Me fail English? That's unpossible!

Young Ralph Wiggum is apparently a State fan. Who knew?

Sadly, the local Nebraskans were also unable to help with the spellcheck, either.
In other news, rasslin' fans might be easy to dupe. Shocking, I know.

Greetings From Deep Inside the Loser's Bracket

So currently it's the bottom of the 7th and Louisville is totally demolishing State 11-3. And I'm out of beer in a town that doesn't sell it on Sundays. For MSU, the pitching that amazingly stepped it up to just-win-baby status against Florida State and Clemson has returned to their miserable regular season form, and the chock-full-of-freshmen infield has managed to turn the routine into the spectacular for most of the afternoon (coincidentally Louisville started pitching a lights-out freshman, but that's beside the point.) State has pretty much mailed it in ever since that disastrous sixth inning Friday night to start the furious UNC rally that put them in this situation. I guess just getting to the College World Series was enough for this team, but as young as they are (if not the most talented crew ever) the pressure will definitely be on next season. Now it's on to football season. Dammit.

Bottom 7th 2 Outs. Tying run on first. 10-9 U of L leads Rice

And there goes my chance of getting press credentials for an NCAA event. Oh well.

One Last Pre CWS List of Links

Here's the rundown of tomorrow's College World Series action, action, action, on ESPN2, 2, 2! (that I'm taking off work for. Don't judge me.)
Here, Southern College Sports breaks down Bracket 1 for you. Newcomers to all this at Card Chronicle take their look at the bracket. Good luck guys (okay fine, I'll say it: Please beat Rice). For more homerism, here's CollegeBaseball Blog's MSU preview. And for more of a travelogue of some lucky State fans, there's The Beef on the Road to Omaha. As mentioned in The Commercial Dispatch, State's on a 4-0 roll here recently when it comes to ACC teams. It's also a quasi-revenge tour by eliminating Clemson, who has helped oust State from the regionals twice recently. The last time UNC and MSU played was in the 2003 Starkville regional and UNC won in extra innings. The game tying homer in the ninth was given up by some stiff named Papel...something. I wonder what ever happened to that guy? It was also my last sporting event as a college student. How fitting. Overall, State's College World Series history is full of early exits , even with talented teams (cough, like the basketball team, cough). I mean, check out this list of an All-Star team made up of the respective teams all-time greats. Yeah, even THAT TEAM (1984) that placed four players on here managed to go 1-2 in Omaha. Hopefully this year's team chock full of scrappy overachievers will do something the more talented squads (prove me wrong, guys) couldn't. To sum up: this years team started out great, fell flat on its face to finish the season, and is now damn hot in the post season (post SEC tourney). Keep it up, guys.
Oh, and I just might liveblog at some point during the games. Because that story just won't go away quietly. Like I'd ever get press credentials for something in the future.

Empassioned college baseball tech-savvy fans/nerds unite!

So the Courier-Journal's Cardinal blogger was booted from the press box at the super regional for...live blogging during the game. Oddly enough, he could have kept writing from outside the ballpark or comfortably from his couch watching ESPN, just not at the game, from the press box. Some rule about in-game updates being expressly prohibitive and violating broadcasting rights. It seems a bit ridiculous, but if the NCAA is really about anything, it's asinine rules (and hokey commercials). College baseball is a niche sport at best. Schools are usually in either of two categories here: 1. Good at it 2. Don't care. Not to generalize, but the pool of teams that makes the regionals is kinda the same most years. That's why it's exciting to see teams like Louisville (and UC-Irvine) doing well. I'm not sure what harm was done by live in-game updates. I guarantee you that nobody was turning away from the ESPN broadcast to check out the on-line update. Everybody with any interest in that game whatsoever was either there or glued to the tube. I guess the CSTV guys got the message, notice how their blogs end before the game starts, then pick back up with the post-game wrap up. The occasional "underground" media outlet might show some passing interest, but the story will probably just go away after a few days. And then hopefully someone will start giving live updates from Omaha. And now, your day late/buck short update that my repeat visitors (hey, lil' brother) demand, nay, deserve. This just in: MSU's beat writer has been given the ultimatum by the NCAA. Only posts about conditions/atmosphere are acceptable (sigh). Oh and just to clarify, was Rick Cleveland at the game on Saturday? If so, he was clearly running afoul of the rules. Way to fight the power, Rick!

MSU Baseball: Omaha Bound Again (who knew?)

or: Just win, baby!


So, the MSU baseball team that was picked LAST in the SEC pre-season polls and somehow managed to lose to powerhouses like Dallas Baptist and Austin Peay is headed to the College World Series after sweeping Clemson in the Super Regional. They're even on the front page over at ESPNU.com right now! State finished up the regular season by dropping the last three SEC series, and then proceeded to go 0-2 in the SEC Tournament. Mysteriously, they then proceeded to go to Florida State and beat the nationally seeded Seminoles (who some experts said had the easiest regional draw) twice to advance to the Supers to face the winner of the Coastal Carolina/Clemson matchup. The complete turnaround was something that most State fans really didn't see coming. Then, it was announced that Starkville would finally be the host site. The Clemson fans didn't take the news well that the "vastly inferior" Bulldogs would host, while ignoring the facts that State beat a better opponent, didn't get to play in their home state, and had traveled to Clemson for regionals/supers twice in the past few seasons (newsflash, Brett; finishing ONE PLACE ahead of MSU in the RPI can hardly be considered "superior", and the fake shock over the role of money in college athletics just makes you look ignorant). Surely after a few days, they would get over it. Wrong. Right up until game day, their athletic department bitched (apparently they had no idea how the bid system worked, so blame the school that figured it out), their coach bitched (not unlike a good old Ron Polk diatribe against the NCAA, but I digresss) and their fans. You better believe they bitched (see the Scout article). Apparently IPTAY is from a Cherokee word meaning "endless whining." Then, came the predictable Starkville jabs. Sure, there were plenty of hotel rooms in several surrounding cities, but that fact wouldn't have done much for the fantastic hyperbole. This point is especially ironic, since the only time I've been to Clemson (full disclosure: for my brother's graduation) the closest hotels were almost a half hour away. Late night update: They're still bitching!!! Check out the last sentence. Apparently ya'll are pretty dense, so I'll type this slowly: THERE IS NO HOSTING CONTROVERSY! There is no great NCAA conspiracy that holds MSU in some great light. Trust me. State's been screwed on bowl bids, basketball seedings, and even baseball regionals. It sucks, but it happens to everybody. There are 13,000 reasons (and $100K+) why your self-proclaimed superior team didn't get to host. Take your "deserve" and "logic" and sit on it for the whole offseason while you self-entitled pricks watch MSU play in Omaha. Seriously, bringing it up again and again just makes you look petty. If your team was so much better on the field, as you claim why couldn't they (and their high draft picks, oh look, that's an excuse too, now!) manage to get a single win in Starkville? It can be a three game series. Just get one win. Now, for the actual games. It's doubtful that many Clemson fans could have gotten any tickets, anyway, since the State fans packed Dudy Noble Field (@PDS) to the gills. From Veazey's Blog:

Friday's Starkville Super Regional attendance of 12,620 was more than the other three Super Regional sites combined. Louisville, North Carolina and Rice drew a combined 11,992.

Keep in mind this was for a game at 11 in the morning on a Friday. But surely, the club that's presumptuous enough to emblazon "Omaha" in their logo on the back of their hats could win two more on the road, right? Especially from such an overmatched hack of an opponent? Apparently not. At least the writer from the Charleston paper had fun out in the lounge (pic from the Clarion Ledger, making me all nostalgic-note to my friends, sadly no, that's not me to the left of "flag guy" I was at freaking work) watching the "vastly superior" Tigers lose in a great back-and-forth game. Today's game was another great nail-biter that the Dogs won 8-5 to advance to Omaha where they'll play a to-be-determined Carolina team (either North or South) on Friday. It's State's first trip back to the CWS since 1998. And for a fanbase that knows a thing or two about adversity, it's pretty freaking sweet.

The TB is resistant to antibiotics, but not irony.

Not to make light of the plight of the infamous traveling TB lawyer, the dozens of nervous fellow travelers, and the boneheaded border agents, but the situation is chock full of all sorts of irony. First, his new father-in-law studies TB at the CDC. That should make for some interesting conversations when he's home for the holidays. There's the fact that everyone knew about the disease before he left for Europe (but good luck convincing a good Southern girl that her special day might not go off perfectly due to some little antibiotic resistant TB- after all, this would make a lousy wedding photo). Then, there's this:

Legal scholars say Mr. Speaker could be sued by fellow airline passengers, especially if any caught the disease from him

What kind of law does he practice? Personal injury.


And now, apropos of absolutely nothing, enjoy this epic tantrum from the manager of the Mississippi Braves (which mysteriously can't be embedded on here). The rosin bag/grenade bit is a piece of improvisational genius. Admit it. You wish you could do this at your job (and get applause for it instead of being escorted away in cuffs).