College Baseball | The Baseball Zealot

Where to go to get info on the 2009 Big Ten Baseball Tournament

From May 20-23, the Big Ten Baseball Tournament will be in full force at Huntington Park in Columbus, Ohio. For those interested in keeping up on the latest news, here are some good places to start:

Official 2009 Big Ten Baseball Tournament page

Complete with the tournament bracket, schedule, and I assume, eventually box scores and wrap-ups.

Big Ten Baseball Programs

Good places to get the official word on your favorite Big Ten team.

Illinois Baseball

Indiana Baseball

Michigan State Baseball

Minnesota Baseball

Ohio State Baseball

Purdue Baseball

… then there are the blogs.

Buckeye Nine Tourney Central

Chris Webb has brought online a repository of information surrounding the Tourney. Great articles, info, links, and reviews (including one of Illinois written by yours truly). Great idea by the Ohio State blogging contingent.

The Buckeye Nine

I’m sure Chris will also be updating his Buckeye-specific The Buckeye Nine for all you OSU fans.

Big Ten Hardball

Brian DeCaussin will continue to cover Big Ten baseball in the excellent way we’ve been accustomed. If I want to get past the hype, I go to BTH.

Behind the Plate

Inside Pitch

Two blogs covering University of Indiana baseball.

Illinois Baseball Report

Of course! I’ll be at the tournament (leaving early tomorrow) and will be updating the site daily on the goings on from an Illini perspective. I’ll be snapping photos and uploading like crazy.

So let’s have some fun and go Illini!!

Illinois-Ohio State matchup this weekend!

#27 Ohio State is coming to town this weekend (most likely, they’re already here) to face #25 University of Illinois Fighting Illini. The biggest series of the season is almost upon us.

I did an interview of Drew Grigsby, die-hard fan Buckeye fan and he gives a rather in-depth look at our adversaries. It’s posted at Illinois Baseball Report where you’ll also find the schedule for the weekend.

The weather reports promise that the rain will clear up this afternoon so I’m looking forward to a great weekend!

If you’re in the area, come on out this weekend and support the Illini baseball team!

IBR links cuz it’s a happenin’ place

I just posted a Q & A of star shortstop Brandon Wikoff (above) over at Illinois Baseball Report last night. He’s good now and is definitely worth keeping your eye on. Check out the interview over at IBR.

Illinois, fresh off their sweep of Penn State last weekend (which put them in a tie for first place with Ohio St in the Big Ten), just defeated Southern Illinois Salukis in a mid-week non-conference. I just came from the game and was able to get some photos. Check out the write-up and some photos also at IBR.

Finally, for those who keep tabs on Willie Argo (and you really should), he took the Big Ten Player of the Week Award for his performance against PSU.

PS. he’s not stopping there. He hit a grand slam tonight.

Go Illini!

IBR interviews UM blogger before upcoming Illini series

In anticipation of Illinois’ series with Michigan this coming weekend up in Ann Arbor, I’ve done a Q&A interview with a blogger from Varsity Blue, a most excellent UM sports blog.

You can find the Q&A over at Illinois Baseball Report.

Michigan is the defending Big Ten champs but VB will be the first to tell you that they’ve lost more than a few players over the off-season. So far, they are 18-10 (3-3 in the Big Ten). Yet, they are still Michigan and it doesn’t help that we are playing on their home turf.

Update: And yes, I did an interview with Varsity Blue where I give them the scoop on the Illini.

Go Illinois!!

The mercy rule… Kentucky-style

On April 1, the Kentucky State baseball team probably wishes it hadn’t gotten out of bed.

According to AP, they allowed 22 runs to Eastern Kentucky, in the first inning. After the first five innings, the score was an incredible 49-1. At that point, the game was cancelled and so was the second game of the doubleheader.

Don’t blame EKU Coach Jason Stein. He did right by putting in second-string players after the first inning. But the runs kept coming.

Since the game was cancelled, you won’t find an official boxscore out there. However, Jayson Langfels of EKU went 7 for 8 with 2 homers and 11 rbis. It was also reported that Kentucky State committed 9 errors which in their coach’s eyes, “was generous”.

It’s quite a story. I’ve certainly heard of the mercy rule being invoked before. But I’ve never heard of it affecting future games (in this case, cancelling the second game of the doubleheader).

Catching up with Illinois Baseball

In case you haven’t been over to Illinois Baseball Report recently, I’ve been quite busy covering Illini baseball as of late. Illinois is doing well… if you haven’t heard, they’re ranked #26 in the nation.

Illinois swept Michigan State three games last weekend in probably the coldest games I’ve ever attended. You can find summaries and photos over at IBR.

I did a Q&A with Indiana baseball blog Behind the Plate in anticipation of the upcoming Indiana-Illinois series this weekend. Behind the Plate is a new blog done by a IU student. If you’re a fan of Hoosier baseball, stop by BTP and give him some love.

Behind the Plate returned the favor answering a few of my questions on IBR about the Indiana squad.

For those who are in the C-U area, I encourage you to come out to a game or to this weekend. I can promise you with certainty that the weather will be better than last weekend (no snow, no ice on the field).

And stop on by Illinois Baseball Report and say hi!

As an Illini fan, I’m on cloud #9

The University of Illinois baseball team just defeated #1 LSU tonight thanks to continued dominant pitching by starter Phil Haig and a down-to-the-wire, ninth inning, two-run homer by catcher Aaron Johnson.

More on that and me kvetching about streaming content delivery systems at the Illinois Baseball Report.

Illini Sweep in Al Ogletree Tournament

The University of Illinois baseball squad went 3-0 this weekend down in Texas at the Al Ogletree Tournament.

Their pitching carried them as they allowed only two earned runs for the 27 innings. Also, frosh 2B Josh Parr went 7 for 10 for the weekend.

You can read my full story over at the Illinois Baseball Report.

Perfect Baseball day..

It was pretty much a perfect baseball day for me. The University of Illinois beat the University of Stephen F Austin Lumberjacks 4-2 behind the phenomal pitching of Aaron Martin (read my recap of the game over at illinoisbaseballreport.com <– shameless plug).

Then to cap it off, the Cubs beat the pants off the White Sox. With a score like, 13-0, it didn’t even seem like the Sox had a chance. HoHoKam was filled to a record 13,010 fans to see that drubbing.

More importantly, Aaron Heilman gave a good showing allowing one hit in two innings and striking out four. I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of the Heilman trade but I know others who think differently. I know two innings a season does not make but first impressions can go a long a way.

Corey Koskie

In other Cub news, I see they signed veteran Corey Koskie to a minor league contract. The contract stipulated he will get a chance in Spring Training but if he doesn’t make it in the bigs, he’ll get shipped to the Triple-A team.

To me, it seems that Koskie’s been around forever but checking out his stats, he’s only been in the majors for nine years (really eight, he was up for a small cup of coffee in 1998). And he’s only 35. His career derailed when he suffered a concussion after falling when chasing a pop fly. Post concussion syndrome put any thought of baseball out of mind for a while.

Now he’s back. A hard nosed thirdbaseman with a little bit of pop and who knows how to take a walk. Let’s see how far he can go.

Illinois full of win … and a bit o’ trivia

Illinois won their season opener 8-3 against Iowa. Yippie!

I did a recap over at the Illinois Baseball Report.

Tonight, the Fighting Illini play the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. That’s unusual in of itself since both team name don’t end in ‘S’.

How many NCAA team names can you think of that don’t end in the letter ‘S’? There are about fifteen.

When you give up, wikianswers.com has the answer.