A few notes and thoughts from Collegebaseball360.com Editor Sean Stires while waiting for the Virginia-Arkansas game to start…
- Tonight’s game between Arkansas and Virginia is the first ever on the baseball diamond between the two schools.
- Last night’s game between Texas and Arizona State marked the 44th time those two teams have played. Texas owns a 26-18 series advantage.
- Virginia has broken ten school records this year. They are: wins (49), runs (504), doubles (134), at-bats (2,295), hits (571), runs (504), triples (28), RBIs (465), total bases (1,112), and innings pitched (571.0).
- The Texas-Arizona State game marked the first time that three sons of three former College World Series players were on the field at the same time. The current players are Chance Ruffin (Bruce 1985) and Brandon Loy (Darren 1983-’84) of Texas, and Matt Newman (Randy 1981).
- Speaking of that game. Did you see ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews’ interview with ASU freshman Johnny Ruettiger’s parents during Tuesday’s game? Ok, so Johnny is the nephew of Notre Dame’s “Rudy”, but do his parents really want to answer questions like “Where’s Rudy”, “When will Rudy be here”, and “Johnny talks to Rudy all the time, what are those conversations like”? You know, because they’ve never heard a question about Rudy since the movie came out 16 years ago. That’s what they want to talk about while their son is playing at his first College World Series.
- ASU’s loss to Texas last night snapped their 7-game winning streak, and it leaves LSU as the only team without a loss in this year’s NCAA Tournament (7-0).
- Arkansas starting pitcher (and OF) Brett Eibner had a tough time in his last start Monday vs. LSU when he allowed four runs in just 1 1/3 IP. That’s nothing compared to what happened to an Omaha motorist at Tuesday’s Arkansas practice when Eibner hit a home run during batting practice that smashed the window of a van parked on the street outside the park.