I want to take this opportunity to apologize for the brief downtime last Sunday as we were moving over to the new domain. In case, you haven’t recognized, The College Baseball Blog has been rebranded as College Baseball Daily. If you have any issues with a link on the site or anything feel free to send me an email.
Here are the top five articles of the past week on College Baseball Daily.
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
HOUSTON – Current and former members of the Rice baseball program volunteered their time Saturday afternoon (Nov. 13) to help out at a kids’ baseball clinic for The Boys & Girls Club of Houston.
Former Northern Colorado head coach Kevin Smallcomb was investigated by the Greeley (CO) Police following allegations of financial improprieties from the school back in August. Smallcomb refused to speak with the authorities and charges were never brought in the case.
The report from The Greeley Tribune stated the following about the investigation:
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
BATON ROUGE – The LSU baseball team continued to honor its commitment to community service recently when the Tigers participated in the Buddy Walk at South Park in Denham Springs, La. The Buddy Walk is designed to raise awareness and inclusion of people with Down Syndrome.
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
CARY, N.C. – The Duke baseball team continued its fall community service drive with its annual trip to the Miracle League of the Triangle last week.
The Blue Devils volunteered for two games and served as “buddies” to the children who take part in the Miracle League, which is a non-profit organization that allows special needs children to play America’s favorite pastime – baseball. The children play on a special field where they get the opportunity to bat, run the bases and play in the field. Duke baseball players helped the children complete all of those tasks to the tune of music, a PA announcer and an ecstatic crowd.
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
MUNCIE, Ind. – The Ball State baseball program will be holding a fundraiser November 22 as the Cardinals will be playing a 100-inning baseball game. Cardinal fans are encouraged to sponsor the team during the event to aid the team in offsetting expenses for the spring trip, new uniforms equipment.
College Baseball Daily continues our countdown to the start of the 2011 College Baseball season by checking in on the Top 100 Players in the country. We will be providing one player per day until we reach number 1.
We continue the countdown today at number 65 with USC junior infielder Ricky Oropesa. He was a four-year varsity letterwinner at Etiwanda High in Rancho Cucamonga, California. As a senior, he batted .563 (36-for-64) with six home runs, six doubles, two triples and 16 RBI. He was an Aflac High School All-American and rated as the No. 108 high school player in the nation by Baseball America. Perfect Game rated him as the No. 2 third baseman in the nation and No. 18 for first basemen heading into the 2008 MLB Draft. The Boston Red Sox ended up drafting him in the 24th round of the draft but were not able to come to terms with him.
There are a couple of Division 2 conferences right now that use wood-bats exclusively including the entire New England region. At an October meeting for the Division II Conference Commissioners Association (CCA), they agreed on the following language: “The D-II Conference Commissioners Association endorses and supports the idea of wood bats, with the intention of NCAA Division II moving toward a wood bat-only division by 2012-13.”
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
ATLANTA – Georgia State baseball coach Greg Frady, who also heads up the German National Team will be announced as the European Baseball Coach of the Year this weekend in Cologne, Germany.
Frady will receive the award for the work he did last year with the German Baseball Organization, while helping to develop the game of baseball. On top of that, Frady led the German National team to a third place finish at the European Championship.
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State head coach Jake Boss has announced the 2011 Spartan baseball schedule. Highlights of the 55-game slate include 18 home games, 12 games against in-state rivals, including a three-game series with Michigan, a matchup against 2010 College World Series participant Clemson, and the fifth-annual Crosstown Showdown against the Lansing Lugnuts.
The Spartans will open the 2011 season by playing in the BIG EAST/Big Ten Challenge for the third consecutive year. MSU’s season opener is set Feb. 18 against Notre Dame at 4 p.m. at Dunedin Stadium in Dunedin, Fla., which is the spring training home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Michigan State topped Notre Dame, 4-2, in a fall scrimmage Sept. 18 at McLane Baseball Stadium.
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
SPOKANE, Wash. – The Gonzaga University baseball team will have a challenging, but exciting, year come 2011 as Mark Machtolf, entering his eighth season at the helm of the Bulldogs, announced the club’s schedule Thursday.
The 2011 slate features seven schools that participated in last year’s NCAA Baseball Championship and will face teams from the Big West, Pacific-10, Big 12, Big Ten, Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences.
FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
BEAUMONT – The Lamar University baseball team will have a place to hold indoor practices with the completion of the H.D. “Tex” and Emma Strait Baseball Training Facility.
Situated next to Vincent-Beck Stadium on Jim Gilligan Way on the Lamar campus, the 9,600-square-foot complex is state-of-the-art and includes Astroturf flooring, batting nets and 60-square-foot batting cages used by pitchers and hitters for practice drills.
2012 CBD All-American Teams Announced
Top 100 Countdown: 1. Mark Appel (Stanford)
Top 100 Countdown: 2. Mike Zunino (Florida)
Top 100 Countdown: 3. Deven Marrero (Arizona State)
Top 100 Countdown: 4. Michael Roth (South Carolina)
