian Nieto, (C), American Heritage High School, Hialeah, Fla.; Anthony Ferrara, (LHP), Riverview High School, Riverview, Fla.; Kyle Parker, (LHP), Newsome High School, Lithia, Fla.; Sam Mende (SS), Clearwater Central Catholic High School, Clearwater, Fla.; Alex Mendez (LHP/OF), Bishop Moore High School, Orlando, Fla.; Jay Taylor (OF), Seminole High School, Seminole, Fla.; Sean Buckley (RHP/1B), King High School, Tampa, Fla.; Corey Thomas (RHP/SS), Middleton High School, Tampa, Fla.; Peter Brotons (2B), Christopher Columbus High School/Daytona Beach Community College, Miami, Fla.; Adrian Puig (RHP), Miami Gulliver Prep, Homestead, Fla.; Matt Reed (LHP), West Stanley High School, Albemarle, N.C.

“I’m very happy with our first two recruiting classes here at USF,” said Prado. “I would have never thought I would be able to get these types of players right off the bat. We’re making great strides and Bryant (Ward) and Lazer (Collazo) have done a great job recruiting these guys.” Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
HARRISONBURG, Va., Nov. 29, 2007 – James Madison University baseball head coach Joe “Spanky” McFarland announced the signing of three high school athletes and a junior college player who will join the Dukes for the 2008-09 school year.

“We’ve had two highly-ranked recruiting classes in a row,” commented McFarland, who is entering his 11th season with the Dukes. “This class is small, but we’re trying to fill in some key holes from what’s left of the last two classes. We needed to add a catcher, and of course you need pitching every year. Plus there’s always a chance we lose a few guys in the draft and we have to prepare for that. As far as hitting, the catcher is a left-handed hitter and the outfielder is a switch hitter so that helps us out. Basically, we’re just trying to fill in the pieces to the puzzle to add to the last two classes.” Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Lubbock, Texas – Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt, Ryan Lavarnway of Yale, Kyle Russell of Texas and Brett Wallace of Arizona State highlight the list of players named to the pre-season release of the 2008 Brooks Wallace Player of the Year Award Watch List.

“After a great fall baseball season, we can see that the talent level in college baseball will once again be great. We have several from last year’s Wallace Watch that we will continue to follow, and we look forward to tracking the new additions as well”, said Raymond Richardson, Chair of Brooks Wallace National Player of the Year Award Committee. Read the rest of this entry »

Rivals.com editor Kendall Rogers has announced his top five overall programs. He puts Oregon State in the top spot after Pat Casey has led the Beavers to two consecutive national championships. The Beavers are also one of the top recruiters in the nation so they should continue their dominance. He puts the Cal-State Fullerton Titans in the runner up spot with the success they have had with Augie Garrido, George Horton, and entering his first season Dave Serrano. The program should not see a difference at all since Serrano was able to build a CWS team at UC-Irvine. Texas takes the third place as Augie Garrido has made the Longhorns a national contender every season and continue to bring in great players. Rice head coach Wayne Graham is entering his 17th season in Houston as he has made the Owls a great pitching university. Kendall rates them in the fourth spot with North Carolina coming in at fifth. Mike Fox has brought the Tar Heels program back to the national stage with consecutive appearances in the CWS Championship series where they have lost both times to Oregon State. The Tar Heels had a great pitching team in 2006 but a great hitting team in 2007 so he is able to win with different types of teams. The full article from Kendall is available here.

The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers Baseball program have announced that they have picked up seven players for the 2009 season. The first signee is Daniel Bowman out of Turner Ashby High School in Bridgewater VA where he has played three years of varsity baseball. He had a strong 2007 season where he hit .491 average with eight homers and 35 RBI as he led the team to their second straight state championship. Steve Davis also committed to the Coastal Carolina program. He hails out of Steubenville High School in Steubenville Ohio. He had a .395 average with 25 runs scored and 21 stolen bases in his junior season. Brad Goldberg is the second player from Ohio in this class. He hails from Beachwood High School in Beachwood Ohio. He is a right handed pitcher who went 5-1 with 64 strikeouts. He also hit a solid .450 with 35 RBI but is not expected to see time in the field. Coastal Carolina also picked up a commitment from Anthony Meo from Cranston West High School in Cranston RI. Meo had a perfect junior season which saw him go 9-0 with a 0.77 ERA. The Chanticleers then went down to Palm Beach Gardens Florida to pick up a commitment from Taylor Motter. He only hit .397 with 10 RBI against tough competition in Florida. TJ Swank of Crystal Lake Illinois also committed to the program. He had a disappointing 2007 season which saw him miss six starts but had a 3-2 record with a 1.10 ERA. In his sophomore year, he picked up All-Conference and All-Area awards after going 8-3 with a 1.04 ERA. The last signee was Tommy Winegardner from Riverdale Baptist High School in Maryland. He was named the MVP of the Maryland Private School Championship game in 2007 after helping Riverdale Baptist to their 3rd straight championship. He has been named to the Under Armour All-American the last two seasons and is pre-season All-State. The full release on the signed players is available here.

These players should be able to make a positive impact on one of the rising programs in the country. Coastal Carolina will open the 2008 season on February 22nd against Maryland in the IMIChotels.com INN-vational. The full season schedule is available here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Thirteen games against seven teams that qualified for the 2007 NCAA Championship and an April 24 exhibition against the Lansing Lugnuts at Oldsmobile Park highlight the 2008 Michigan State baseball schedule, as announced by head coach David Grewe Wednesday, Dec. 5. The 55-game slate begins Friday, Feb. 22 when the Spartans travel to the Stetson Invitational to take on host Stetson at 7 p.m. while the MSU baseball home opener is set for Friday, March 21 versus Oakland. Read the rest of this entry »

CSTV editor Doug Kroll checks in with his weekly article about the top players in the country. This week he focuses on outfielders. His top outfielder is Dominic De la Osa of Vanderbilt followed up by Kyle Russell of Texas. The full article is available by clicking here where he also lists Jack Rye (FSU), Tommy Baldridge and David Sappelt (Coastal Carolina), and Mark Sobolewski (Miami, FL).

The Wichita State Shockers have announced their 2008 schedule. The Shockers are coming off a successful season which saw them make the Super Regional round where they lost to UC-Irvine in a very intense series. The Shockers will open the 2008 campaign against Fordham on February 22nd for the beginning of a three game set. The next weekend they will head on the road to play the Long Beach State 49ers for a three game set. They will also host Harvard and TCU in the other two non-conference series before entering play in the Missouri Valley Conference. The Shockers will open conference play on the road against Illinois-State on March 21st and will also play conference opponents Creighton, Indiana State, and Evansville. The Shockers will host Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Northern Iowa, and Bradley. The conference tournament is scheduled to take place in Wichita from May 21-24. Full schedule available here.

We continue to get 2009 Recruiting Classes into the offense. Click on the respective school for the full article.

Manhattan
Siena
Texas Pan-American
Northern Illinois
St. Bonaventure
Jacksonville

Aaron Fitt of Baseball America gave out some props for the big Fall signings in baseball.  Leading the way were the stacked classes at Georgia (21 total, with seven of BA’s top 100 signees) and Arizona State (24, four of the top 100).  Fitt noted that both UGA and ASU went the aggressive route, taking risks with prospects who could be draft day casualties.  But the CBB says, dream big or don’t dream at all.  Recruiting top notch players is good for a program and good for the game in general.

Fitt polled several coaches informally, who listed UGA, ASU, Vanderbilt, UCLA, Kentucky, UNC, Texas and Oregon State as the big winners in the early signing period.  Fitt noted that Vandy’s class stands out for the likelihood that top 100 players like Sonny Gray, Grayson Garvin, Jason Esposito and Matt Marquis may bypass the draft.   The CBB also likes UK’s class.  If they can keep some of the big time arms they’ve recruited, UK could quickly ascend among the SEC elite.

 The entire article can be read here.

Here is some more recruiting classes for student-athletes who will enter college in the 2008-2009 year.

Michigan State
Bowling Green
San Francisco
Marist