Tigers To Open Season In Tucson

Missouri Head Coach Tim Jamieson

face Houston, TCU and Texas in a non-conference contest.

Complete 2010 Missouri Baseball

The home schedule will open up on March 10 against Western Illinois. That game will kick off a 10-game home stand at Taylor Stadium.

The Big 12 Conference schedule begins on March 26-28 when the Tigers head to College Station, Texas to take on Texas A&M. MU will also have road conference series against Oklahoma (April 9-11), Texas Tech (April 30-May 2) and Kansas (May 7-9).

Baylor will be in Columbia on April 2-4 in the first home Big 12 series of the season. Other home conference series include Oklahoma State (April 16-18), Kansas State (April 23-25), Nebraska (May 14-16) and Texas (May 21-23). The Tigers’ final six conference games of the year will be at Taylor Stadium.

Once again in 2010, Mizzou has games scheduled in both of the Major League Baseball stadiums in Missouri. MU and Illinois will meet at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on April 7 and the Tigers will face Kansas in a non-conference game at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium on April 21.

Mizzou will also continue the annual Wood Bat Classic, as it will take on Eastern Illinois on April 27 at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O’Fallon, Mo.

The Big 12 Tournament will get underway on May 26 at Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, Okla. and the NCAA Tournament will begin on June 4.

A schedule note, with the exception of the home opener on March 10, all of Missouri’s weeknight home games will start at 6 p.m., which is a change from the 6:30 p.m. starts of past seasons.

(Release)

Former St. Mary’s Gaels Star Will Be Honored Next Month

The Hutch Award is given to the Major League Baseball player who best exemplifies the honor, courage and dedication of former major league pitcher and manager Fred Hutchinson, who died from cancer in 1964 at the age of 45. While in Kansas City, Teahen was a spokesman and fundraiser for a program that gave children with physical or mental challenges the chance to play baseball.

Teahen, who played at Saint Mary’s from 2000-02 and holds the SMC career batting average record of .386, recently completed his fifth season with the Kansas City Royals in 2009. In his five seasons with the Royals, Teahen posted a .269 batting average with 59 homeruns and 293 runs batted in. Following the 2009 season, Teahen was traded to the Chicago White Sox in November.

Teahen will return to Moraga on January 30, where he will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 Saint Mary’s Baseball Meet The Player’s banquet. The banquet will be held at the Soda Center on the Saint Mary’s campus and will begin at 5 p.m.

(Release)

Longhorns legend will have his No. 3 retired during the 2010 baseball season

Longhorn great and former big leaguer Keith Moreland (shown at a Cubs event)

Moreland, a three-time first-team All-America on the Forty Acres, led the Longhorns to a College World Series in each of his three seasons (1973-75) and was one of the key components of Texas’ 1975 College World Series championship team. He was primarily a third baseman at Texas.

The Carrollton, Texas, native ranks third in the Texas annals with a career .388 batting average. Moreland also ranks second in hits (274), seventh in RBI (183) and eighth in doubles (53). During his three-year career, the Horns amassed a 160-21 record, including a 58-8 mark in Southwest Conference action and three league titles.

As a freshman, Moreland hit .349 with 43 runs, 11 doubles, three triples, five home runs, 42 RBI and five stolen bases. Texas finished 50-7 overall, 15-3 in the SWC and tied for third at the CWS.

During his sophomore campaign, Moreland batted .399 with 69 runs, 25 doubles, three triples, six home runs, 72 RBI and 14 stolen bases. The Horns finished 54-8 overall, 20-4 in the SWC and placed fourth at the CWS.

As a junior, Moreland hit .410 with 57 runs, 17 doubles, two triples, four home runs, 69 RBI and 11 stolen bases and served as co-captain for the 56-6 national championship team.

He was named to the College World Series All-Decade Team for the 1970s and his 23 career hits at the College World Series ranks second all-time in the history of the tournament.

Moreland also played football on the Forty Acres, earning a gridiron letter in 1973.

Moreland went on to a 12-year Major League Baseball career as a catcher, third baseman and outfielder. He played four seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies and was a member of their 1980 World Series championship team. He spent six seasons with the Chicago Cubs and helped them win the 1984 National League Eastern Division championship, the first title of any kind for the Cubs since 1945. He had stops with the San Diego Padres, Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles.

His best season came in 1985 with the Cubs, when he ranked fourth in the National League in RBI (106) and seventh in batting average (.307). Moreland hit .279 with 1,279 hits, 214 doubles, 121 home runs and 674 RBI for his career. He batted .364 in the post-season, including two doubles, one home run and seven RBI in 14 games.

Since retiring from baseball in 1989, Moreland has remained in the athletics industry. Most notably, Longhorns fans may recognize Moreland as the color analyst for the radio broadcasts of Texas Football and Baseball games.

Moreland received his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from UT in 1991.

“One thing that was really special to me was to come back and get my degree from The University of Texas. That was something I wanted to do when I started school,” Moreland said. “To come back and get my degree was probably something as special as there is compared to anything I’ve been involved in.”

Moreland and Kirk Dressendorfer were both inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame last July, giving Texas a total of seven inductees since the Hall opened in 2006. Moreland was inducted in the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 1985.

(Release)

Murphy went to four College World Series, won four Pac-10 titles in 15 seasons

Former ASU Head Coach Pat Murphy

“Coach Murphy has an outstanding record of success on the playing field,” said Lisa Love, university vice president for athletics. “I thank him for 16 years of hard work and service to the university and the sport.”

Pat Murphy became ASU’s head baseball coach in August 1994. During his tenure, he was named Pac-10 Coach of the Year four times, his teams took three straight Pac-10 titles, four overall, and four College World Series berths, and in 1998 he was named the National Coach of the Year.

Since the 2000 season, no other Pac-10 school has won as many games as ASU, both overall and conference games. Murphy has also had more players drafted by Major League Baseball since 1995 than any other coach in the nation.

ASU will immediately begin a national search for a new head baseball coach.

(ASU Press Release)

ASU Player Reaction

Kole Calhoun:  Nobody was expecting this, and nobody thought this was gonna happen when we came in to lift this morning, but it did.  We can’t do anything about it.  We can just move forward.

Josh Spence:  Of course we’re all a little shocked.  We love the guy…I can honestly say that.  He’s a great coach, and I just wanna wish him all the best for his future.

Rauol Torrez:  This is a shock to everyone in the program…and it’s kinda hard to get over…to deal with right now.  We’re gonna be fine and stick together and get though.

Murphy had a $300,000 annual salary that was guaranteed through 2011.  ASU Vice President for Athletics Lisa Love told the Arizona Republic that Murphy’s resignation is not directly related to a two-year investigation after allegations made by a former baseball employee.

ASU hired the Indianapolis-based legal firm Ice Miller to investigate charges that include academic fraud, improper recruiting travel, improper use of training at Athletes’ Performance and violations relating to players working for Murphy’s non-profit PTM Programs for Youth.

Love became ASU’s Athletic Director in 2005, and she has hired eight coaches during her tenture.  Among them, football coach Dennis Erickson and men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek.

Four Things I’m Thinking About Right Now

1.  College football’s Doak Walker and Biletnikoff Awards could both go to guys who also play college baseball.  If you have followed our Two Sport Reports so far this season you know that Stanford’s Toby Gerhart and Notre Dame’s Golden Tate are among college baseball players who have excelled on the gridiron this fall.

Gerhart’s 1,395 rushing yards are currently the third most in the nation, while Tate is fourth in the land with  1,172 receiving yards.  Tate has scored a total of 14 touchdowns (11 receiving, 2 rushing & 1 punt return), while Gerhart has rumbled across the goal line 19 times.  Tate needs just 78 more receiving yards to break current Chicago Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija’s Notre Dame single season receiving school record.

Gerhart batted .288 with 7 home runs and 36 RBIs for the Cardinal in 2009.  Tate hit .329 with 13 stolen bases and scored 45 runs at the top of the Irish line-up last season.

Both were also just named Walter Camp Player of the Year semifinalists.  The duo goes head to head when Notre Dame visits Stanford on Nov. 28th in the regular season finale for both teams.

2.  I talked a little about schedules last week, and I mentioned how Virginia’s first two weeks of 2010 will be challenging with three games each vs. East Carolina and Rhode Island.  Well how about Rhode Island’s 2010 slate?  Rhody opens the season with three games in Starkville, MS vs. Mississippi State and then heads to Charlottesville, VA for those three games against the Cavaliers the following weekend.

There’s a double edged sword for a northern team scheduling two such trips.  The Pros:  You’ll get guarantees for making the trips (needed revenue for teams that don’t get DI college football windfall), you’ll bump your strength of schedule and RPIs, you give your players exposure to great college baseball environments, and you have the chance to compete against and beat good competition.  The Con:  You need to win at least two games in a three-game series to get credit when it comes down to NCAA Tournament selection time.

I’ve talked to an NCAA selection committee member about this before.  Winning just one of three games is essentially the same as losing all three games when it comes to selection.  Teams from the north are better off scheduling just two games against an ACC or SEC team and hope for a split, but most teams from the south have no interest in that.

Jim Foster’s URI team won 37 games in 2009.  They played single games against the likes of Miami, Oklahoma State, Ohio State and Boston College (all tourney teams), but they missed the NCAA Tournament.  They still have a handful of “TBA” games in Winter Haven, FL to be added to the 2010 slate.  We’ll see how things shake out…

3.  I talked last week about guys flying below the radar in high school and then blossoming in college. There’s no better example than Middle Tennessee State’s Bryce Brentz.  The 2009 Team USA outfielder who grew up in Knoxville is wearing blue instead of orange in college, and he’s wearing it well.  As a sophomore last season Brentz led the nation with his .465 average, 28 home runs and .930 slugging percentage.  Not bad for a guy who says he never thought much about playing for Tennessee because he was a “late bloomer”.   MTSU has also won 71 games with a 2009 NCAA Regional appearance in Brentz’s first two years in Murfreesboro.

4.  There’s been a lot of recent talk about revamping instant replay in Major League Baseball.  Most of the talk, centered around umpiring mistakes that were made during the playoffs.   People like Bob Costas are in favor of expanding replay during the playoffs, but not necessarily during the regular season.  The reasoning is there are more cameras in use and the games mean more, so why not take advantage of the extra technology and make sure you get the calls right.  Would you want that rationale applied to the College World Series?  Those games are arguably the most important games of the college season, and they’re all televised by ESPN.  Who’s to say they are really the most important games though?  One could argue though that game three of a Super Regional is just as important as any game in Omaha, because you have to win there just to get to the promised land.  While all Super Regional games are now televised there are not as many cameras in use there, and the angles are different, because the college stadiums are smaller than Rosenblatt Stadium.

Getting the calls right is the most important thing, but sometimes hairs are split by technology.  Case in point:  the Chicago Bulls vs. Denver Nuggets game last week.  A last second shot initially looked like the Bulls won the game.  However after ten minutes of replay review the shot was waved off and the Nuggets won.  If it takes ten minutes to make the decision shouldn’t the initial ruling just stand?

College football has instant replay, but that system is far from perfect.  Who hasn’t watched a college football game and scratched their heads at calls made on the field that are overturned even when video replays don’t indisputably support the decision to overturn them.  Too often judgment in the replay booth replaces judgments made on the field, and that’s not how replay is supposed to be used.

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Andrew Bailey

Coghlan edged Philadelphia Phillies pitcher J.A. Happ, receiving 17 first-place votes and 105 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Happ, the only player picked on all 32 ballots, had 10 first-place votes and 94 points.  Happ, a former Northwestern University pitcher, had earlier received top N.L. rookie honors from The Sporting News Magazine.

The 24-year-old Coghlan topped N.L. rookies in batting average, runs, hits (162), total bases (232) and on-base

Chris Coghlan

percentage (.390).

Gonzaga opens the 2010 season at the Cactus Classic in Arizona

Mark Machtolf

The Bulldogs, coming off of their third consecutive 30-win season and first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1981, will open the season Feb. 19-21 with the Cactus Classic held at Tucson Electric Park, the Arizona Diamondbacks spring training complex, in Tucson, Ariz. There the Zags will match up with NCAA Tournament participant Missouri twice and also play single games against New Mexico State and Washington.

Complete 2010 Gonzaga Schedule (PDF)

The following weekend will see Gonzaga return to Arizona, this time for the Peoria Spring Training Classic held at the San Diego Padres spring training home field in Peoria, Ariz. The Bulldogs are scheduled to meet up with NCAA Tournament participant Kansas and Western Athletic Conference member Sacramento State each twice throughout the weekend.

The first weekend of March the Zags will begin a stretch that will see them play 11 games in 12 days, starting with a trip to Shreveport, La. for a three-game series with Summit League member Centenary. Following the series with the Gents, Gonzaga heads to Lubbock, Tex. for a two-game series with Big-12 member Texas Tech Mar. 9-10. GU then travels to San Antonio, Tex. for the Irish Baseball Classic where the Zags will face Pacific, Bradley and Notre Dame.

“The early season tournaments always provide some good challenges and this season will be no different,” commented Machtolf. “The trips to Louisiana and San Antonio will be exciting because it gives us a chance to play a couple different teams in a different region of the country.”

Mar. 15-16 will be the first set of home games for the Zags as they wrap up the 11 games in 12 day stretch with a two-game set against BYU. The ensuing weekend has the Bulldogs traveling to southern California for a three-game series against 2009 Big West Conference champion and NCAA Regional host UC Irvine Mar. 19-21. This will be the first year of a home-and-home series with the Anteaters who will come to Spokane for a weekend series in 2011.

“The series with UC Irvine will be a very tough competitive series against a very good ball club that was the top-ranked team in the country at one point last season,” stated Machtolf. “That weekend will be a difficult test that will get us ready for WCC play.”

Gonzaga continues on the road the following week facing in-state rival and 2009 NCAA Tournament participant Washington State in Pullman, Wash. Mar. 23 before traveling to face Utah Valley Mar. 25-27. Following a midweek home matchup with WSU Mar. 30 the Zags will head to Honolulu for a three-game series with the University of Hawaii.

After the Hawaii series, the Bulldogs welcome another in-state rival out of the Pac-10 in Washington for a two-game midweek set at the Patterson Baseball Complex and Washington Trust Field Apr. 6-7.

Apr. 9-11 the Zags begin defense of their conference crown at San Francisco. They then play six of their next seven games at home, starting against Arizona Apr. 12. Following at trip to WSU to close out the season-series with the Cougars Apr. 14, GU opens up its WCC home schedule with a three-game weekend series against Pepperdine . The Bulldogs then close out the home stand with a two-game set against another Pac-10 opponent in Oregon Apr. 20-21.

“Those midweek matchups with the Pac-10 teams are always exciting,” stated Machtolf. “All of the Pac-10 teams on our schedule have really improved from last season and will provide us with some tough tests.”

The weekend of Apr. 23-25 will provide a showdown between the past two conference champions as the Zags head to San Diego for a weekend series with the University of San Diego. Gonzaga will wrap up its non-conference schedule at Washington Apr. 27-28 before returning home for a conference series against Santa Clara Apr. 30-May 2.

Following a conference series at Saint Mary’s May 14-16, the Zags are slated to close out the regular season playing their final six games at home, hosting a pair of WCC foes in Loyola Marymount May 21-23 and Portland May 28-30.

“Playing four conference series at home is a huge advantage for us,” explained Machtolf. “We were very tough at home in WCC play last year and playing those last two conference series in front of our home crowd here in Spokane could really help us down the stretch.”

The Bulldogs are coming off of arguably the best season in school-history, posting the sixth most wins in program history (36), capturing the school’s inaugural WCC Regular Season and Championship Series crowns, earning the program’s eighth trip to the NCAA Tournament, finishing with a No. 22 national ranking and having a program-best five players drafted by Major League Baseball.

(Press Release)

Darin Thomas Receives Two-Year Contract Extension

October 14, 2009

ARLINGTON, Texas – The University of Texas at Arlington director of athletics Pete Carlon has announced a two-year contract extension for head baseball coach Darin Thomas through the 2012-2013 year.

“This was a recommendation to President Spaniolo who recently approved this contract extension,” Carlon said. “We are both very pleased with the direction of our baseball program, especially with Coach Thomas’ leadership and the recent academic performances of the team since he took over as head coach.”

Thomas has led the Mavericks to 56 wins in two seasons as head coach, including back-to-back appearances in the Southland Conference Tournament. The influence Thomas has made on the UT Arlington baseball program goes beyond on-field accomplishments, as his program has recorded four straight semesters with over a 3.0 team grade-point average.

Last spring, 20-of-33 baseball student-athletes were named to the Honor Roll with a 3.0 GPA or higher for the semester.

The Mavericks have defeated eight nationally-ranked opponents under Thomas’ guidance, and this past season saw six of his players either drafted or sign a free agent contract with a Major League Baseball organization.

Thomas’ squad led the Southland Conference in ERA, tied for the top fielding percentage in the league and had the SLC batting champion (Matt Otteman, .432 batting average) and strikeout leader (Nathan Long, 104) while Andrew Kainer broke the school and SLC all-time hit streak record with a 36-game streak.

Thomas was named the sixth head baseball coach at UT Arlington on Nov. 15, 2007. Thomas begins his 10th season on the UT Arlington baseball staff this season. He was the associate head coach for six seasons (2002-2007) and spent one season as an assistant coach (2001) for the Mavericks.

(Press Release)

(This was originally posted on 7/30/09.  We just moved this and all other CWS posts from our old blog after we launched our new web site design on 9/25/09.)