The first college baseball game scheduled in 2008 is the Cal State San Marcos Cougars at the Westmont Warriors, Wednesday, Jan. 23, at noon in Santa Barbara, CA. Both teams are NAIA members.

CSU San Marcos played the first game of the 2007 season, a 14-8 loss to San Diego Christian. It was the first-ever baseball game for both schools. CSU San Marcos finished their inaugural season with an 18-23 record, with wins over Division II UC San Diego and a good Point Loma Nazarene team. Read the rest of this entry »

We continue with the final post out of a three post series previewing the Texas Longhorns written by Djbfootball. The first article in the series is available here and the second is available here.

The schedule this year was put together with the thought of getting these younger pitchers some good quality innings in before the conference starts. The first series of importance will be opening day. Texas starts the year with a home date with the VCU Rams, then they go to Houston for the Houston College Classic for games against Tennessee, Rice and Houston, followed up with a home series against a struggling Stanford team. The BIG 12 conference season starts with a home series with an improving Kansas Jayhawk team on March 14. Then mark your calendar for April 11; this will be a HUGE series with the Missouri Tigers in Columbia for the BIG 12 lead. Texas finishes the season with two of the better teams in the league with Baylor and A&M.
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At the International Power Showcase, which took place at Tropicana Field, Maryland Terp signee Zach Helgeson came out on top, cracking 16 total homeruns and 8 in the final round. Vanderbilt signee Matt Marquis hit the most homeruns overall, at 17.

The IPS website, found here, includes video on several of the performers.

Just before the Christmas holidays, Susan Casey told her husband, “We haven’t had a vacation for two years.”

“Yes, we have,” Pat Casey responded. “We’ve spent it in Omaha.”

The visits to Nebraska were business trips – and very successful ones at that, as Casey-coached Oregon State teams won back-to-back College World Series championships.

After Christmas, Pat, Susan and their four children spent eight days in Hawaii. Besides sun and surf, Pat hooked up with former OSU player Jacoby Ellsbury, played golf with Nike President Charlie Denson, took care of a little Nike business and enjoyed a real vacation for a change.

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Mark Etheridge runs the SEbaseball.com and has been doing a preview of top teams in the South East.

During the best of times, Tim Corbin takes setbacks hard. Last year’s Regional final loss to Michigan had to raise that bar a bit. Despite an SEC regular season championship, an in-your-face run through the losers bracket to win the SEC Tournament, and a number one National seed as a host in last summer’s Regional, Vanderbilt had to feel like their season lacked something. It ended prematurely.

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The CBB recently had the opportunity to send some questions to Rob Valli of Temple. He is entering his third season in charge of the program coming in with a two year mark of 30-78. He came to the Temple program from Gloucester County College (NJ) where he made the NJCAA World Series in each of his five seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Old Dominion is the overwhelming favorite to capture the CAA baseball championship in 2008 according to a vote of the league’s head baseball coaches.

The Monarchs finished atop the poll with 99 points and received nine of a possible 10 first-place votes since coaches weren’t allowed to rank their own teams. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM SPRINGFIELD JOURNAL-REGISTER
Springfield Sliders co-owner Jesse Bolder confirmed it by telephone Friday afternoon while attending the American Baseball Coaches Association convention with other CICL owners in Philadelphia.

“It is definite, and we are tickled pink,” Bolder said. “Everything has gone through. I’m meeting with fellow owners and commissioner (Frank Pergolizzi) here in Philadelphia, and everything is great.” Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Kilgore, TX (January 16, 2008) – “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” will have a new ring for East Texas residents beginning this summer, breathing new life into an ageless Kilgore landmark.

A new summer collegiate baseball franchise is coming to East Texas this summer, it was announced at a press conference this afternoon. The new team will play at Kilgore’s Driller Park, returning a summer baseball franchise back to the ballpark for the first time since 1950. Read the rest of this entry »

The Illinois State Media Relations department has started a series of articles previewing the 2008 season. The first installment focuses on the Starting Pitching which is led by Senior Eric Theisen. He went 3-9 with a 4.54 ERA in 2007 coming back from a severe arm injury in 2006. In 2005, He was perfect as he picked up six wins without recording a loss and an ERA of 3.00. The full preview of the Redbirds pitching staff is available here.

CSTV Editor Doug Kroll checks in with his weekly article about some of the off-season coaching moves.  The biggest move was George Horton heading to Oregon to restart the Duck program. This set off a chain reaction as UC-Irvine head coach Dave Serrano went to Fullerton while former USC coach Mike Gillespie came out of retirement to take over the UC-Irvine job. He also talks about Kevin O’Sullivan who took over Florida after being an assistant with Clemson, Turtle Thomas went down to Florida International from Arizona State where he was a longtime assistant, and finally with Todd Raliegh taking over Tennessee after being the head coach at Western Carolina. The full article is available here.

Perfect Game Crosschecker has put out their annual rankings of the Top 100 programs for the 2008 campaign. Leading the way is the Arizona Wildcats and chief rival Arizona State comes in as the runner up. The rest of the Top 5 is filled out by Texas, Miami (FL), and Vanderbilt. The full article is available here.

Our partner StatStud was honored with the Best in Show award at the 2008 ABCA Convention in Philadelphia. StatStud provides an excellent website that accumulates stats from every game in the country. Users can create watch lists as they would like to follow a certain player’s career. You should go check out the site by clicking here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
DALLAS - The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continues its tradition of NCAA Division I polls for the 11th year with its 2008 preseason predictions and weekly surveys. Weekly polls will continue from Feb. 25 through June 30 following the NCAA World Series in Omaha, Neb.

The poll voters come from 30 college baseball writers and related media persons from throughout the nation. After a preseason Top 35 listing, the remainder of the polls will feature a national Top 30. Read the rest of this entry »

The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) has announced their 2008 Preseason Poll and Team. The Preseason poll is led by defending conference champion Fresno State who received six out of seven first place votes with Louisiana Tech getting the other vote. Read the rest of this entry »