Yes, there is a early season tourney in Houston each year with six teams involved. I went a few years back and I froze my buns off. It was a cold day and Minute Maid Park has no heating. The roof was closed but it was cold inside. Texas Tech was playing a team I cannot remember and there were probably a couple hundred fans at most. We moved around the stadium as the game progressed and had views of the game from almost every angle.
If the weather is pretty good, I might get down to a game.
Pankake who is supposed to be an amazing hitter (but had a lot of big whiffs last year) is working switch hitting and everyone is hoping he's going to be another Justin Smoak.I always thought Pankake would be the perfect name for an offensive lineman.
I'm trying not to put too much weight at the beginning of the season. It seems the last couple of years it takes USC a few weekends to figure out their pitching rotation. It's not too tough of a start this year with series with Liberty and Albany. Outside of Clempson, there's not going to be any games until the SEC slate where South Carolina should not win.
Anyone know anything about Missouri?
With Charlotte moving their minor league team downtown.... that would be awesome if USC/UNC started playing an annual game in Charlotte to start the season off.
Very interesting, from Baseball America
Strike Two: Roth Stars, Redux
In last year's College Preview, cover boy Michael Roth did not crack our preseason All-America team. In fact, he didn't even garner a vote from the major league scouting directors who cast ballots to select the team. Roth was the most accomplished pitcher in college baseball, a returning first-team postseason All-American, but our preseason team serves a different purpose: to illustrate how scouting directors view the talent pool in college baseball, rather than to reward college performers who might lack big-time prospect status.
That prompted us to come up with a list of "Roth Stars" for each region—college standouts who excel at helping their teams win, even if they aren't marquee prospects.
This year, three of the four players on our cover—North Carolina's Colin Moran plus N.C. State's Carlos Rodon and Trea Turner—are first-team preseason All-Americans. But the fourth player, UNC ace lefthander Kent Emanuel, fell a few votes shy of cracking our third team. Emanuel is undoubtedly a good prospect—he has added strength and a tick of fastball velocity since last year, and I have a strong suspicion that he could climb into the first round by the end of the season.
This year we're tweaking the Roth Stars model a bit by putting together a team of the most valuable and accomplished college players who did not crack our preseason All-America team. Some of them are good prospects like Emanuel, and some of them are more modest prospects, but all of them are true college baseball stars who deserve recognition.
