Baseball season is upon us.
It opened last Friday on a warm, sunny 50+ degree day in Happy Valley, and continues today on a snow, wintry (but still sunny!) day in Happy Valley.
The rare East African Diamond Spider
In the interim, the Diamond Spiders (kinda sounds like an actual species, no?) went 1-2 at Duke, with three games not short on theatrics. Coming off a 24-28 season a year ago, and with only one winning season (2007, 32-28) in the last six campaigns, UR needs something to get the blood flowing early and get people (fans, players, recruits) feeling good again.
Spider baseball gets a special spot on the ‘wagon. Call it personal bias: I love baseball. I also lived in Marsh for a year with the constant ping of bats echoing spring semester. While the ping may be gone, the need to watch this spring team might finally be back.
Despite dropping the season opener Friday in 6-5 walk-off fashion, the young UR squad showed some moxie to rally back from an early 6-0 deficit to pick up the season’s first win, 9-8.
And yes, the Doooookies rebounded themselves to shut out the Spiders in the rubber match, but sophomore Jacob Mayers still finished off a strong enough weekend to snag A10 Player of the Week honors. Mayers put up your basic 7-13, 3 2B, 3 RBI, 3 R performance. And oh yeah, he also threw 6 in., 2 ER, 4 K in Friday’s loss. That’s excellent.
My top take away from the weekend, however, comes from (injured?) junior shortstop Adam McConnell, who chimed in via twitter with a little mid-game analysis of freshman Andrew Brockett (6 in, 2 ER, 5 K) Sunday. McConnell noted Brockett was sitting at an “expeditious” 92 with the fastball. I believe I’ve mentioned before my affinity for colorful commentary to describe sports? That’s very well done. Consider it repeated.
While the hoopsters take the week off before a final, desperate spring to Madness, baseball starts rolling downhill with a 10-game homestand. First up: ODU today at 2:30 (Editor’s Note: NOW!), Coppin State tomorrow afternoon, and Bucknell in for the weekend. Speaking of the Bison, as revenge for the Laetnering, I have to link to their weekend in Harrisonburg. Yikes. Ouch. And BU opened last Friday with a hide-the-women-and-children.
But back to Richmond. All of this foreplay just brings us to the best part of baseball season: free, live games on SpiderTV!
Take me out the ballpark!