The Tigers are at it again, and things are looking bright after the first day of NCAA Baseball play . The Tigers, ranked as high as 13th in some polls, and as low as 23rd by Baseball America, are looking forward to another good season, and maybe a return to the CWS. The polls are split on who in the ACC will be contenders but you can definitely expect North Carolina, Miami and FSU , among others, to be tough this year. As usual, the chickens in Columbia are ranked higher than Clemson and will soon start the smack talking, though this is the one sport they usually fare well in.
After having their season opener against Mercer canceled due to inclement weather (or the threat of it) Friday evening, the Tigers played a double header on Saturday in a great start for the Tigers in 2008. The first game went to the Tigers in a 12-5 showing where returning starter Doug Hogan went 3/4 with a two run homer in the game. Starter Ryan Hinson got the win, going for 5 innings in good form, allowing just 2 runs off of 5 hits, and 3 walks while striking out 4. In other good news, Stan Widmann, who was drafted by the Oakland A's in the 39th round has returned to form after sitting out most of the 2007 season with an injury. He singled to bring in Clemson's first run of the season.
In Game 2 returning starter and former outfielder DJ Mitchell had a very shaky start but got the win, going 5 innings and allowing 3 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks while striking out 4. Clemson scored 6 runs in the first three innings and cruised to a 6-5 victory with closer Matt Vaughn picking up his first save of the year. Perhaps the biggest story of the day is freshman Chris Epps, a right fielder from Stone Mountain GA ( Dunwoody HS). Epps went 3/3 with 2 runs and 1 RBI in game 1, and 2/4 with a two run homer in the 3rd inning of game two. That put him 5/7 on the day. Definitely a bright spot on the roster, if you ask me.
Look forward to more weekly updates on the baseball scene each Sunday.
In other news:
It's time for DFIG's annual fantasy baseball league to begin. It'll be conducted under the same rules as last year and hosted by Fantasy on Yahoo! Sports, as usual and the league will be open to all of our readers. We request that everyone name their team based on the name by which you post on the site so we can keep track of everyone. We also request that if you're not going to keep up with your team please don't bother registering one. We had several teams last year that ended up not playing past week 2, which resulted in nearly a third of all games for everyone else being easy wins, which really sucked when it got to the end of the year. The preliminary date for the live online draft is March 9th at 2pm, so try to get your teams in before then. We'll start play and draft when we get enough teams. The draft date and time is up for suggestions as well since we can change it. Sign up now with the following info:
League ID: 122123
Password: HDDVD
In still other news, the HDDVD format has officially lost the war to BluRay (damn you Sony). While I'm happy that I refrained from buying an HD DVD player before its demise, I'm sad that this format war was not in the end decided by the porn industry. They've lost their hold on it...
One quick recommendation though, is Penn and Teller's BullShit. It's a show they've been producing on Showtime for the last 5 years. I recently downloaded the fifth season and it is absolutely awesome. That is, if you like to see every popular myth and hippie/liberal cause debunked with very convincing evidence. They have departed from magic in this show and showcase their atheistic, libertarian points of view while attacking some of the most crackpot causes in America with humor and cynicism. This season the targets ranged from Wal-Mart, the ADA , Nuclear Regulation, and my favorite episode: Breast Hysteria, where they argue that women should be allowed to walk around topless wherever men are. I'm not a libertarian, but these guys are great. Check them out. Here's part of an episode they did on PETA, brilliant.
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