Oh no, not the Causeway Classic !!!: :rofl:

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is listening does it make a sound?.

Ring doorbell cameras are our conclusive evidence that sounds continue to happen when we're not home, and that sounds are not dependent on anyone hearing them

And let's tackle (that's a football word, so this is still slightly relevant to sports) the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first while we're at it. The answer depends somewhat on whether you believe in creation or evolution. If one believes in creation, then the chicken came first, and it laid the first egg as it was created to do. If one believes in evolution the egg came first. The first chicken would have been the genetically-mutated offspring of its evolutionary predecessor.

The chicken/egg question may have a 3rd answer if you are the president of Sacramento State University.

I'm not trying to speak for anyone else when I say I would rather not have known what Wood said, but your headline told me about it without having to read the post. Before seeing it I thought Wood was just a smug douchebag, and a nut job when it came to the school's sports program. Now I think he's a racist (one who frames his racism as merely "educating others") who preaches about racism-a hypocrite. I feel like I liked him better as just a nutty douchebag, so thank you for ruining that illusion.

Aside from that, I don't think the best way to deal with these sorts of things is always to give them a voice with discussion. It's like going on Reddit and complaining about the worst TV commercials. I never post. Some people have nasty and funny reactions, but It accomplishes nothing but giving the companies free advertising. As people like to say nowadays, Wood is living rent-free in the heads of people he agitates.

I don't need the rebuttal if I don't hear the argument.

Did I miss something ? Is this Hornettalk.com now ? Not that I object to talking about Sac State sports (even though the football projections are getting pretty stale) ; I just wonder why we need to care what Luke Wood has to say about anything, especially regarding education ? Movie, are you trying to build a grassroots campaign to get him removed so he doesn't poison other colleges ? Are you trying to round up a posse ? If so, that would be something good to mention.

I haven't ever seen Women's Water Polo, mainly because it was never an Aggie Pack event when I was a student, so I don't know if they played the same teams as the men. I do remember most of those teams being regularopponents in men's water polo.

Had I to do it over again I think I would have gone to fewer football, volleyball and baseball games, same # of basketball games, and tried a few more of the minor sports as a student. I went to a lacrosse match for the first time last year, and it was delightful. The crowd was so spread out no one bothered me at all. Even at Toomey Field or Aggie Soccer Field that would've been the case for lacrosse. As an added bonus I could've actually gotten to sit in the real seats at Toomey for once instead of having to stand for 2+ hours in the student bleachers where people had to stand the whole game to see because the buttholes in the front rows decided that for everyone else. Selfish douchebags.

So you think Title IX is a bigger factor ? That's a valid point. I was thinking that in the case of Title IX Mountain West schools would be more likely to eschew baseball rather than soccer. This is because on the surface fielding a soccer team appears less costly than having baseball (which six of the future 8 members have). Baseball has slightly bigger rosters, larger seating capacity stadiums, requires a number of specialized facilities to maintain (dugouts, batting cages, bullpens, etc.). Not to mention that the game ball is leaving the field of competition never to return several dozen times per game.

I was surprised though that more teams in the future Mountain West sponsor baseball than men's soccer, even though (at least at UCD), soccer seems to draw more college fans and appeals to a wider demographic. Six schools have baseball, but only 4 have men's soccer. The 4 that do not are UTEP, Wyoming, Hawaii, and New Mexico. UTEP and Wyoming sponsor neither sport. Hawaii was surprising

You know what's interesting-you just named two of the few college sports (or 3 if you consider beach volleyball unique from indoor) the population is decidedly more interested in seeing women compete in than men. Everyone has seen Olivia Dunne on TV for a couple of years now advertising minimal Vuori workout clothes, but I haven't seen (at least not recently) any ads featuring famous male gymnasts. As for why they're more popular I'm going to guess the crowds are boosted by men who attend with the singular purpose of seeing flying young female bodies. Not why I went to volleyball games-it was to earn that free Aggie Pack sweatshirt. They could've been playing chess, and I would've still shown up to swipe that card.

The Golden Coast Conference sounds like a collection of all the teams UCD used to play regularly when the school was Division II (WWPA?)

It would be nice if schools that sponsor men's and women's teams in the same sports or equivalent sports (such as baseball and softball) could have them compete in the same conferences, but funding can be a problem. Water polo seems like a no-brainer for this unless a school has a lack of facilities for dual competition. Soccer too. Are the Mountain West Conference schools so hard up for cash or available facilities that they can't sponsor men's soccer ?

There were seats in the student section. As of this photo they had been removed.

They don't have a lot of incentive to make the concessions much better. If you've come for the game they know you're trapped, and you will not only pay a premium price for a mediocre product, but you will also stand in ridiculous lines for it. Providing better products and hiring more (and better-trained) workers just eats into their potential profits. If attendance were a lot better maybe they would do something, but having better concessions doesn't draw more fans, it just increases the satisfaction of people already attending. Who goes to a baseball game with a purpose of eating hot dogs ? You can do that at home.

The boxes all over the floor will make it difficult to play basketball. This doesn't look like much of an upgrade.

According to Maxpreps.com, Reggie is also a running back for the Stevenson HS (Pebble Beach) HS football team. The website shows that he's so fast that he stole 32 bases in only 15 attempts a junior on the baseball team (assuming SBA standd for stolen bases attempted). One of those numbers is wrong. The point is that he's fast I guess.

Maxpreps shows that he hit .446 with 3 homeruns and 30 runs batted in as a junior. What is really pretty amazing is that in only. 72 career varsity games he's hit TEN triples ! The website doesn't say what position Reggie plays but an internet search says middle infielder.

Two good recruits. These two do not appear to be potential two-way players, as the pitching statistics are minimal.

Eli Burnham is a catcher from Davis HS. According to Maxpreps.com, he hit .410 with 4 homeruns and 21 runs batted in 31 games as a junior. Impressively he had more walks than strikeouts. More impressively he had zero fielding errors during the season.

Good to get a solid catching recruit. Riley Acosta graduated this year. I would normally say Ryan Lee (senior in 2026) would be the favorite to start, but he was used in a utility role in 2025 (more infield and outfield) while freshman Evan Gentil started quite a few games behind the plate. The only other catcher listed on the 2025 roster is Matteo Blandino, who I don't think played any games there this year. As a result, it's nice to add to the catching depth for 2026.

Kade Robertson is an outfielder from Amador Valley HS. According to Maxpreps.com he hit .316 with a homerun and 15 RBI in 26 games. On the basepaths he stole 8 bases and was not caught a single time. This suggests that he's maybe not the fastest baserunner, but certainly a very smart one. That will fit in very well at Davis. Only 1 fielding error committed by Robertson in 26 games.

Robertson was also hit by pitches in a little over 6% of his plate appearances-ouch ! Getting hit with pitches is also a big part of UC Davis' offense. The Aggies were plunked 82 times in 2025 through 56 games, after only 47 times in 2024 and 55 times in 2023. By comparison they were only hit 27 times in 2021 (Matt Vaughn's last season). I wonder if pitchers thought the COVID-19 social distancing rules applied to hitting people with baseballs ? The hit-by-pitch stats are from UCDAVISAGGIES.COM.

I've learned not to get too excited about high school baseball stats because they are largely irrelevant, but it's nice when they support the idea that UCD is getting solid recruits.

Have they finalized the destination for men's soccer ? I would have preferred UCD move to the WCC for everything, but understand that football was a biig factor in choosing the Mountain West.

This topic's as good of a place for it as any given there's not a lot of interest in baseball on this site.

Good catch by the way !

Here is what I've been able to find out:

Phinn (which I'm guessing is short for Phineas ?) is a 2026 recruit so we won't see him play for UCD until 2027 at the earliest.

His Maxpreps.com profile shows his playing stats, but doesn't explicitly state what positions he plays. We do know he is a pitcher, because Maxpreps shows him compiling a record of (10-1) with a 1.47 ERA and 2 saves with 37 walks and 73 strikeouts in 57 1/3 innings over 14 games (5 as a starting pitcher).

Just one thing to mention-in high school baseball (and any level of softball) they do not calculate Earned Run Average the same way as in college or the pros because they only play 7 innings. As a result, you multiply the number of earned runs by 7 instead of 9 before you divide by the number of innings pitched. The result is it deflates high school and softball pitchers' ERA's to make them look them more impressive, so you have to take high school ERA's with a grain of salt. Softball's calculation is fine because their games are pretty uniformly 7 innings at any level. Using the standard calculation Phinn's ERA this season would be 1.88, still very impressive. The difference of 0.41 earned runs per game equivalent seems insignificant but it makes a difference over a whole season when comparing apples.

It's not really clear what other position he plays. One site lists him as a shortstop, but the fielding stats suggest otherwise. Maxpreps.com shows that he only made two errors in 30 total games played. If we assume he played all 30 games in the field (including the 14 at pitcher), the only infielder who makes 2 errors in 16 or 30 games at the high school level (or in the pros) is maybe the first baseman. Anybody else is going to make significantly more. A shortstop who makes only 2 errors would have to be Superman, just the nature of the game. It's more believable for an outfielder, so I'm going to guess he's an outfielder (probably center field).

On the hitting side Maxpreps shows that in this past season he batted .466 with two homeruns, 46 runs batted in and 19 stolen bases. High school baseball stats are not a very accurate predictor of college success, but these are still very impressive.

In the past UCD has usually shifted two-way players to playing one or the other after 1-2 years of being on campus, but with the change to the Mountain West and smaller rosters I think there's an increased chance of him pitching and hitting in a role like Braydon Wooldridge's.

It's ridiculous for UCD to worry about what Sac State is doing in athletics. I would ten times rather see it eliminate athletics altogether (phasing them out gradually)than try to copy Sac State.

One major difference between the two is that if UCD got rid of all sports it would still have a top-notch university to attract community interest. On Picnic Day, of the thousands who attend, how many are there to see a sporting event ? Maybe a couple hundred if the baseball team is home that day, but they're just players' family members. The fact that a mere open house can attract that many visitors without sports shows UCD can bring in the community with creativity if it throws a quality party.. I do not care if Davis remains a sleepy city forever. Quiet can be good. Not every city needs to be like a Tik Tok hot pink vomit dance video.

I am not advocating for the elimination of sports, merely restraint in spending. Football doesn't pay for itself, and neither does basketball. How many billions of hypothetical donations and miracles will it take for the sports to be raised to insane level of national interest where UCD athletics is actually profitable ? Spend billions of other people's money to make millions (maybe). Consider that the alumni and greater community are already asked for so much just to keep the university in good shape. Do you think there is just an endless supply of deep-pocketed donors out there to support anything and everything UCD wants to do ? UCD doesn't exist in a vaccuum; it's not the only entity with its hand out. How many of us on this board are even in a position to give the type of huge donations it will need ? It's easy to talk about huge goals when it's other people's money. Some of you folks talk about improvements like you're CA politicians. Yeah, let's do that. Let someone else figure out how to pay for it.

On the other hand, Sac State desperately needs this huge risk to work out for them. It's a cookie-cutter CSU in a state with plenty of colleges. If they crash and burn with sports they have no other real way to bring in community support. Let them try to host their own Picnic Day equivalent and see if they draw more than a few people out walking their dogs.

Like The Ohio State ?

Well gee Doris and Kevin, don't do any of the real work you were elected to do, and instead focus on what is now little more than a pipe dream. How's that high-speed rail coming along ?

"We have a University [Sac State]…that is prepared as any in the country to move from FCS to FBS.” - Kevin Kiley

How ? A new football coach, a bunch of transfers and a president promising to build big things ? That's nothing new in Sacramento.

Sure. No problem.

From McCovey Chronicles:

The San Francisco Giants have signed 17 of their 18 selections in the 2025 MLB Draft, according to MLB.com’s draft tracker. Bay Area prep shortstop Elijah McNeal (Dublin High School) remains the lone unsigned Giants selection. Given his commitment to UC Davis and the Giants lack of pool space, it seems extremely unlikely that he will sign prior to next Monday’s deadline. Expect him to be competing for playing time with the Aggies this coming college baseball season.

His future UC Davis degree will bring him much more in the short-term after graduation than he would have received with a 20th round signing bonus.

The Giants have a bonus pool this year of $8.4 million. They have approximately$8.81 million in cap spending for their other picks. A team can exceed their pool by 5% without penalties, such as lost future draft picks, so the largest bonus they could give Elijah before the signing deadline would be $1,000.

I don't believe they have, but large event organizers, especially when it comes to sports, don't really seem to care. You've already spent your money on your ticket and need to eat, so they have you trapped in a manner of speaking. I mean, what are you going to do-skip the game and go home ? They're pure evil. They can charge whatever they want and make you wait and wait while minimally-trained staff take 5+ minutes to enter an order.. There's not much incentive to do better because hunger makes people desperate enough to endure it. You can fight the vendors a bit by eating your main course elsewhere, but they'll still get you on snacks and drinks.

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