COMINGS AND GOINGS AND EVEN SOME BASEBALL BITS

After weekends with Devils in the desert, (Arizona State in Tempe) and Angels in Blair Field (Saint Mary’s), college baseball gets real serious this weekend when Long Beach State takes on recently-suffering but perennially-powerful Southern California.

Standing proud at 5-1, the Niners go to SC after having to come from behind twice to sweep the Gaels in their home opener but without the heart of their offense Sean Boatright and Troy Tulowitzki. Boats sunk to his knees with a bad hamstring at ASU and last Saturday a freak hand injury led Tulo to the training room for as much as a month. “If there is anything good about this” one insider noted, “these things are coming early.” And he might add, there is a pretty impressive set of spare parts in the Dirtbag dugout.

One good place to see that is the stat sheet where 17 different players have contributed on offense, ten pitchers on defense, nine Niners have stolen bases and several are newcomers coming up large. On Sunday Tom Sarti, who did not even make the traveling squad to Arizona went 2-4 and drove in three runs and stole a base, the trademark of Dirtbag baseball.

The Trojans brain-trust, who played their first game on Tuesday, spent the weekend in the bleachers at Blair filling up a couple of notebooks. They know all about the Friday night ace of the Beach pitchers, Cesar Ramos, and will send their best arm, Ian Kennedy, against him. Both men were on the USA team last season. Kennedy fanned 40 in 26 innings with the USA squad so expect more radar guns Friday night than at a CHP convention. Games are Friday at 6:30 down there, Saturday at 2 here and Sunday back at USC.

DIAMOND KING DUST--The No. 19-ranked Long Beach State softball team improved to 4-1 on the season last weekend and play at Stanford this weekend. The Beach is one of only eight schools around the nation to be ranked in the Top 20 in both softball and baseball. The others are big buck programs at LSU, Texas, Stanford, Washington, Georgia, Florida State and Arizona

Just like the spare parts that the baseball bunch has to call upon, chats with insiders on Super Sunday expect more people moving around the Beach in the near future.

The latest announcement came from baseball booster Jimmy Mac, wearing Philadelphia Eagle green at the lively party at Coach’s Sports Grill who will move to Las Vegas after the season. The game was good but the party was even better since Stan Anderson has added lobster to the menu on weekends so I could pass on the hot dogs and chicken wings. Beyond the coming and goings of friends and alums, you can also look for movements inside the org chart of 49erville, with repercussions beyond even that hot topic of men’s basketball.

Speaking of hoops, with only three wins this season you can understand why teams losing to LB, such as Idaho a couple of weeks ago, can get upset. After Larry’s lads beat them the Vandals lived up to their name. Upset with the upset they put their sneakers to the music cases of the Niner pep band and caused several hundred dollars in damage..



Last add anger management, you might have read that former LBSU coach Seth Greenberg’s Virginia Tech team was killed at Duke and he was ejected with his second technical foul. He refused to comment specifically about the officiating after the game…"I feel bad for my wife and daughters because obviously I embarrassed them and that's not something I wanted to happen," Greenberg said of the ejection. "I'll say this. I did not use profanity, until I was tossed." Timing is everything Seth and I know the understanding Dr. Jerry Buss is waiting for your resume—DR. DAN