Honestly I'm not invested enough in UCD athletics to know where they do succeed, but I will say there a couple of important questions that I think determine the community impact.

Are the student-athletes good role models ?

Does the program give back to the community ?

Is the program welcoming and accessible to everyone ?

Each sport has its own marks here. For example, I would've graded the baseball team down on the role model question in previous years due to the hazing.

Similarly I would grade field hockey down for accessibility. This is not the fault of the players or coaches, but is a result of the facility not being very fan-friendly. First you're having to trudge out near the cow barns where you get hit with cow smell. And when you get there where do you even sit ? Maybe they have some bleachers during the season but I didn't see any when I happened by it in June. If it's bring your own seating, sit out with the cows then this isn't very accessible. Who would want to go so badly they would bring their own chairs, food, and watch through a gate ? Family only I imagine.


I mean if you're donating money to the university or spending money there and even a penny is being used for field hockey then you have a right to go see their regular season contests and not feel like an unwelcome intruder. Not that I want to see their matches, but I would like to if I wanted to. Millions of dollars being spent on a niche sport.

I think it's more valid to evaluate how the athletics programs are serving the needs of the student-athletes and the community than national performance rankings. Unfortunately the former is not easily measured by statistics and the latter is what people use instead. Only some colleges can be winners, but are the non-winners losers by virtue of their records. I think it's pretty subjective.

After great imaginary conversations with UC Davis staff I feel blessed to announce my commitment to continue announcing schools that have offered me football scholarships.

I would like to see some of these players eschew the canned humility messages and tweet something like, "Hey another university just acknowledged that I am good at football" #fakecollegeherestrong

This stuff reminds me of "Bull Durham" when Crash Davis gives Nuke Laloosh (sp?) the exact statements to regurgitate to reporters.

I had wondered why Kaden Hogan's name sounded familiar when I saw it on the roster. I actually saw him play in 2019 when Long Beach State played the Aggies in Davis. Hogan was the third baseman for the Dirtbags that day. It's pretty rare that I see a player BEFORE they come to UCD, much less one who transfers and plays a completely different position when he gets there. I don't think he had even pitched collegiately before this year. And here he is now beating UCLA. Quite an accomplishment for him and for Coach Thornton.

Aggies win 8-0 to take the series from Cal Poly ! Two shutouts this weekend.

Kaden Hogan pitched 5 efficient innings in his first start while Alejandro Huezo, Nathan Peng, and Danny Carrion slammed the door. They only allowed three hits

Leighton Helfrick and Jack Gallagher had the biggest hits. Helfrick had a bases-loaded double in the first and Gallagher went 3 for 4 with a double, his 11th homerun, and 4 RBI.

The Aggies have a 17-26 record with just 11 games left in the season. There are single games against Sac State and USF, as well as weekend series against Hawaii, UCI, and Long Beach State-the middle teams in the Big West this year. Although they have 11 more wins than last year it is still mathematically possible to lose more games. Twenty wins or more seems very possible at this point, and that's more than they got in an average season under the previous regime.

Wow ! Bryan Green and Danny Carrion combined to shut out Cal Poly 1-0.

What is also interesting is that Bryan Green (now 5-1) got his first decision since 3/17. That's six strsight starts without a win or a loss.

Lol, yeah, no excuse for that. How'd this guy get into UCD anyway ?

As someone who has been detained as a potential suspect by police for simply walking- because some nosy person driving past thought I looked suspicious I have my own axe to grind with "good neighbors". My experience and opinion I believe is no less valid just because others may not agree. Do they mention how many people they questioned who had done nothing wrong ? If you throw stones randomly around in any community gathering you're going to hit some people with police records. I would be surprised if they didn't.

Glad they caught the guy though. Probably wouldn't have made much of a doctor since he didn't have the good sense to get the heck out of Dodge once he committed either of the first two murders. He had a bike, go to Woodland. Lots of sketchy types there, easier to blend in. Also he could have probably lived in/behind that old Mervyn's where they refused to take down the sign years after the company went out of business. Just saying-the Woodland Mall is practically a ghost town and he doesn't seem too bright, if indeed he committed the murders he's not too bright.

Queue the "He's a victim and had mental issues. The man needs treatment not jail time," music. A That's a jab at society, not you by the way.

The description of the suspect is kind of vague. There could have been a lot of short men with curly hair going out jogging in the last couple of weeks and therefore wearing Addidas pants being reported to the police. Nosy paranoid people calling the police over anything.

The Aggies just defeated UOP 8-1. Avery balanced team effort. Eight players had hits, and the one who didn't still drove in a run. Six of the eight had two hits.
Four of the 5 pitchers did not allow a run.

I was surprised to see Alejandro Huezo pitch, as he is a starter, but sometimes starting pitchers will make an appearance in relief in lieu of their scheduled bullpen days. His two scoreless innings included three strikeouts. Nate Freeman got the win in relief. Good for him; wins have eluded him mostly this year. Freshman Zach Romero turned in 3 scoreless innings for another succesful Tuesday opener gig.

I like how Nicholson continues to get work for everyone on the staff. He doesn't have any way of knowing what his staff will look like next year but he'll have plenty of pitchers with significant game experience.

This is important because he has a few key pitchers who may be graduating this year. Nathan Peng is a senior and Kaden Hogan (the pitching hero of the UCLA win) is in his fifth year of college. Danny Carrion and Kaden Riccomin, and Nate Freemani are listed as juniors, but they are in their fourth sessons with the team..

Other players in their fourth or fifth college years are catcher/DH James Williams III (fifth), utility player Nick Iverson, first baseman Theo Forshey, second baseman Alex Gouveia,and catcher Jack Gallagher.
However, Forshey, Gouveia, and Gallagher are JC transfers so they are probably on the five-year plan. It would be highly unusual for a JC player to transfer to a 4 year college and graduate in 1 year. Junior colleges typically don't offer the upper division courses you need to finish your degree.

In light of the recent stabbings in Davis I am probably calling it a sesson as to attending these games. While the games are perfectly safe the prospect of leaving in the late afternoon on the weekend while the campus is not so busy does not seem so safe at present.

In a place like Davis two murders in a short time are probably the work of 1 person.

I think unfortunately compassion may have lead to the undoing of Compassion Guy, not his own but the so-called compassion that drives this overly permissive attitude in society. People who are dangerous and batcrap crazy are allowed to wander around free as you please while people who rhetorically defend them can do so because they are never really tested on their social media courage. And so the crazies are allowed to walk around killing people because locking them up is not compassionate. I guess the lives of innocents are a small price to pay for knowing people's delicate feelings will be spared, right ? And I don't care who's offended by my choice of words either. Crazy is crazy.

I think movielover is probably not far off-the killer is probably a homeless drifter off his meds and off his rocker. This may be grasping at straws here, but the victims were a man who frequented a popular bench and a young man in a park. A park and a bench across from a park, what do they have in common ? They are places homeless would frequent. Could these have been the result of a territory dispute ? A crazy guy resented a student being in "his" park ?

I don't know but I remember seeing him almost every time I came to Davis. Don't think I saw him this year, but probably last year.

I remember "The Compassion Guy" from several visits to Davis, always sitting on the colorful bench across the street from the park. I recall having some pleasant brief interactions with him.

Well I am disappointed with this signing. No one from Iceland was available ?

The Aggies took two of three from Riverside, winning 11-6 today. They should have had a sweep but in the middle game the blind old fool of an umpire blew a call at the plate that squashed an early UCD rally. Riverside used 5 pitchers just to get through the 4th inning.

With their 14th win the Aggies (14-21) tied their win total from 2021, the last one under Vaughn. Mathematically the 2023 version will already finish with a better winning percentage than the 2021 version because that team went 14-43 and there are only 19 games remaining this year.

Five more wins would tie 2019's record, but that team only played 50 games. Three more would tie 2016, but that team played fewer games.

UOP is up next. They are 12-25 but they just won a series from Pepperdine. What has happened to the Waves ? That is a school that doesn't need light to recruit for baseball if there ever were one.

The BBCOR bats are used in all high school and college programs now. They are aluminum but are designed to be as much like wood as possible to reduce the exit speed of the baseball when it is struck. They introduced these in the 2011 season and the Aggies struggled with them as a team that season. You could say they struggled with them in 2012 too but I don't know how much of that was adjusting to the bats and how much was losing key hitters (especially Scott Lyman) from 2011.

Of course now players have adjusted to the BBCOR bats so it's become a non-factor. Professional players have no problems with wooden bats because of their skill levels.

I don't know but they really seemed to deaden contact a lot the first year. They brought in the new bats because some HS kid wound up in the hospital for taking a hard line drive. He recovered I heard. I just call that baseball. Still the offense is pretty crazy now that players have adapted.

The Aggies beat UCR 13-11. Very sloppy game. Lots of walks made this closer than it should have been.

On the plus side Alex Gouveia had three hits and a homerun. Jack Gallagher hit two more homers. He's leading the team by a wide margin despite the fact he's only batting .188. Six more RBI too.

Something I've noticed-I think our starting pitchers (Green + Delaney most likely, but I don't know about Huezo) are being limited to about 65-70 pitches. I don't know if that's to preserve their health or if analytics show they're just not as effective. UCD does have an analytics nerd among their coaches .
so this would not surprise me.

This marks the 13th win for the Aggies. That number is significant because it means they have increased their win total over 116% from last year. Coincidentally the last Aggie team to beat UCLA (2009) won exactly 13 games. I would argue though that the 2009 team had more pitching and less hitting.

Yeah Rex Peters' spouse is J.T. Snow's sister. I believe he left UCD to be closer to his family as Peters is from Southern CA. Unfortunately after a playoff appearance in 2008 the program went backwards. The 2009 team had promise as they beat UCLA in the first week but they had a lot of trouble gelling as a team. There was a little resurgence in 2010 but in 2011 they introduced the new bats that sapped the Aggie offense and they went backwards again. I think if the team had played better that would have motivated him to stay longer. I heard that part of the reason they hired Vaughn to replace him was that he informed the university he was about to split.

There is in the WAC but it doesn't apply to non-conference play, which is why the Aggies were able to score 20 against Utah Valley.

I think a mercy rule should apply universally in college baseball under certain circumstances:

1. If it is the last game of a series. The 31-6 game was on a Sunday.

2. If it is a mid-week game.

3. If it is either game of a doubleheader, regardless of whether or not the host facilty has lights.

4 If either team is winning by 10 runs or more after 8 innings. The WAC does 7 but I say give people their money's worth and avoid the garbage inning where either team pitches the guy who would scarcely pitch in any meaninful scenario and gives up six runs.

The unifying idea here is that student-athletes need to get home, study, and get to sleep. They're not professionals who have nothing else to do.