What about Tim Wallach??

Tim has been mention as a possible replacement to Horton at CSF. Whatever happens this really will shake up the landscape of College Baseball.

For the full article follow the link.

OCREGISTER

Update on the Coaching changes

UC Irvine head baseball coach Dave Serrano has been quick to dispel any speculation that he would be interested in the Cal State Fullerton head position with the Titans' George Horton accepting the Oregon job. Serrano was Fullerton's pitching coach for eight years prior to accepting the UCI head-coaching position in 2004.

"I have no interest in leaving UC Irvine for Cal State Fullerton," Serrano said. "I feel that we have something special building at UCI with the program moving in the right direction. Fullerton is a great program and I have many enjoyable memories from there but my family and I are very happy in Irvine."

Watch for Ted Silva pitching coach for Fresno State and Bryant Ward hitting coach from South Florida. This two guys could very well end up on a new staff here in the next week or so.

Ted Silva Played for CSF in the early 90's and the was drafted by the Rangers and was in their organization for 5 years. Prior to being the pitching coach at Fresno State Ted over saw the pitching staff at CSF '04-'05 as a volunteer assistant. Bryant Ward played and graduated from East Carolina before going to CSF to be an volunteer assistant.

CSTV Story

UC-IRVINE Release

Texas adds two more Transfers

The University of Texas Baseball squad had two transfers from the West Coast enroll in classes for the fall semester. The pair, both infielders, includes David Hernandez from Fresno State University and Michael Torres from the University of Southern California.

Hernandez will be a sophomore in 2008. He played in 35 games for Fresno State as a freshman, including 21 starts. Hernandez hit .251 (18-of-72) with two doubles and six RBI. The smooth fielder committed just two errors in a 107 chances at shortstop for a .981 fielding percentage.

Torres will be a junior in 2008. He played in 46 games over two seasons at USC, including 27 starts. In 2007, Torres, a left-handed batter, hit .253 (20-of-79) with four doubles, one triple, one home run and 10 RBI as a second baseman and third baseman. He batted .231 (6-of-26) with three runs scored and four RBI in 15 games in 2005.

Both players are California natives. Hailing from Danville, Calif., Hernandez was a three-year letterwinner at Monte Vista HS, playing shortstop and third base. A product of Santa Ana, Calif., Torres was named the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register Player of the Year as a senior at Mater Dei High School, batting .459 with 23 RBI and 19 stolen bases.

TexasSports.com

These two kids are a great addition to the roster for the '08 season. They will come in and immediately compete for starting time. Look for Hernandez to be the Starting short Stop and Torres the 2nd baseman on opening day. This will allow Travis Tucker to slide over to 3rd base. This will shore up the infield. This will also allow Texas to really put the pressure on opposing team defense as these two guys will put the ball down and Run.

Domino Affect among the Coaching Ranks?

Following up the article by Brian posted earlier today about Horton going to Oregon, Who does coach Horton take to Oregon to fill out his staff? Does he take Gill from CSF? Then does he go get a coach that he has work with in the past? Maybe a Ted Silva or a Bryant Ward? With all this shaking out Rick Vanderhook could very well end up the Head Coach at CSF. You could see Vanderhook and Horton trying to get the same guys to work for them. Stay Tuned as the staff of the College Baseball Blog will bring y'all the breaking news as it happens.

Wood Bats vs Metal Bats

One of the biggest complaints I hear about watching college baseball is that metal bats have ruined the game. I disagree with this but when you watch a game played with wood it is usually lower scoring then a metal bat game. Is it more exciting to go to a 8-7 game or a 1-0 bunting game? I personally rather watch the players hit the ball hard all over the field instead of watching a guy get on with a walk and get bunted to second waiting for that groundball to get through the hole. The issues between Wood and Metal bats injuries could have been solved for about $50,000 according to an article by Jeff Passan which can be read here.

Oregon set to hire Horton

According to a report on Rivals.com, George Horton of Cal-State Fullerton will become the new head coach of the Oregon Ducks which restarts their program in the 2008-2009 season. Horton has led Cal-State Fullerton to a 452-117-1 record in his eleven seasons with the Titans. His most successful season was in 2004 when he won the national championship. This move by Horton shows how important it was to the Oregon athletic department to get a huge name in the College Baseball world. Oregon failed to get Tim Corbin from Vanderbilt and Dave Serrano from UC-Irvine. They also had some flirtations with Pat Casey but never officially interviewed him. The full article from Rivals.com is available here and The College Baseball Blog will be all over this story in the coming days.

2008 Schedule Issues

Doug Kroll of CSTV checks in with an article going over a few schedules for the 2008 season and how they dealt with the uniform start date. He looks at UCLA, NC State, Cal-State Fullerton, Auburn, and Florida. The article is available by clicking here.

Baseball America names Top 30 CCBL Prospects

Baseball America has released their annual top 30 prospects from the Cape Cod League. Aaron Crow of Missouri leads the rankings after having an impressive summer with a 0.67 ERA and picking up the Top prospect award from MLB scouts. The top position player is Yonder Alonso of Miami after hitting .338 with an on-base percentage of .468. The full list is available here.

Tulane gets three transfers for 2008

The Tulane Baseball team picked up three transfers this summer to hopefully lead the Green Wave back to the upper echelon of college baseball. The first transfer is shortstop Josh Prince (Texas) who hit .371 in 35 games for the Longhorns in 2007. Left-handed pitcher Matt Petition (UNC) heads to New Orleans after appearing in only two games in his freshman season. The final transfer is Josh Zeid from Vanderbilt which the College Baseball Blog reported earlier this summer. Zeid pitched in 18 games in 2007 and 13 games as a freshman. The full release is available here.

Stack-Babich to take part in Euro Championships

Harvard senior Tom Stack-Babich has been named to the 28 man Great Britain roster for the European Championships (Olympic qualifying tournament) which start on September 6th and run through September 17th. The team will be cut down before the tournament to 24 players but some players have already been guaranteed spots on the team. Stack-Babich played this summer with the Lowell All-Americans where he hit a respectable .273 with ten doubles in 40 games. The full release from Harvard is available here.

Canada in midst of five game series with France

Team Canada (All University of British Columbia players and coaches) are in France to take on the French national team. The French team is preparing for the European championships which is the Olympic qualifying tournament. The teams have played three games already with France opening the series with an 8-2 victory with Canada winning 4-2 and 11-3 in the last two games. The teams will play on Wednesday at 10 AM EDT, Thursday at 1 PM EDT, and Friday at 4 AM EDT. The games on Thursday and Friday can be watched by clicking here. The University of British Columbia fansite is providing excellent recaps of each game here.

Duke Summer League Recap

Joe Drews of The Chronicle (Duke student paper) have released an article about the summer experiences of the Blue Devils. Andrew Wolcott had a successful summer in 2007 when he made an appearance in the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League All-Star after going 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA during the entire season. The full article is available here.

Brown Summer League Update

The Brown Media Relations department has put out a release recapping the summer leagues the Brown Bears took part in. The article looks at Rob Hallberg (Manchester (CT) Silkworms NECBL) and Jeff Dietz (Wareham Gatemen CCBL) who led the Bears to the 2007 Ivy League championship. The full release is available here.

The Reck' Turned into a Wreck?

Based on the heart of Rice's gorgeous campus, Reckling Park is one of the more distinguished fields in the NCAAs. This summer it is getting a subterranean tummy tuck, with a new drainage system installed.

If you're a fan of PVC and engineering, you'll love CSTV's four part photo gallery. If you are a fan of beautiful things, Gallery #1 might be as painful to you as it was to me. Galleries 2-4 are interesting and show the skeletal structure of a field, but numero uno is like watching surgery. Hard to look away, but not pretty to look at as the field is torn up by Caterpillar trucks.

View the damage here.

Auburn releases 2008 schedule

The Auburn Tigers have released their 2008 schedule which opens on Febraury 22nd when East Tennennsee State visits Auburn for a four game set. The Tigers will then face Florida State in a four game series starting on Feb. 28th and 29th before heading to Tallhassee to play two more games against the Seminoles. They will play a full SEC schedule which is highlighted by visits from South Carolina and Mississippi State. They will also have a two tough three game series at Vanderbilt on April 18th-20th and Alabama on April 25th-27th. The full schedule is available here.

Rivals Names Top 10 NCAA Seniors

Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com listed his top 10 Seniors on Monday. This list looks quite a bit like his recent article on returning draftees, but Kendall has some solid notes about each player.

Perhaps the most exciting thing to come out of the countdown is Kendall's new abbreviation for "switch pitcher": SWP. For those not in the know, that references Pat Venditte and the amazing nature of high level ambidexterity. My exuberance is not meant to be dismissive of Kendall's ranking, it's just that you take news when and where you can get it during the August slow season. Kendall does a great job of churning out news and interesting features and the Rivals CBB site is definitely a daily visit, much as the College Baseball Blog hopefully is for all of you.


You can read the countdown here: 10 through 6 and 5 through 1.


On to the countdown:


1. Blake Stouffer - Texas A&M - UT
2. Dominic De la Osa - Vanderbilt - RF
3. Cole St. Claire - Rice - LHP
4. Pat Venditte - Creighton - SWP
5. Joshua Fields - Georgia - RHP
6. Josh Satow - Arizona State - LHP
7. Phil Disher - South Carolina - C
8. Matt Hague - Oklahoma State - 3B
9. Mitch Harris - Navy - RHP
10. Zack Pitts - Louisville - RHP

Raleigh Lands Tennessee Pitcher

New Tennessee coach Todd Raleigh is starting to fill in his first recruiting class in Knoxville. He reached into middle Tennessee and plucked Adam Adkins, the cousin of former Vol and Mount Juliet, TN ace James Adkins. Adkins was 11-0 with a 1.07 ERA and 107 strikeouts for Goodpasture in 2007. His accolades include two no-hitters, one in the 8-AA championship tournament.

Tom Kreager of the Tennessean reported on the commitment of Adkins, who chose Tennessee over interest from Alabama-Birmingham, Belmont, East Tennessee State, Georgia, Kentucky, Lipscomb, Middle Tennessee State and Ole Miss.

Read the article here.