Get ready for an offensive CWS. And yes, that could be a dual meaning of the word "offensive."

Welcome back Gorilla Ball. Where ya' been?

Enough of this bunting business. Who cares about stealing a base? No more run-and-hit offenses. This is old school mash-and-jog, junior. Where hot, humid days lead to baseballs flying out like a hole in the aviary. Hell, we may not even care about pitching and defense this week at the College World Series.

And sacrifices? Phhewwww! we'd rather see Fay Wray, Jessica Lange or Naomi Watts tied up in ritual fashion for our Gorilla Ball gods to come storming through the home run jungle to snap them up. THAT kind of sacrifice. Not a freakin' squeeze bunt!

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - An Expedition Into Gorilla Ball" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Natural Selection rules! The elimination process has begun and the weak-links of the pack are being exposed one by one and those hungry enough to make it to Omaha are going to be the ones who prosper among the wild.

("Hmmm, which one is the weak link here? Which one? You!... You look lame.)

So we begin another weekend of paring down the contenders from the pretenders. Only the strong - or those that got favorable seedings - will survive the road to Rosenblatt Stadium.

Now that we have perspective and hindsight as our guide, let's take a quick look back at what we've gained in knowledge before we go full-bore into what we look for in our crystal ball for the weekend ahead.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Weeding Out The Weak" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Okay, enough of the bitchin' and crabbin', the NCAA selection committee made its mistakes and we have to live with them.

Sure, we could sit here and complain about
- N.C. State getting a host site and Georgia Tech not getting one... wait, what was that Larry Templeton said about "spreading the regionals around" again?
- Also, Tech, a No. 7 RPI, has to travel to No. 17 Georgia, despite beating the Dawgs twice this season.
- Miami getting Bethune-Cookman as a No. 4 while LSU gets Texas Southern.
- Rice getting dangerous Sam Houston as a No. 4 and Texas as a viable No. 2 instead of A&M, who gets Illinois-Chicago and 29 RPI Dallas Baptist.
- Did I read that right? UCLA is a No. 45 RPI as a 2-seed and Virginia is a 3-seed with an RPI at No. 22?
- Arkansas getting in as a 9th place team and going just 1-6 in its most important non-conference games.
- Alabama playing tomato cans in pre-conference and still getting a dance card.
- And I know we ALL know this is a rip... Oklahoma gets in and Oregon State doesn't. Really now.

(Hey committee, not that OSU belonged in the Big Dance. But OU? Hmmm, not good boys)

Here's more quick hit, I've-thought-more-about-it thoughts on the field of 64 before tomorrow's games get kicked off.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - It's Christmas Day for Stitch-head Nation" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's already been an interesting few days in this conference tournament week. Couple of questions have been raised right off the bat.

1- Has Georgia lost the final chance for the SEC to have a national seed? Or...

2- Will LSU's improbable run win its way to a Top 8 slot?

3- Has Texas A&M lost its national seed status?

4- And who, exactly, would be the team of the day? (Hint: it's a four-letter word)

(You'd be smiling too if you just hit your 60th career home run like South Carolina's Justin Smoak did today)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - You Got Tournament Fever?" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last week when the boys over at CBS College Sports Tonight had me on and asked me to give my top five Coach of the Year candidates, I quickly put together my list. The first four are pretty expected names: Perno, Gillespie, Maineiri and Childress. But the fifth name isn't. Even studio host Adam Zucker commented, "Eric, you've really dug deep for this one: Daniel Heefner of Dallas Baptist."

Yep, let's give it up for the first year coach of an independent that has his team currently at 35-17 and No. 37 in the RPI. In other words, the Patriots are on the verge of doing what hasn't been done since 1992; they're very close to becoming the first Independent team (not named Miami) to make the NCAA tournament.

(Coach Heefner has everything going his way, except the national publicity)

So I did what I could in these $4-dollar per gallon gas price days to make my way up to San Francisco today to do an actual face-to-face with what could be the most under-appreciated coach in the country.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Ladies and Gentlemen, the Dallas Baptist Patriots" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 04:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

... and wishing that ranking system would go the way of the buffalo at the same time.

(We could only wish...)

I predict I will type the letters "RPI" about 100 times in this column. But you can't help but have RPI on the brain with just two weekends of regular season play remaining for most conferences. (Of course, the smart ones don't play conference tournaments, so they've got three weekends of conference play left.). I just wonder how much the RPI is on the minds of the NCAA selection committee. There have been years where it's been too much. Let's see how 2008 turns out.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Talkin' RPI, writin' RPI, thinkin' RPI, RPI'ing about the RPI." »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Two things happened on Wednesday that made the lead stories on CBS College Sports Tonight.

1- The NCAA announced that it will hold the College World Series in Omaha for another 20 years, through the 2030 series, which is of course, the good part.

But that also means that the new stadium in downtown Omaha has been given the complete green light for sure now. Apparently, 2010 will be the last year of the CWS in Rosenblatt Stadium. Which begs the question...

And 2- And in the further bad news department, the NCAA proved it is still weak when it comes to its own biggest revenue sport by having the Division I conference commissioners reject a plan for a 4-team football playoff using the existing bowl structure. The bowl committees and chamber of commerce's win again. The college football fans lose again.

Could you imagine if college baseball's post-season was owned by a bunch of men in suits from large, money-grubbing corporations and instead of the College World Series, they just matched up regionally-based teams that would bring in big crowds, big bucks and good TV ratings and played a single game against each other?

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - A little bit of good and a whole lot of bad" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Stitch-heads, I come to you with a troubled heart.

This past week the NCAA released its RPI rankings to the general public for the first time this season. And of course, the RPI always boils the blood for yours truly, just in its basic unfairness. But it does give us a crystal ball into what the NCAA tournament field might look like come this June.

(If the Big Dance started today, Florida State would flip their hats as a No. 2 national seed)

So with that as a backdrop to our weekend preview, let's take a quick look at some of the quirks and curves in the current RPI rankings before we get to the other stuff.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The much-loved, much-hated RPI version" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I've gotta hand it to my father. There are three things my old man told me that really stuck with me.

1- "Don't be boring."
Anybody can be boring. Think differently.

2- "Just wear jeans and t-shirt."
When you look back at pictures 15 to 20 years later, what you're wearing won't be half as embarrassing as that of other people.

and 3- "You should go to those College World Series games. It's a good event for the city."

So, implanted at an early age, I've got my pops to thank for getting me to this stage of addiction to college baseball. Thanks dad.

(I went through books and books of these things as a kid, it was like adding sugar packets to Mountain Dew for me)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Giving props to the Old Man" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hey stitch-heads. I have to admit, this Thursday column may be a bit abbreviated than normal. I just got back from the long road trip going from SoCal to San Antonio for the Final Four and back again and I've got "car-lag", if that's a word. It was arduous at times, but still a really cool time. I have to admit, the Final Four is a real happening, a spectacle if you will, not just a way to decide a national champion in the peach basket sport.

(Ahhhh, the most welcome sign on the trip. This was the speed "suggestion" in most of West Texas.)
.
THE ROAD, PART I---
I have to say, I saw some interesting college baseball along my journey as well as some wicked' college basketball post-season action. Also lucked out with no problems along the way, mechanical or otherwise. Well, unless you count the high school soccer team that stayed in the same hotel as I did in Midland, Texas. Damn, I forgot what I was like as a high schooler on a team road trip.

Here are a few quick observations, then on to the baseball weekend at hand...

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The Long, Hard Road Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Texas Tech baseball coach Larry Hays doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that would grant one of those Katie Couric interviews where she tilts her head to the side and asks softy, "How did that make you feel?" Because there he was on Wednesday in front of a throng of media cameras and microphones getting asked how it felt to get win number 1500 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and he wasn't exactly reaching for the box of tissues.

(This is all the acknowledgment Coach Hays gave after the 1500th win of his career on Wednesday)

"You know, they're all the same." Hays said bluntly about the milestone win. "Really, I'm being honest, they all mean the same to me. Just because one of them has a number on it doesn't mean anything."

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The 1500 Horsepower Machine" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

"We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts... We're all dogfaces. We're all very, very different. We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us."

- John Winger's rallying speech to the troops in the movie Stripes.

I agree with Bill Murray. I like the mutants. I like the mutts. I like those that are different. I like the college baseball dogfaces out there that will actually reach down and grab a set by playing good teams in the non-conference. And face it, stitch-heads everywhere like them too, it's better baseball to watch.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The "C'mon, who cried when Old Yeller got shot" Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm cheating on you. I'm cheating on all of you. I have decided to keep my usual affair with college basketball's post-season alive for another year. See, CSTV has this habit of sending me to cover the NCAA tournament at this time of year. So even though I love college baseball, I have to admit, I've been seeing another love of mine for a long time.

And sure, it makes me feel as fake as Britney Spears' new British accent. No, make that as fake as Britney Spears period. Abandoning college baseball like that. For shame!

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Greetings from the future location of home plate for the CWS" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No. 12 goes down!

And no, I don't mean Baylor, the No. 12 ranked team in the country, I mean the No. 12 thing on my "64 Things That Will Happen In College Baseball."

Coppin State has won. Yes, not a typo, the longest losing streak in Division I history is just that - history. Coppin State beat North Carolina Central 11-7 on Tuesday. And just to prove it wasn't a fluke, the Eagles did it again in the second game of a double-header by a score of 7-6.

(Coppin State's Harry Williams scored the game-winning run
in game two against North Carolina Central on Tuesday)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Three words: Coppin. State. Wins." »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This weekend it's all about upsets. Mainly because we can't really hope for much else.

(Stitch-heads everywhere are channeling the spirit of Appy State this weekend)

I don't know about you, but I'm hoping for an upset. In fact, I'm hoping for a whole slew of upsets. Unlike last weekend's great slate of games and tournaments, this weekend's schedule looks like a bunch of yawners. Sadly, the San Diego State tournament will involve the only matchups of ranked teams when No. 22 Oklahoma State and No. 19 Oregon State will both play No. 21 San Diego on Friday and Saturday respectively.

So unless this weekend brings about a whole mess of Davids beating Goliaths, I'm not sure there is going to be much to write home about over the next three days. Guess we'll see.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The Upsets Wanted Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

(UCLA All American 3B Jermaine Curtis is one of a small percentage of minorities in college baseball)

Let's start with one truism: Advertising works.

As much as we don't want to admit it. It does.

In the fall of 2006, Dale Matthews, who worked at the Urban Youth Academy in Compton, saw a billboard along a Los Angeles freeway advertising a football game between two historically black schools, Alcorn State and Morehouse College, who had moved their game to the Coliseum. That sparked an idea he shared with Urban Youth Director Darrell Miller, why not do the same with baseball?

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Historically Black Colleges Take Center Stage In College Baseball" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Johnny Rosenblatt is my father. Annie Savoy is my mother. And I'm their bastard son.

And in case you're wondering, my Godfather is Henry Rollins and my Godmother is Bonnie Bernstein.

(Let's hear it for Ron Polk's Mississippi State Bulldogs. I've included 10 Teams we should ALL be cheering for this season. Read on.)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Welcome to the 2008 Season" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:28 AM | Permalink

There are plenty of certainties this college baseball season. So I've decided to take the 64 things that I'm sure will happen and lay them out for you here. Feel free to disagree, but I'm so sure I'm right that I'll shave my head if I miss on any of these things.

So here you go: The 64 Things That Will (Almost Certainly) Happen In College Baseball In 2008:

(Pat Casey and the Beavers hope to win title No. 3 this June)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - 64 Things That Will Happen In 2008" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

An interview with LSU's Paul Mainieri.

This guy isn't your run-of-the-mill college baseball coach. he's almost obscenely nice. And I mean more than just your regular "hi, how are ya'?" nice. When myself and Dr. Kenny Cook, a post-season baseball writer for CSTV, went up to his office on the day after LSU's football team won the national championship, it was hard to find a reason not to like this guy a lot.

(Coach, I forgot to tell you that I had this picture I took of you in your Notre Dame days with All American reliever Ryan Doherty from a game against Southern Illinois in San Antonio, 2004.)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Talking baseball, a charmed life and Tommy Lasorda with the stitched ball coach of the school that just won the football national championship" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I know this is blasphemy in the Western and Southern parts of the country and in the South in particular, but I'm sorry folks, I find MANY upsides to this whole condensing of the baseball season thing. One big advantage is the fact that a select few teams have decided to sacrifice three of their 56 games in the spring to make a little fall baseball a reality.

Believe me, that's just the tonic for a college baseball freak like me who is over-whelmed by fall college football hogging the headlines. I don't mind college football, of course, but baseball is so much cooler. Besides, at least baseball knows how to decide a national championship.

(Because of the pushed back start date, I was able to see Long Beach State's Andrew Liebel throw heat here in November)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts: The What-You-Didn't-Get-To-Go-To-A-College-Baseball-Game-Recently? Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Welcome to another off-season edition of Extra Innings, on this, the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.

(The King, in his much cooler, younger days of rock-n-roll)

First let me go on record and say this: I know I've bagged on Barry Bonds a couple of times here in this forum, and the colossal jerk deserves it, sure. But to be honest, I don't hate Bonds. Nope, his hat size and shoe size can grow all it wants (Doesn't everybody's head and feet get bigger in their 30s?). Nor do I begrudge him for breaking the classy Hank Aaron's hollowed record. I really put more of the blame on pro baseball in general.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Barry, Bud, Bill, The 'Blatt and the King of Rock-N-Roll" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:59 AM | Permalink

While in deep depression over the fact that the inimitable, heroic and general nice guy that is Hank Aaron will soon have his name erased from the major league record books, welcome to the mid-summer nights dreaming edition of Extra Innings.

I know. I know. It's late July now and truthfully, I'm really supposed to be reading up on my college football info so I can start writing about the upcoming pigskin season. Sure, I know. But as you guys have come to realize, I'm a college baseball junkie.

(At this time I was the tallest person in Maine)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Going through withdrawals while on vacation" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Welcome to Super Regional Weekend... otherwise known as the last episode of The Sopranos Weekend.

(Tony Soprano isn't the only one worried about being vanquished this weekend.)

I guess it's sort of like Returns Day. Post-Christmas is usually a bummer. Nothing but better-than-you-paid before Christmas prices for all those bargain-seeking suckers out there and a bunch of returns for gifts from the Island of Misfit Toys.

But luckily in college baseball land, Christmas, which is what I call Regionals weekend, is always followed by Super Regionals weekend. We're about to coldly empty our revolver to get the field down from 16 to eight now as we inch toward Omaha.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Teams dying off like mob hits" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

You know stitch-heads, even though I've long-maintained that I have the face more suited for radio, it looks like I'm heading to the CSTV home base in New York City to do some in-studio stuff during this first weekend of Regionals. Can't freakin' wait. It's always a lot of fun to watch all the games on the multiple studio TVs and then get in front of the red light and talk about the June Madness to all the baseball fans out there in TV land.

Yeah I know, where the hell do I get the gall to spew my twisted view of college baseball all over the airwaves? Don't ask me. I guess CSTV just likes making a fool out of me on the air. So with any luck, I won't pick my nose or inadvertently slip in a cuss word while I'm there.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Lights, camera, HACK-tion!" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

The post-season casualties are piling up already. In the first real day of elimination baseball, we've seen a few worthy teams get the boot out of their conference tourneys, some of which will see their seasons come to an end. Others will just become all that much more nervous come selection Monday.

Even though I truly consider conference tournaments the work of Satan, this has still been an exciting few days so far. Okay, not exciting enough to get me to believe these conference tournaments are a worthy cause, but it's still fun to watch elimination baseball.

At least it preps us for the next few weeks.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - From Mickey Mantle town" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Code Delta! Code Delta!"

Going through security tonight at LAX, that was the last thing I wanted to hear yelled out by the men in blue. Yep, that means they stop everything, policemen brandish their guns (though not pointing at anyone... although this IS Los Angeles police, so I'm surprised) and we all have to wait around in our sock-feet because some schmuck unwittingly tried to go through security with a full bottle of some pink liquid in a water bottle. Sweet people, real sweet.

None-the-less, I made it through, despite wanting to heckle the guy like a crooked umpire... then I realized the guy probably wouldn't know what I was saying anyway. And now I'm in a questionable Portland hotel room. Can't wait to see how this weekend's college baseball action turns out. Today was an intriguing start.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The "Code Delta!" Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 04:41 AM | Permalink

Wild fires. Smog alerts. Record heat. Paris' jail time.

I need an escape hatch.

So what do I do?... I've got two words for you: Minny. Sota.

I'm out of here. I'm going to where the weather is cool, the air is clear and names like Oglethorpe and Sorensen dominate the phone books. I'm going to Minnesota.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Take Off to the Great White North, Hoser!" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:07 AM | Permalink

"This next one is the first song on our new album... it just came out this week... and the song is called, 'Surrender'"

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The Comforting-as-a-TeddyBear Version" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The man behind the curtain removes the curtain---
Reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz finally owning up to the fact that there's more to the legend than just this big angry face on a screen, the NCAA has followed suit of what it did during the basketball season and unveiled, for all to see, the actual RPI that they work with for baseball too. All I can say is, congratulations for having the 'nads to finally do this boys.

To be honest, I don't know why this formula has been more guarded than the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices. Especially since they have always claimed it to be "just another tool" they use in the process of doling out NCAA tournament bids, not the be-all and end-all.

I have to admit, when the basketball RPIs were opened up in January, I kept thinking to myself, "There's no way that baseball is going to do the same thing, right?" I guess I was wrong. And gladly so too.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The DaVinci Code of College Baseball Is Revealed Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:03 AM | Permalink

With my apologies to all those Hollywood "Watch" lists, our beloved sport has its own fashionable trends and quirks. So with two months still to go before the klieg lights flash through the skies of Omaha, here is our IT list for mid-April of 2007.

And yes, I decided against doing a People Magazine-like "What's In" and "What's out" list. So here we go.

The IT list for college baseball:

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The IT list for college baseball, 2007" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's already mid-April. Yes, I just said the "m-A" word.

Go ahead, pinch yourself. Mid-freakin-April! It's hard to believe we're already past the midway-point of the season, but it's true. And with that, we need to start thinking of what's going to happen in that magical month of June. The time when we wake up like St. Nick had just been at our house and we're all surrounded by 14 hours of post-season bliss from coast-to-coast.

Maybe now would be a good time to turn to our post-season projection guru Mark Etheridge, the college baseball equivalent of Joe Lunardi and Jerry Palm all rolled into one strapping ex-athlete who can still bench press 300 pounds (lemme see ANYBODY in college baseball scribe-town do that!).

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Dreaming of the post-season already" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 02:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Well this is Easter weekend, which means unlike most weekends, we're finding a lot of Thursday-through-Saturday series in college baseball. So for once BYU, you're not alone this Thursday in the college baseball landscape.

The biggest bummer about this set-up is that there will be no games anywhere near me to go to on Sunday afternoon. Damn. What the hell am I supposed to do now? I need my fix. (Don't ask me why, but I'm getting a visual of me, impersonating the Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious with "I need a fix" cut into the skin on my chest while playing a bass guitar... hey, at least I'd have hair.)

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Ahhh, Thursday baseball. Release the endorphins." »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:04 AM | Permalink

The HooDoo Gurus

I can't hear so well.

Go ahead, yell at me. I bet I won't hear you. Play "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th-inning stretch with a Jerry Lee Lewis pumpin' piano lighted on fire. No effect.

'Coz I went to see those Australian blokes The HooDoo Gurus play at the El Rey Theatre in Hollywood last night. And my ears are still ringing today. I was foolish enough to stand right next to the speakers near the front of the stage. They don't play at Who-concert levels or anything (you know, the kind that left a permanent deadening buzz in the ears of Pete Townsend), but they played loud enough.

But I love 'em. Good, straight-forward, drum-and-wire rock and roll that wears well with time. Only problem is, now I'm supposed to go to Atlanta to help cover the Final Four for CSTV and if I have to do any on-camera stuff, I'll be as hard of hearing as Mr. Magoo.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The Mars Still Needs Guitars Version" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 11:43 PM | Permalink

From the land of silicone implants to Silicone Valley, I've made the drive up from L.A. to San Jose to cover the NCAA basketball West Regionals this weekend.

I've gotta admit, this is one of the worst weekends to be traipsing around following the post-season bouncing ball. Oh I'm fine with covering the NCAA tournament. I love it. I'm into it. And the best part is that my bracket is waxing arse right now (I'm in 2nd place, thank you VCU, USC, Butler and Southern Illinois).

But by doing the basketball thing up here, look what I miss out on:

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - The pumpkin bounces in Silicone Valley" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

"I got the ways and means to New Orleans
I'm going down by the river where it's warm and green
I'm gonna have a drink, and walk around
I got a lot to think about. Oh yeah"

- Concrete Blonde "Bloodletting"

Embarking on a new endeavor. Starting a new career. Changing gears.

Lots of people do it. David Hasselhoff became a million-selling singer in Germany. Ozzy Osborne became an actor. Jenn Sterger is now giving relationship advice (then again, what did she do before, besides look good with big fakies in a ripped Florida State cleavage shirt?).

Now, stitch-heads, I'm changing my focus from the diamond to the court. And no, for once I won't be going to the "How do you plead, son?" kind of court, but the basketball court.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - the Great Pumpkin in New Orleans version" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I tell ya' stitch-heads, I'm so excited about this trip to Tobacco Road, it almost makes me wish I was a smoker.

The company Learjet is officially mine for the weekend as I've been able to purloin the machine to fly to North Carolina, the land otherwise known as the center of the college baseball universe for the next three days.

Can't freakin' wait.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts - Carolina bound/Surprise Teams/Music" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 10:30 PM | Permalink

Whaddya' know, I'm in the Hall of Fame...

... voting committee, that is.

As a wee tyke who grew up on the game of college baseball and skinning my knees on Rosenblatt Stadium concrete, I admit, it's a really cool honor to say the least. It's just kind of weird how it all came about.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts, The Hall of Fame edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 04:00 AM | Permalink

George Carlin had his "Seven Things You Can't Say On Television." And in fact, at the risk of getting canned from CSTV, I can't really write them here either. But most of you probably have an idea of what they are. Now I've got my own seven to unvail.

With a tip of the cap to the brilliant Mr. Carlin (possibly the most intelligent comedian alive), I'd like to introduce to all you baseball fans the "Seven Things You Will Never Read From Me." They're more phrases that single words, but you'll get the gist I'm sure...

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts, The George Carlin edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:41 AM | Permalink

So whaddya' do when your planned ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming gets thrown into the trash heap because of bad weather in the midwest wreaking havoc on all travels the rest of the week in and out of the Denver airport? Well first, you cry for about three minutes (wait, did I just write that? Or did I only think that?). Then, you load up the truck, grab a Midnight Oil and Mighty Mighty Bosstones CD or two, throw the dog in there as well and head to Arizona for some desert hiking and college baseball.

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts, Surprise Edition" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 03:09 AM | Permalink

Just like it did in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, the city of Houston steps up to the main stage of college baseball this weekend.

But it won't be Kelly Leak, Tanner Boyle, Rudi Stein, Carmen Ronzonni and those two hispanic kids, who not only looked five years younger than the rest of the team but also like they'd never played baseball before period, much less for the "California Champs." The six major players this weekend will be Rice, Houston, Texas A&M, Baylor, Vanderbilt and Arizona State.

And instead of the Astrodome, the venue will be Minute Maid Park and its giant retractable roof. When thinking about how this may be the greatest pre-conference weekend in the entire early college baseball season, it also made me think about other great college sports moments that stand out in this city's history.

Feel free to add your own college moments to this list, but here are (arguably) The Top 5 College Sports Moments that took place in Houston:

Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts- Weekend Preview" »

Posted by Eric Sorenson at 09:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)