Q&A- Maine’s Steve Trimper

It’s never a bad thing when you can combine two great passions into one thing. Like going to see a great college hockey game, while sitting inside Fenway Park. Yep, Santa Claus was good to me, getting me out of the cave for a trip to Boston to see some college hockey played inside that [...]

My Q&A with A.J. Lostaglio

As an FYI, I interviewed stud umpire A.J. Lostaglio for my ESPN Notebook last week. But the Q&A was cut just a little bit short on there. I’m going to re-post it in its entirety here tonight. So feel free to enjoy my convo with one of the best umps in the business.

Tennessee's Todd Raleigh is about to find out that the affable A.J. Lostaglio is no wilting daisy at times.

And by the way, whatever happened to calling the umpire “Ump” instead of “Blue”? From what I’ve seen, the umpires in college baseball rarely wear blue, in fact they most often wear black, as you’ll see in the pictures of A.J. here.

TCU to the Big East. Necessary evil.

TCU going to the Big East is a match made in hell.

And what I mean by that is that it represents everything that is bad about college athletics today. And not that you’re going to find many people on the Fort Worth campus that are against it, Lordy no.

TCU's uber-successful mastermind, Jim Schlossnagle, likes the move to the Big East

It’s a move that is predicated solely on money, power and football. And under the surface, the real problem is that this move was also brought on by the fact that there is no playoff in college football and the BCS controls everything.

The Baldcast from Alex Box Stadium

A hateful, repugnant waste of six minutes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1QGdggdh7s[/youtube] 

Just to let you guys know, you’ll notice that I recorded this Baldcast on Sunday afternoon following Sunday’s Vanderbilt-LSU game. So excuse me for not commenting on axis-tilting results like Oregon State’s sweep of Oregon, the Arkansas two-hitter at Ole Miss or TCU’s magnanimous 25-6 cascading of New Mexico. You catch my drift. 

And following the jump are some interviews with LSU’s Paul Mainieri and Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin that I did prior to this weekend series in Baton Rouge.

Q&A with East Carolina’s Billy Godwin

I had a chance to sit down and talk with East Carolina’s chief architect, head coach Billy Godwin. He brought his Pirate team to Southern California last week for a mid-wee game with Cal State Northridge and a weekend series at Pepperdine. I managed to catch up with him as he and his team were checking out the high-tech home where Easton baseball bats and equipment were made in Van Nuys. I asked him about his background before becoming the head cheese at ECU and how the program has grown under his guidance. And, of course, I couldn’t let him get away without asking about that rabid fan base that has been built up in Greenville in the decade of the 2000′s, clearly one of the best group of college baseball fanatics in the country. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM2omjldWn8[/youtube]

Coach Godwin is an “Everyman” type of personality with a hard-work mentality about him. I hope you dig the interview here.

My Q&A with Nebraska’s Mike Anderson

Quick mea culpa first. Sorry that it took a few days to get this clip delivered to me and to have it edited down to a YouTubeable size and everything. But it’s worth the wait ‘coz I really like this back-and-forth I had with the Nebraska head coach. Mr. Anderson sat down with me smack-dab in the middle of Jackie Robinson Stadium during his team’s trip out to Los Angeles for the UCLA series last week.

[youtube width="560" height="340"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-eaGkPn8I8&hl=en_US&fs=1&[/youtube]

A historic day in Connecticut sports.

Coach Penders has had a lot to smile about in his 5-2 start.

Today was a historic day for the Huskies athletic department. What’s that?… Oh, no, no, no, not for that boring girls basketball win-streak thingee either. With 71 games in a row? Or as I like to say, 71 straight dunk-free basketball games… no thank you.

Nope, today was much more important than that for Connecticut athletics. It was the baseball teams’ chance to get a four-game sweep at Cal State Northridge.

I also got the chance to talk to UConn head coach Jim Penders after his Huskies came up just short in getting that sweep. But it should be noted that they showed signs of life for a much, much, much better season in 2010.

Q&A with Indiana’s Tracy Smith

Just to let you guys know, I actually had this conversation with Indiana head coach Tracy Smith an hour before their season-opening game at San Diego on Friday. But with all that was going on with opening weekend and some traveling I was doing, I decided to wait and post this after the weekend was done.

Coach Smith knew starting off at San Diego would be tough.

And I got the feeling after catching up with Coach Smith that he knows this will be a year of growth for his program. And that growth has to start small. But just like Bill Murray says in the movie Stripes, it is the little acorn that grows into the mighty oak.

(Right before he slumps to the floor and says, “… and then, depression set in.”)

I get D-2 Baseball explained to me.

Minnesota State, the 2009 Northern Sun champs

What if Division II ruled the world?

If D-2 baseball ruled the world, we’d have to get used to three indelible truths…
1- There would never be more than one team per conference in the College World Series.
2- The term “student-athlete” would actually be revered by the NCAA. And…
3- The Minnesota Twins would still be idiots for building a stadium without at least a retractable roof.

Q&A with Jim Schlossnagle

Word of warning: when it comes to TCU for 2010… all hell can’t stop ‘em now.

Yes, quoting the Rage Against The Machine song, these guys are going to be an even stronger force in college baseball this season than they were last year when they finished a game away from Omaha. And Coach Jim Schlossnagle knows it.

Umps be damned, 2010 will be a good year for Jim Schlossnagle.

While in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to cover the Big 12 title game at Cowboys Stadium this past weekend, I took a quick side trek to the home of the school that should be playing for the national championship in football and talked with the man that hopes to emulate the pigskin success on the baseball diamond this coming spring.