The entire Houston team is wearing their pants up, showing off their navy socks and impressing this baseball purist. Granted, the Cougars lose points for their blue jerseys (keep it to the home whites, please), but at least they're not black, right? The Owls are in all gray with blue caps, although I'm thankful that Rice seems to have ditched the Yankees-esque pinstripes the team sported a few years ago.

It's an altogether gross day here in Houston, drizzling off and on and typically humid. I'm beginning to think I'm bad luck, although at least it's warmer than the last rainy and muggy game I covered.

With right-handers Ryan Berry (Rice) and Aaron Brown (Houston) on the mound, both teams have lefty-heavy lineups. The Cougars have four lefties in the line-up, and the Owls counter with three lefties (including three in a row in Gayhart-Henley-Savery at Nos. 2-4 in the lineup) and two switch-hitters.