Friday February 18th, 2005

10:24am

We Are the Champions

Just wanted to allow your eyes to witness the greatness that is "The Award Winning Home-made Bench".

We had to build a bench for my Construction Principles class and our 3-man group's effort has been selected to adorn the wall outside our professor's office for a few weeks as a reward for being the best (out of ~20 other groups). The photo doesn't show it too well, but I think that the contoured seating area (cut by the steady hand of Kevin) is what sealed the deal for us.

I probably should have asked, but I'm assuming that means we got an "A" on the assignment....


12:01am

Aggie Baseball Preview: Coca-Cola Classic Tournament in Mobile, Alabama

The Ags kick off week #2 of the season with their second of four tournaments, this one being hosted by South Alabama.

Here's our tourney schedule: 

Friday, February 18
   Texas A&M vs. Jacksonville, 2:30 p.m.
   
Saturday, February 19
   S. Alabama vs. Texas A&M, 1 p.m.

Sunday, February 20
   Texas A&M vs. Wake Forest, 11 a.m.
I was kind of hoping that we'd get South Alabama in game one because it would be likely that we would face P.J. Walters (So, RHP), an All-American who was actually THE MOST abused pitcher in the NCAA last year, but now that I think it over it might be best to miss him this weekend. We could still get him....we're the only ranked team in the tournament so USA might hold him until Saturday (24 hours prior to the first pitch their website not only didn't mention their rotation, it didn't even mention that they were hosting a tournament).

Ok, so we start off against Jacksonville who is off to one of their best starts in school history (5-0). They've played Florida A&M twice (13-3, 8-4), Bethune-Cookman twice (6-3, 13-4), and Georgia Southern once (8-0).

The Dolphins lost their best starter from 2004 but are returning their other 3 starters. Donald Brickle had the best year of the three last year with a 3.63 ERA in 74.1 IP with 31 SOs, 17 BBs, 8 HRs allowed, and a .300 OBA over his 14 games (13 starts).

Here are how their 3 returning starters and a newcomer to the rotation have faired thus far in '05 (their team website does not have a stats page--I take that back, I found it). 

                 IP H R ER SO/BB AB BF  ERA  OBA
Donald Brickle  5.0 6 3  3   3/2 18 22 5.40 .333
Kyle DeVries    5.0 5 0  0   2/3 17 20 0.00 .286
Brett Nagy      6.1 9 4  4   5/1 23 29 5.68 .391
Neal Frontz     6.0 6 3  1   5/0 25 26 1.04 .182

Nagy started their 1st game, DeVries started their 2nd game, 
Frontz started their 3rd game, and Brickle started their 4th
game with Nagy pitching in relief
Offensively, they are returning all four of their top 4 hitters from last year led by Daniel Murphy, who hit .377 with an OPS of .961. Pete Clifford picked up right where he left off last year and Jon Galui, the catcher, hit .346 with an OPS of .937 in '04 while Brickle also had a great year with the stick in '04 hitting .325 with an OPS of 1.091. True freshman, Justin Young, is tearing the cover off the ball right now hitting .563 with 2 HRs, 3 doubles and a total of 18 bases in only 16 ABs....his OPS is 1.757 going into this weekend. (here's that link again to their stat page which I found after I started this section)

On Saturday we play the host, South Alabama. The Jaguars are 1-2 on the season after beating Gonzaga (9-7) and losing to Arizona State (7-2) and Oklahoma (4-1) last weekend in a tournament hosted by ASU. This is the second time we will square off against the Jaguars since I've been here at A&M (we swept them at Olsen Field in a 3 game series last season).

I spoke about Walters just a minute ago and he was the starter in the ASU loss giving up 6 runs (all earned) on 6 hits with 1 walk and 1 SO and 1 HR allowed in 4.2 IP. We faced Walters out of the bullpen in our second game against USA last year and he got lit up (2.0 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 SO). Their game two starter was Tommie Major who went 2.0 innings and gave up 4 hits and no runs. There was no mention in the recap of any injury but he did get himself out of a bases loaded jam in each of those two innings he threw. Their third starter, Jeramy Simmons, threw against us in the Sunday game of our series with them last year (6.1 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 5/1 SO/BB). He started against OU on this past Sunday and gave up 3 R (all earned) in 6.0 innings on 5 hits but he had 8 Ks to only 2 BBs.

I will say that I'm a little bit surprised at some of USA's alumni. They boast the likes of Luis Gonzalez, Jon Lieber, Juan Pierre, Marlon Anderson, and Mike Mordecai. Not bad for such a small school.

On Sunday we play Wake Forest. At this point in the young season their baseball program isn't having the same results as their hoops team is. They are 1-3 losing two games to Winthrop (8-0, 10-6) and one to Davidson (6-3) while their lone victory was against Western Kentucky (10-5). To be totally honest, I don't know a lick about their baseball team other than they just hired their coach this past summer. The best thing I can do is throw you a link to their stat page so you can check out their numbers.

Make sure you tune into either the radio or the streaming web audio for these ones (today you can even listen while you’re at work).

BTHO Jacksonville/South Alabama/Wake Forest! WHOOP!


Wednesday February 16th, 2005

11:56am

My Thoughts on Canseco

I'm going to start this by saying that I have not read the book, nor do I plan on reading the book. I believe that Jose is just trying to cash in and at the same time taint the names of those who overshadowed him.

Why do I think Jose needs money? For starters don't forget that his acting "career", plastic surgery (on his nose), and lawyer fees (for many different problems) haven't been cheap.

Does anyone remember when Jose was selling time to hang out with him while he was on house arrest? Did you know that he recently sold his 1988 WS ring, his 1988 MVP Trophy (on eBay for $30K), his 1986 ROY ring ($5100 on eBay), is currently asking for $40K in exchange for his 2000 WS ring at his website, and apparently is willing to sell more belongings and time with him to those willing to shell out. But money is not an issue, right?

I am not discounting the possibility of all the players he named being on juice because I wouldn't be surprised if some were but Jose just hasn’t earned my respect and I question his credibility. He seems to have some problems keeping his story straight. Just last week, Dan Patrick called Jose during a commercial break in his radio show and one of the Qs asked was why Jose didn't speak out about Sammy Sosa (this was when the initial press release came out and it was just McGwire, Giambi and the Rangers that were allegedly written about)....Jose responded that he didn't play with Sammy so there wasn't any way for him to know what Sammy did. Now the book is out and not only is Sammy's name mentioned but Bret Boone is also.....both guys that Jose never played with.

Money aside, I think that Jose has a severe case of jealousy. Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were the big men on campus, so to speak, back in the late-80s/early-90s. Jose was traded to the Rangers in '92 and then just sort of kicked around in obscurity until 1998 when he had his first +40 HR season since '91 (he only had 3 +40 seasons in his entire career and only hit +35 one other time). So while Canseco was kicking around in Arlington/Boston/Oakland/Toronto/Tampa Bay/NYY/Chicago (AL), McGwire went on to become an icon in the sport, break the most prestigious record in the game, and become named as one of the greatest players to ever play the game…obviously leaving Jose far behind. I bet that Jose feels as if he, somehow, made Mark McGwire…I mean, without Jose there was no Bash Brothers, and probably no World Series appearances for the A’s back then. Those things could be viewed as launching pads for McGwire's career. I can see some reason for jealousy.

Anyways, I'm sure there is some truth to what Jose is saying but we don't know what is true and what isn't. I hope he makes a boatload of money on this whole deal and moves to some island in the Pacific never to be heard from again.

Will Carroll (who is already in the process of writing a book called Juiced) has a great set of questions up that he would like to hear the answer to if he ever sat down with Jose.


Tuesday February 15th, 2005

10:12pm

Aggie Baseball Recap

Ok...

2/11/05 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E
TAMU 0 0 1 0 4 0 1 3 1 - 10 14 0
Tennessee 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 1 6 6

Box Score
Recap

This was a great game for Aggie fans. We had great pitching and we scored a whole bunch of runs. Can't really ask for more than that.


Jason Meyer

Jason Meyer threw a beauty of a game on his way to the W even without simply overpowering his opponent. 

 IP H R ER SO/BB HR AB BF  G/F PC GSc
7.0 5 1  1   3/3  0 24 27 10/7 85  63
The real story of the night was Tennessee's horrendous defense. There was an error made at every position except catcher, CF, & RF (the RFer even mishandled a ground ball our baserunners didn't advance).


Cliff Pennington

Cliff Pennington went 3-for-4 with 3 runs and two walks on his way to making the All-Tournament team (along with Meyer).

We got to see Brandon Glover, Ryan Hill, Keith Stein and reliever Hart Hering for the first time as Aggies as well as Todd Sebek (as a PHer) and Lee Harughty (as a defensive replacement).

As for Luke Hochevar, our opponent's starter....he got tagged with the loss even though he only gave up 1 ER in his 5.0 IP simply because of the poor help behind him defensively.

Oh yeah....Right in front of me there was a big group of Aggie students sitting behind the Tennessee dugout and of couse there was some good natured ribbing going on during pregame (even a couple of Vols players were smiling at it). Then one of the MMP security guards came down the steps and basically threatend to throw people out if they were "obnoxious". Then some other security guard, who was on the field, made everybody sit down because we were "blocking the view". This was literally during the time the field crew was watering the infield. I want to let it be known that if my standing ruined anyone's memories of the giant hose carried by 5 guys spraying water or the guy walking down the baseline with the chalker that I need to informed because I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

02/12/05 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E
Rice 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 - 3 8 1
TAMU 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - R H E

Box Score
Recap

Apparently we scored all our runs for the weekend on Friday night.

I didn't go to this game so I don't really have any personal info to add other than we were 2 hit by one of the better JUCO transfers, Greer.

Our own newcomer/transfer, Clayton Turner, threw a pretty solid game in his first start in Maroon and White. 

 IP H R ER SO/BB HR AB BF  G/F PC GSc
5.1 7 2  2   1/1  0 22 23 11/4 92  46
Kevin Whelan made his first appearance after a stellar summer but gave up a long ball to the 5th batter he faced.

02/13/04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E
TAMU 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 1 6 0
Houston 0 0 3 0 2 0 0 1 x - 6 11 1

Box Score
Recap

This was the game that hurt. I can handle losing to Rice because they're a great program but ought to beat the tar out of U of H.

Again the bats were silent with the exception of Pennington, Dalton and Ryan Hill, who hit the Ag's first HR of the year....it just might have landed in El Paso had it not hit the suface above the LF wall. Houston's starter, Matt Farrington, did an excellent job mixing up his changeup and fastball, keeping our hitters off balance all night long.


Chance Corgan

Our starter, Rob Ray, did not have the stellar outing that I was hoping for but I was extremely impressed with Chance Corgan who made his Aggie debut. 

           IP H R ER SO/BB HR AB BF  G/F PC GSc
R.Ray.... 4.1 8 5  5   2/0  1 20 21  6/5 68  29 
C.Corgan. 3.0 3 1  1   4/1  0 11 13  3/2 43   -

We also got to see the debut of Jordan Chambless and he had some pretty impressive stuff. Dave South said on the radio that he tops out at 92 with his fastball and throws a "power" breaking ball (a curve) at 78-80.


Jordan Chambless

I will admit that after seeing him pitch for the first time I am slightly worried about his mechanics in the sense that he throws across his body more than almost any other player I've seen before. I mean that, as a right-hander, his left foot lands on the right side of his right foot. I suggest that you stand up from your desk and go through the mechanics of a pitch to see what I'm talking about. This has a tendency to put stress in places that you don't really want it, which in turn, could cause arm problems....just something to keep in the back of your mind a couple years down the road.

The best part of the game was listening to the Houston "crowd" attempt to heckle. My brother is a freshman at Houston so we sat above their dugout and I heard some funny (as in very weak) heckles from Houston fans....

My brother, the Houston student, turned to me after the last out and said with suprise in his voice, "They're acting like they've never won a game before". I had to agree with the kid.

Some other simple observations from the weekend....

2/15/05 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E
TAMU 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 - 2 8 1
Sam Houston 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 - 1 3 0

Box Score
Recap

This was a "PSHEW that was close" game and Sam Houston is not a team that I'd really like for us to be playing "PSHEW that was close" games against.

We started Jon Michael Cline, which was somewhat of a suprise to me, and he threw extemely well. Jordan Chambless came in next and had a little control problem but still came out well. Then Kevin Whelan took the hill in the 8th got out out of the inning but couldn't finish the game after a very bad 9th inning. 

1st batter: F8 
2nd batter: BB 
3rd batter: HBP 
4th batter: k 
5th batter: BB 
6th batter: BB (RBI)
Pennington to pitch
7th batter: FC 6-4
Game over.
I was suprised that Pennington came in after the radio was saying that Rampy was warmed up in the bullpen. It worked, so you won't ever hear any complaints about that.

Those in attendance got to see the Aggie debut of Will Carpenter (as DH) due to a pre-game hand injury to Coby Mavroulis who was replaced at 1st base by DH-to-be, Ryan Hill.

There are still a few pitchers who haven't logged game time yet: Austin Creps, Dan Donaldson, Doug Frame, Gerald Evan (Fr), Erik Paulson (Fr), Blake Rampy, Tyler Soeder, Kyle Nicholson, & Chris Jones (Fr). I'm sure a couple of those guys are going to red shirt and a couple more might have some injuries....I imagine we'll see the rest in the next two weekends in our tournaments.


Monday February 14th, 2005

9:42am

Busy Day

Sorry yall....I'm not neglecting the site or even pouting after a lackluster weekend of Aggie baseball....Career Fair is today and I'm looking for an internship, I have 2 assignments to turn in for a class, today is also V-Day (love ya jen), and I need to prepare for some interviews tomorrow as well as taking care of my normal school work load.

I'm not complaining, simply justifying.

I'll get a weekend recap up as soon as I get a little free time.


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