With MLB’s Opening Day Part II going on today, and Part III happening Monday, I was intrigued to learn about the new stadium that is garnering so much attention.

No not the new stadium in Washington, D.C., but rather the sort-of new stadium in Los Angeles. The Dodgers and Red Sox met Saturday night at the Los Angeles Coliseum where some 115,300 paid to see Boston beat Los Angeles, 7-4, at the stadium where the Dodgers played from 1958 to 1961.

What captured my attention was the short left field porch. To squeeze a baseball field into a stadium built in 1923 for football, the Dodgers set the left field fence only 201 feet from home plate, compared to a more conventional 330 feet at Dodger Stadium.

The Little League World Series, which is played by 12-year-olds, is contested on a field where the fence is 225 feet from home plate.

With steroids no longer being a part of the game, and, subsequently, shrinking players, maybe this move should be adopted at all MLB ballparks to help keep those inflated home run totals up.

 –Andrew

Having just had a chance to watch my first outdoor college track meet of the season I came away with a couple of lingering thoughts.

First, the wind can put a damper on what otherwise looks like a very nice day.

Second, I was impressed with how many of the athletes made such a smooth transition from the indoor to the outdoor season. There were not a plethora of dropped batons during the relay events and all the sprinters and hurdlers cut through the wind gusts rather well.

Few of the runners I talked to seemed overly pleased with their performances but it’s a start.

Finally, I remembered how nice it is to be outside watching a sporting event with the sun shining wind or not.

 - Jeff

Would the Cubs please win the World Series?

Not that I am not a fan of the team, and if they do win it, I don’t care if they go another 100 years without winning one. I am just sick of hearing about the ‘long-suffering’ fans who claim the team hasn’t won a World Series since before the Dead Sea was sick.

Besides, like many people who live in South Dakota-Nebraska-North Dakota (Places not close to a Major League team), I have no allegiance to a specific team. I cheer for the better story.

What better one than that? Let’s hear it.

Russo

I still have Kansas winning it all, BUT how can one not root for the Davidson Wildcats, sure we can all jump on the Curry wagon now, but I am pumped because the board of trustees paid for their students to go to the game in Detroit against Wisconsin.

Well kind of paid for their students to go to the game, after all tution for a year at the North Carolina College is around $41,000.00, But the powers that be at the college offered a bus ticket, two nights lodging and a ticket to the game!
Does that rock or what?

This marked the second time in three tournaments that a double-digit seed had gotten this far.
In 2006, 11th-seeded George Mason reached the Final Four. It’s the furthest Davidson has gotten since 1969, when Lefty Driesell’s squad got to the East Regionals before losing to North Carolina.

Tonight’s “Sweet 16” matchup at Ford Field in Detroit featured 10th-seed Davidson College and 3rd-seed Wisconsin.
Davidson is a small, academically rigorous, residential liberal arts college in North Carolina. With just 1,700 students, 162 full-time faculty, 600 staff and 18,723 active alumni, Davidson is demographically dwarfed by the University of Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin’s total enrollment of 42,041 is double the number of Davidson’s students, faculty, staff and alumni combined.

So much for numbers…. Davidson 73, Wisconsin 56 bye bye Badgers.

Some interesting stuff about Davidson College…

In the spring of 2007, Davidson became the first national liberal arts college to eliminate student loans from financial aid packages. Beginning with the 2007-2008 academic year, Davidson students now have 100 percent of their demonstrated need met entirely through a combination of grants and student employment.

Davidson College has been getting a lot of attention since the 10th-seed Wildcats upset 2nd-seed Georgetown in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, March 23.

Average regular daily sales at Davidson College Bookstore before Sunday, March 23: $1,700
Daily sales at Davidson College Bookstore on Wednesday, March 26 (the first day “Sweet 16” t-shirts were available): $35,000

#1 – Place of “Davidson College” on Googletrends’ list of most-searched words Sunday night (“hotness trend: volcanic”)
#4 –Googletrends’ Sunday night ranking of the search term “Davidson University”
#10—Googletrends’ Sunday night ranking of search term “Davidson Wildcats”
#11—Googletrends Sunday night ranking of search term “Stephen Curry”

Teams with bulldog mascots that have been beaten by Davidson in the NCAA tournament: 2

Bulldog toys stuffed into the mouth of the Wildcat statue on the Davidson campus: 1

Number of consecutive games Davidson has won to date: 24 (longest winning streak in the country)

Players on Davidson’s team: 14
Players who come from countries outside the U.S.: 6
Players who speak French fluently: At least 4

Years Bob McKillop has coached at Davidson: 19
Percentage of McKillop’s four-year players who have graduated in that period: 100

Percentage increase in transfer inquiries received by Davidson’s Admission Office since Sunday’s win over Georgetown: 1,200 percent
Since Sunday, calls to the Admission Office inquiring about Davidson’s application deadline (which has already passed): 10
Unsolicited applications received since Sunday, even though Davidson’s deadline has passed: 1

Reported number of Facebook “friend” requests received by one member of the Davidson basketball team after Sunday’s victory: 1,800

Miles from the Davidson campus in Davidson, N.C. to Ford Field in Detroit, Mich. (the arena hosting Davidson’s “Sweet 16” game against Wisconsin): 648.65
Buses secured by the college to transport interested students to the game (Davidson’s Board of Trustees created a fund to cover the cost): 7
Students making the trip by bus: Approximately 350
Seating capacity of Ford Field for the NCAA Tournament: 72,000

Doughnuts consumed at the on-campus “pep rally” broadcast during the CBS Early Show Thursday, March 27: 600
Times the Pep Band led pep rally guests in rousing versions of “Sweet Caroline”: 2

Year in which Davidson last made it into the “Sweet Sixteen”: 1969

Bring on the Jayhawks… Where can I get a job? I still have eligibility left…Someone has to inbound the ball to Curry next year.
Oh well, I can always get a t-shirt online.

How’s your bracket holding up now?

Lenn

A Syracuse University professor says he’s boycotting the NCAA basketball tournament to protest what he says is the disparity between the NCAA, major colleges and the athletes that make it all happen.

Dr. Boyce Watkins, a professor of finance, says the NCAA, its member schools and administrators rake in millions of dollars at the expense of athletes, many of whom have scholarships, but come from poor families who are otherwise unable to make ends meet.

An excerpt from Watkins news release follows. The link to the full release: Media Release Services [info@boycewatkins.com]

“The NCAA is in possession of an 11-year, $6 Billion Dollar contract for the rights to air March Madness. This does not include hundreds of millions of dollars earned each year from bowl games, regular season games, merchandizing agreements and concessions. Coaches earn as much as $4 Million dollars per year, while the players and their families, many of whom come from poverty, earn almost nothing. Coaches are allowed to jump from job to job, going to the highest bidder, while players who transfer lose a year of eligibility. Coaches and administrators earn millions from excessive commercialization of player images, while a player is not allowed to earn a penny from his/her own image. This does not include the fact that many institutions will praise and promote a winning coach with low graduation rates and quickly fire coaches with low winning percentages and high graduation rates.”

What say you? Has major college athletics become nothing more than a playground for semi-professionals?

JimH

  

While the men’s tournament is still trying to whittle down its field from 16. The South Dakota women’s basketball team is playing in the Division II Final Four tonight.

The Coyotes are playing Delta State tonight after winning a double-overtime thriller against Washburn last night.

Anne Doshier is a junior guard on the team and attended high school at Rapid City Stevens.

Good luck to Anne and the Coyotes.

Jeff

Not only is the weather damp and dreary outside today, it is equally wet within the sports department today. Padraic Duffy is raining on my parade.
An entry on Wikipedia shows that the indoor football team, the Rapid City Flying Aces, could be returning to the turf sometime this year. The post goes on to say that the Flying Aces, who folded after some, well let’s say off-the-field issues in 2006, could be returning to the United Indoor Football league in 2008.

I’m a big fan of indoor football, and think another professional franchise in the Black Hills would be a good thing. However, Padraic, the naysayer, believes it will be a cold day in you know where before indoor football returns to Rapid City.

What do you think, would the Black Hills support an indoor football team?

–Andrew

Although most of us were probably still sleeping when the first pitch was thrown the Major League Baseball season has begun. There is something just not right about beginning a new season of America’s game in Japan, but it is what it is and the Boston Red Sox are now on pace to win 162 games this season.

Even though we are several months removed from the Sox and their World Series win they still had a little left over magic to win on Opening Day with a bottom of the ninth home run to tie the game up before Manny Ramirez smacked a two-RBI double to give his team the win over Oakland.

The season may have officially started early Tuesday morning but I prefer the all-day affair coming Monday with day games, night games and plenty of highlights.

We are another step closer to warmer weather because the Boys of Summer are tightning up the batting gloves and using the pine tar once again.

I have officially ended my five-day NCAA-induced paralysis. I become a much more productive member of society from here on out.

A couple of thoughts …

How can you be a Division I program and not put anybody on the floor that can hit a jump shot outside of 18 feet, Kansas State? Your starting guards were outscored 40-4! That’s a level of stink that just doesn’t wash off. And you messed up a perfectly planned-out region. I had K-State knocking off Kansas to go to the Final Four (after beating Davidson, of course) just because of Michael (the Beast) Beasley and this quote … 

“We’re going to beat Kansas at home. We’re going to beat them in their house. We’re going to beat them in Africa. Wherever we play, we’re going to beat them.” — Beasley

That’s a level of trash talk that immediately wins over my heart. But the Beast is playing with a bunch of beauties, something I should have realized in spite of my man-crush. Is there any way the Celtics can get the No. 1 pick and schedule some games in Africa for my man Mike? 

And poor Drake — that game between the Bulldogs and Western Kentucky was a 3-point shooting fan’s dream that ended up as a nightmare for the “best shooting team in the tournament” as called by Hubert Davis. That buzzer-beating 3 by the kid from Western Kentucky was as cold-blooded a shot as I’ve ever seen. Sidenote: The Bulldogs will have two South Dakotans — Central’s Adam Templeton and Lennox’s Jared Vlastuin — on the team next season. Templeton is sitting out a year after transferring to Des Moines from UC-Irvine. 

There is very little better than laying on the couch, watching the first two rounds of the greatest sporting event on earth. Super Bowl, you say? Nope, not even close. BCS championship? Ha ha ha. Daytona 500? I said sporting event, people. Kentucky Derby? Horses and mint juleps are nice, I guess, but they don’t make for a sporting event. A social event, sure, a party even, but it’s no NCAA tournament. If we start counting horse and auto racing, I’m nominating hot dog eating, too.

I know somebody who loads the ”One Shining Moment” montages onto his iPod just to watch them whenever he wants, year-round. What other sporting event provides that? 

Is it the best sporting event of the year? Or does Kobayashi mowing down a bunch of franks nose it out?

- Padraic

Chadron State College football star Danny Woodhead may have just punched his ticket to be selected in the upcoming NFL draft.
Woodhead is the current all-college career rushing record-holder after his remarkable four years at CSC, but the knock on him as a pro prospect, at an optimistic 5-foot-8 and 197 pounds, he wasn’t big enough or sturdy enough to make it in the NFL.
Obviously there isn’t much he can do about the 5-8 part, but apparently taking his final semester off to continue rigorous training has paid off.
Woodhead didn’t rate an invite to the NFL Combine, but put up some very impressive numbers during his Pro Day outing at the University of Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium on March 12.
Woodhead clocked between 4.35 and 4.48 in the 40-yard dash, benched 225 pounds 20 times and recorded a 38-inch vertical leap.
Apparently there were about 15 NFL scouts on hand to watch Danny, and new Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini made a point of introducing himself to the pride of Chadron State before the workout.
How ironic that Woodhead finally got to open some eyes at Nebraska, which overlooked him as a college prospect?
According to nfldraftscout.com, Woodhead ranks 30th of 188 running backs listed, and his stock arrow is pointing very much in the up direction. We’ll see what happens come April 26-27.

Jim H