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When did the Big West start a tournament???

Is Dobbins using the lights provided by the Pioneer League? I hate John Fisher as an A's fan but I'm glad that if nothing else, lights will make the team more competitive.

The Big West tournament was announced a couple of years ago but 2025 is the first season of it.

I would assume that's how they got the lights. I will have to see them for myself to believe it. There's still the possibility Dobbins doesn't have them yet but Nicholson + staff are scheduling gametimes in anticipation of them.

As far as the A's are concerned I've purposefully skipped their games since May 2021, and I will skip the Sacramento version too.

Edited to add the three Sac State games.

Baseball/Soccer lights project: https://dcm.ucdavis.edu/projects/baseball-soccer-lighting

That document might be slightly outdated as Rocko DeLuca indicated in the Davis Enterprise article about the High Wheelers moving that construction was already underway. It's from just a few days ago.

DeLuca further stated that UCD has started the process of installing lights at the stadium, which should be ready in time for the start of the 2025 Aggie baseball season.

Perhaps baseball will be ready in Feb + soccer in March ?

this will be useful. Next they will need a clubhouse but lights is obviously the first thing on the list. Plus May can sometimes get hot. Of course, soccer having lights will be big for them too. It can get darker later in the season.

I think being able to play games that aren't scorching hot is a big deal for both baseball and soccer and their fans as well. Later games should bring better crowds. No one wants to sit on aluminum seats in 90-100+ temperatures. I've broiled in the full sun at a few Giants games in the past when the temperature was only in the low 80's!

Added the 2 games vs UOP + Nevada, and 3 against Santa Clara + UCSB

The lights the Yolo High Wheelers attempted were failures. But there was a contract in place in which the team was to provide the lights. They've left but there is that contract that says . . . what?

We sat in the bleachers for 100+ degree games and it really stunk.

I can imagine ! Did you wind up hosting a player ?

To be honest I didn't really think much of the Pioneer League in its current form as an independent league.

These are not players competing for a major league job; they're competing for a job on a real minor league team (a waiting list to be on the waiting list to be on several more waiting lists), so that diminishes some of the excitement right there.

If it were purely a second-chance league for released pro players or undrafted college stars only instead of just a mix of whatever that would have been of more interest. However, to my knowledge the High Wheelers only had one player who ever played in the affiliated minor leagues. A lot of the college players either weren't that great in college or they were great but toiled in anonymity for small programs. Not a lot of name recognition. I recognized only 3 of the High Wheelers players. Two of them pitched against the Aggies in Davis, and the 3rd was an Aggie. Andrew LaCour did a great job for the High Wheelers, but he didn't pitch so well for UCD. I thought he showed promise as a freshman, but Matt Vaughn's tendency to yank relief pitchers as soon as they walked somebody really hurt his development.

I also think the games would have been more enjoyable if there had been better pitching and defense. They were way out of control. Dozens of cheap homers is not a good look for Dobbins.

Updated Schedule to include the Hawaii, Cal State Bakersfield, Cal Poly schedules.

I see the lighting standards are arriving. the first couple are already on site. I’ll be interested to see the configuration. Can’t wait for some night college baseball at Dobbins.

We did not. We had a family reunion in Minnesota and decided to drive so we were gone three weeks. I understand the players for the Oakland Ballers had awful accommodations early on - highly unsafe location.

I enjoyed the baseball we were able to see. We watched many of the road games on TV. There are some really nice ballparks out there courtesy of the the realignment of the minor leagues. Thanks MLB. Sigh.

Well to be fair there were too many levels of the minor leagues and teams, so some reallignment was neede.. If you had a hs player who wasn't a first-rounder he would probably be 23-24 at the youngest by the time he got to the majors, and that's assuming he didn't repeat any levels (Rookie/Complex League, Short-A, Low-A, High-A, Double-A, Triple-A.. Lots of time to get hurt and lose their potential. Short-A, in which some of the current Pioneer League teams were classified when they were affiliated (Others at the Rookie but not Complex. It's level) seemed like an unnecessary step to me. It was primarily intended to get college players into games their draft year, but now that they are just being sent to the complex leagues to get minimal reps that classification is obsolete.

MLB wanted to make sure teams could choose affiliates offering the best facilities for their players so they established the new standards. Of the Pioneer League teams I know Glacier (which never had an affiliation) has a top-notch stadium. So do the Ogden Raptors (formerly a Dodgers affiliate).

I just noticed a couple of former Aggies signed contracts with Pioneer League teams: P Brett Erwin with the Ogden Raptors and C Michael Campagna with the Yuba-Sutter High Wheelers . According to the league transaction page.

Yuba-Sutter High Wheelers-how stupid ! They're just too lazy and cheap to come up with a new team name. What a joke of an organization.

Both of them finished their college careers elsewher. Erwin played for Maine (as a grad student only I believe.) Campagna left for San Francisco. He left a team with hazing issues to one where the initial set of coaches collectively provided verbal abuse +some sexual harrassment for the team. Way to pick college baseball programs Mike !

Andrew LaCour also re-signed with the High Wheelers.