<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">First of all, thank you to the Diamond Dogs for sacking up and making me happy until at least well, Friday. I will enjoy it to the fullest, as this is undoubtably (probably not a word) the highlight for the season. (Sad.)
Anyway, Ole Miss remined me why they have some of the dumbest baseball fans in the world. First of all, the guys behind me trying to figure out whether a run scored on a passed ball is earned or not for about two innings was entertaining. Secondly, not every pick off attempt is a balk. I sincerely hope that is a "chant" and not serious. Speaking of chants, "Throw it in the dirt" is retarded. No need to beat that dead horse. This was a good reminder to me why we really do "deserve" to have a quality baseball coach. Maybe I should give Ole Miss a pass as their program really only began in 2003, whereas our started in 1976 according to Polkologists.
I just happened to sit by one of the players mothers and we were able to strike up a conversation throughout the game, as we were from the same town. We talked about the baseball program and the coaching situation, and she seemed to be a little bit of a Raffo supporter- I resepcted her opinion, and I was very candid about supporting a coaching search. She did respectfully ask my opinion on who I would pick as the coach and did tell her that I wanted Cohen. I did ask some questions about how the players are taking the search and her response was "They're like, whatever. Some do want Raffo, though." Some being very subjective here, but apparently Raffo does have some support from the players. She did have a good point in that, whatever happens, the players are going to have to adjust because they will have new assistants at the very least.
Now, as far as the game, I would have to say that Ole Miss probably has the better team on paper. But, I think the main difference is that they have two frontline SEC starters. (OK, yeah that's a big difference, but it's not like there's some huge overall talent gap either.) But most of their pitchers that they threw tonight didn't look a whole lot better than ours in general. But, this was midweek. The fact remains that we need to recuit MUCH better. As usual, Polk had one WTF starter in this game and that was Brooks Lewis. It's hard to bust on a guy like that because, he is a walk-on that really had no business being out there. He's a bullpen catcher and that should be the extent of it. I doubt that Johnny Allen would have done a whole lot better, though. Russ Sneed looked terrible at the plate, but he made some big plays. I thought we pitched OK. Weatherford is going to be a big leaguer if he stays healthy. Ryan Collins is a player. Jet Butler came up with a big hit, and Forrest Moore settled down after he got out of the sixth inning jam. Whitney was solid for 5 innings. It wasn't a pretty game, but it wasn't all that sloppy, and we played just a little bit better. I thought that Polk outcoached Bianco tonight. We had a double steal, he was quick with the hook on Busby, we played some small ball and were able to manufacture some runs. I did think he left Whitney and Moore out there for too long. He should have had Weatherford warming up in the bullpen as soon as we took the lead, but he didn't. But at least he used Weatherford, and I don't understand why Bittle wasn't used. I don't keep up with Ole Miss baseball, and maybe he was hurt or something that I don't know about. The difference in the game was we played a little bit better defense than they did, although it was hardly something that would make Tom Emanski proud.
The best part was after the game, some douchebag Ole Miss fan was yelling, "You still only have four SEC wins!" I didn't get into the fact that we only really had three official SEC wins and that the Governor's Cup didn't count, but anyway I yelled back at him "And you have ZERO in the Governor's Cup!" to which he gave this glare like "I'm too drunk to come up with anything better, as I know you will whip out OMAHA and SR choke jobs, so I'm just going to stand here and look tough even though everyone here knows I'm not going to do ****." It was priceless.
I did wait around a little bit after the game, and had Genespage moment with Ron Polk. I waited for him to finish his postgame interviews and as he returned to the dugout, I yelled "Thanks Ron! Great job!" and I will never forget this for the rest of my life- he looked up into the stands at me, with one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on his face, and gave me and the other fans standing there a nice little wave as he ran off into the dugout. I guess it was my way of saying goodbye to the Legend. And as much as I've bitched about him, I'm going choose to remember those moments rather than the bad. <BAAAAAA>
Hopefully the next coach will continue our now two game winning streak in the Governor's Cup.
</p>
Anyway, Ole Miss remined me why they have some of the dumbest baseball fans in the world. First of all, the guys behind me trying to figure out whether a run scored on a passed ball is earned or not for about two innings was entertaining. Secondly, not every pick off attempt is a balk. I sincerely hope that is a "chant" and not serious. Speaking of chants, "Throw it in the dirt" is retarded. No need to beat that dead horse. This was a good reminder to me why we really do "deserve" to have a quality baseball coach. Maybe I should give Ole Miss a pass as their program really only began in 2003, whereas our started in 1976 according to Polkologists.
I just happened to sit by one of the players mothers and we were able to strike up a conversation throughout the game, as we were from the same town. We talked about the baseball program and the coaching situation, and she seemed to be a little bit of a Raffo supporter- I resepcted her opinion, and I was very candid about supporting a coaching search. She did respectfully ask my opinion on who I would pick as the coach and did tell her that I wanted Cohen. I did ask some questions about how the players are taking the search and her response was "They're like, whatever. Some do want Raffo, though." Some being very subjective here, but apparently Raffo does have some support from the players. She did have a good point in that, whatever happens, the players are going to have to adjust because they will have new assistants at the very least.
Now, as far as the game, I would have to say that Ole Miss probably has the better team on paper. But, I think the main difference is that they have two frontline SEC starters. (OK, yeah that's a big difference, but it's not like there's some huge overall talent gap either.) But most of their pitchers that they threw tonight didn't look a whole lot better than ours in general. But, this was midweek. The fact remains that we need to recuit MUCH better. As usual, Polk had one WTF starter in this game and that was Brooks Lewis. It's hard to bust on a guy like that because, he is a walk-on that really had no business being out there. He's a bullpen catcher and that should be the extent of it. I doubt that Johnny Allen would have done a whole lot better, though. Russ Sneed looked terrible at the plate, but he made some big plays. I thought we pitched OK. Weatherford is going to be a big leaguer if he stays healthy. Ryan Collins is a player. Jet Butler came up with a big hit, and Forrest Moore settled down after he got out of the sixth inning jam. Whitney was solid for 5 innings. It wasn't a pretty game, but it wasn't all that sloppy, and we played just a little bit better. I thought that Polk outcoached Bianco tonight. We had a double steal, he was quick with the hook on Busby, we played some small ball and were able to manufacture some runs. I did think he left Whitney and Moore out there for too long. He should have had Weatherford warming up in the bullpen as soon as we took the lead, but he didn't. But at least he used Weatherford, and I don't understand why Bittle wasn't used. I don't keep up with Ole Miss baseball, and maybe he was hurt or something that I don't know about. The difference in the game was we played a little bit better defense than they did, although it was hardly something that would make Tom Emanski proud.
The best part was after the game, some douchebag Ole Miss fan was yelling, "You still only have four SEC wins!" I didn't get into the fact that we only really had three official SEC wins and that the Governor's Cup didn't count, but anyway I yelled back at him "And you have ZERO in the Governor's Cup!" to which he gave this glare like "I'm too drunk to come up with anything better, as I know you will whip out OMAHA and SR choke jobs, so I'm just going to stand here and look tough even though everyone here knows I'm not going to do ****." It was priceless.
I did wait around a little bit after the game, and had Genespage moment with Ron Polk. I waited for him to finish his postgame interviews and as he returned to the dugout, I yelled "Thanks Ron! Great job!" and I will never forget this for the rest of my life- he looked up into the stands at me, with one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on his face, and gave me and the other fans standing there a nice little wave as he ran off into the dugout. I guess it was my way of saying goodbye to the Legend. And as much as I've bitched about him, I'm going choose to remember those moments rather than the bad. <BAAAAAA>
Hopefully the next coach will continue our now two game winning streak in the Governor's Cup.
</p>
