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.

Oops ! Turns out UTEP doesn't have baseball. Make that 5 cities

The Mountain West seems like a good conference for baseball fans. In addition to college teams five members are in cities that have pro teams as well. A baseball fanatic can potentially see both college + pro ball on the same trip.

Contrast that with the Big West, whose members can at best claim proximity to the Dodgers, but nothing in their cities.

I've been to Reno. Football stadium just looked a lot bigger, not especially impressive. Saw some of their players wandering around outside. The baseball stadium basically looks like an older and less-maintained version of Dobbins if it had lights + more trees.

One thing I took away was that although you can fairly easily walk to UNR from the Row (the row of hotels that includes Circus Circus), it is still quite a hike to get to the student store to pick up a souvenir.

San Jose State is a typical CSU commuter-type campus. Not much to see there or in the surrounding neighborhood. The football stadium is off-campus, old and pretty plain-looking. It's down E.Alma Ave, which is a crappy place to be walking any time of the day. Seriously just don't walk there-that street is even missing some sidewalks.

Baseball plays at San Jose Municipal Stadium, which is a few additional blocks down E. Alma. It's been around since the 1940's + is alright for Single-A baseball, but if you're not an SF Giants fan and are just there to see college baseball it can be kind of a lame experience. As far as I know they do not have the unique promotions like the "beer batter" at Spartans games. They're just basically there.

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

It's fine if the MW
baseball competition isn't as strong. No more Cal State Nowhere or UC Armpit.

UCD has been in over its head in Big West baseball, to the point that I lose a good deal of interest once the conference season starts. Wyoming does not sponsor baseball so there's an odd # of teams. Perhaps that will provide a weekend every year to play a real series against Sac State, no more of these crappy Tuesday bullpen games. Their best vs. UCD's.

Oh well, if they had to do something to get the tickets there's a potential problem I don't think if I had to do more than just show up, pay a nominal fee ($1 I think it was), show my reg card that I would've attended any of the football + basketball playoff games as a student.

In any case it wasn't Plough's place to call out people for not attending. Encourage more people to show up: don't criticize them.

Students had to pay to get into the playoff football game, didn't they ? If so, there's a partial answer right there. It doesn't seem like the cost of a discounted student would be that much of an impediment but it could be. Imagine you are told you must now pay to see a sport you weren't passionate about to begin with. Still want to go ?

Basketball admission would have been free for those same students since it was a regular season game.

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

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 ?

Edited to add the three Sac State games.

I guess I need to change my username.

I remember someone, probably abridge, saying the lights were purchased prior to the season by the ownership group and were en route but stuck somewhere. Perhaps they finally arrived ?

The procurement of lights may be part of their lease agreement.

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.

It must be nice to have the luxury (time + money) of flying to random cities to watch UCD athletics.

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SEMO sounds like Elmo's (from Sesame Street) brother who teaches kids to respect those who wear eyeglasses.
I

That's going to have some interesting implications on athletics. First of all there will be no more "Keelhaulers", unless they're tired of the Mustangs. Get your Keelhaulers merchandise while you still can.

Next, most of the prospective CSU Maritime athletes would lose their spots with their redundant programs eliminated, and most likely they won't have the athletic talent to compete for spots at the D-I level. Those NAIA spots will just vanish.

Maybe their sailing, crew, and rugby teams will survive in Vallejo, as SLO doesn't currently sponsor those. Or SLO may just shutter those, as they would represent a big increase to their athletics budget.

Were you referring to Buster Posey ? He's the president of baseball operations- GM reports to him. The Giants' new GM Zack Minasian has even less playing experience than Fenstermaker. Apparently he had a pretty tough PT HS job working odd hours in the clubhouses for the Rangers. He probably didn't play in HS + definitely didn't play in college.

I didn't know about Dan Feinstein. If they ever make a Moneyball 2 maybe Jonah Hill can play him too lol.

Sig Mejdal is another Aggie who holds the assistant GM position-with the Orioles. Used to work for NASA but ccording to Wikipedia he never even played above little league. The common thread here seems to be that if you want to be a baseball GM or AGM you can't be a great college or pro player.