Well...I guess ESPN has been so impressed with RMN's Illinois Week coverage that it has decided to move the game back to 7:30pm instead of 6:45. That's the only explanation. The Trib has a nice look back at the 2008 Mizzou Baseball season.
Missouri found ways to fight through with a sputtering offense in the middle of the season. Defensive miscues, most prominently at the Big 12 Championship, caused more headaches. But there was no relief from the bullpen woes.
And that is why the Tigers fell short of their goals.
"Expectations come from two directions, external and internal," Missouri Coach Tim Jamieson said. "I think the expectations of the players and the coaching staff was to give ourselves a chance to go all the way to Omaha."
Also, be sure to vote for Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, and Freshman of the Year over at SimmonsField.com. Meanwhile, the Missourian profiles Kyle Gibson who's apparently in need of a few more peanut butter smoothies. Mmm...
In a March telephone interview, Baseball America’s Aaron Fitt summed up the consensus on Gibson by saying, "He’s a guy you can dream on a little bit."
Scouts picture the slender right-hander adding 15-20 more pounds and, more importantly, 5 more mph to his already effective low 90s fastball.
The scouts aren’t the only ones dreaming. While MLB has been riddled with controversy over people trying to gain the upper hand with steroids, Gibson is banking on toaster strudels and popcorn shrimp to add a little extra zip to his fastball and to enhance his durability. Though he’ll be drafted highly whether he ever gains another pound or not, he stands to make more money than he would if he already weighed what most 6-foot-5 pitchers do. If Gibson were drafted today, he’d be the lightest collegiate right-hander taller than 6-foot-4 selected in the first round since 2003.
Mizzourah has another CrowTracker 5000 update. Should be interesting to see where he ends up. Also, Crow is paired with a couple of St. Louis-area high school pitchers in a Post-Dispatch MLB draft preview. (The article also talks about the draft prospects of Mizzou signee Connor Mach, Kyle's brother.) Oh yeah, and former Tiger Ian Kinsler has a 19-game hitting streak. I had no idea. Granted, it's only the second-best current streak among Ranger middle infielders, but it's impressive. Okay, back to football...here's a smattering of Mizzou-related rivals.com recruiting stories: KS LB Marshall Musil has Mizzou in mind but is keeping his options open, Ronnie Wingo visits Nebraska (I don't think they become a major player for him), Nathan Scheelhaase visits Ole Miss (we do NOT recruit well against Houston Nutt...I think the Rebs might end up at/near the top of his list), Montee Ball visits Wisconsin (think he's got at least a small case of Big Ten-itis, and Wisconsin could steal him). Finally, this is 1000000% unrelated to Mizzou...but with the Belmont Stakes coming up this Saturday, I got to playing around on YouTube yesterday, and...once again, YouTube is the greatest invention in the history of the world. YouTube, cashew butter, and Tecmo Bowl, in that order. 2004 Belmont Stakes (Smarty Jones gets pushed early and runs out of gas)
And of course...the 1973 Belmont Stakes (It was still a bit silly, I guess, for ESPN to put a horse on their Sports Century list a while ago, but...keep in mind that Sham was a really good horse, and when the jockey tells Secretariat to go...yeah, he gains like 15 lengths in 8 seconds.