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How Tough Is Your Dad?

Feb 28, 2006
There is an amazing story about how Roger Clemens came to throw live pitches for the Houston Astros to get them ready for Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic. Clemens was doing fine until his son Koby, who's in the minor league system for the Astro's, came up to the plate and crushed the first pitch he saw from his dad over the left field fence.

The next time that Koby got up to bat, things changed drastically. Instead of Roger challenging him up, he did what every good dad would do in that situation: throw a 90+ mph fastball at his kid's head.



I have to say though, if I was a former MVP, six time Cy Young winner, and held the major league record for two 20 strikeout games, I'm pretty sure that I'd throw at my son's head as well. It's just baseball mentality, and at that level, his son should've expected nothing less.

Full article can be found here.
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Good Things About Facebook?

Feb 23, 2006
I'm not sure how many of you know this, but I'm not a huge facebook fan. It just really doesn't do it for me. Maybe I don't like all of the superficial people on there, and maybe it's just somethin' else .... like that damn email I got from Mark Zuckerberg.

Anyways, in the past 24 hours, it has shown me some relevance. When are trip to Texas was cancelled, I called my buddy Ehlers down in North Texas. Erica gave me the wrong number, and go figure, he put it on Facebook, and I was able to get a hold of him.

Here's the most exciting news. I get home from baseball tonight, and CVK invites me to his new Aleks Maric page. Me being the type of person that cares more about everything around the site instead of the site itself, I noticed the ad on the left hand side. It was a link to a new web site that I created for yearoneunl:



This is nice publicity for me since there are 36,000 UNL facebook hits a day, but the only bad thing is that my name is not credited on the site (since I'm working for Student Involvement).

We are also in the plans for advertising later in the month for the Big Event. So every time that you go on facebook now, start checking out the links on the left hand side .... you just might know who created it.
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Another Reason To Hate Texas

Feb 22, 2006
The coach from UNT's Club Baseball team called and said they had too much water on the fields in Denton. This means that we won't be leaving tomorrow, and this also means that I seriously hate Texas even more than I did coming into this weekend.

So that really, really sucks. Big Time. Man .... I really hate Texas ....

On a positive note for baseball happenings: I sent my check into Clint the other day for the LABL. This means that April is right around the corner, and I'll have double teams and games from then until May.
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No Love For Ernie

Feb 21, 2006
Apparently the DN had a huge typo on the front page today. When this was pointed out to me, all I could think about was how Ben was not at practice last night, because he was the one who was responsible for outputting the DN ....

After I got home and talked to him, I found out it wasn't his problem, and there were numerous people who were looking at the image and caption late into the night that should've fixed the error.

By this point, you're probably wondering what the hell happened, so go ahead ... click on the image below to see the larger view, and be sure to read the caption closely:



Let's just hope the Charlotte Observer doesn't get ahold of this before Ben goes over there in June .... or lets just hope they don't read this blog as well.
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Happy Birthday Stinson

Feb 15, 2006
Hey Curtis, thanks for the 6-28 performance at the Hilton. It gave way to the best game that Maric will ever have, and it puts us ever much so closer to the dance.

With 20 or 20+ wins, will Barry still get the axe? Will we see big ol' Rick Majerus in the Husker Red and White next year?

I sure hope so. That'd be the best of both worlds. Just remember, we sent Solich packing when he was 9-3 ....
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Up, Up, and Away

Feb 9, 2006
Since Ben asked on the last post, I guess I can talk about the live auction now. When dad and I were at the Husker Baseball Banquet, our main job before the program started was to watch all of the live auction items and make sure that no one walked off with them. Not that they would, but I guess they just wanted to give us something to do. Our of these items, there included a signed bat by Erstad, signed jersey by the whole team, a baseball ring, a plane ride over Lincoln, and a nice Valentine's day package that included meals and all of that good stuff.

When the auction began for the free plane ride donated by the Duncan Family, my dad just kept bidding and bidding against someone else across the room. Finally, the only word that I could understand from the auctioneer was "sold" as he pointed to my dad in the back. Right as dad won it, I told him that he needed to call up Richard Duncan and tell him to be his pilot. Shortly after I got done saying that, dad told me that, that was my new job since the plane ride was for me.

I'm still stoked about this, and am really looking forward to it sometime once it gets a little warmer out. In addition to going to the meal and banquet for free, I was surprised with a very nice gift from dad. Here's what the 1941 Stearman looks like that I'll be taking my tour over Lincoln in:

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Dinner with Coach A

Feb 5, 2006
This last Friday, I was honored to be a guest of the Husker Home Run Club and be able to attend the annual Husker Baseball Banquet. It was quite an ordeal (450-500 people) and I was there for around 5 hours.

Highlights of the night:

Players seated at our table:
Brandon Buckman
Jesse Shriner

Best Speaker
Coach A (followed closely behind by Andy Sawyers). Coach A gets the nod because of his awesome recruiting stories.

Strangest Fact I Found Out:
Darin Erstad will donate thousands and thousands of dollars to the Home Run Club/Baseball Team, but he will never attend and talk because he hates public speaking. Needless to say, Erstad wasn't one of the past players in the audience.
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Recruiting Class '06

Feb 2, 2006
I really didn't pay too much attention this year with our recruiting class. Rivals.com put us around 20th, and I guess that's pretty good, just not as good as we did last year. The reason that I'm writing this is because of one recruit named Maurice Purify.



The name should sound familiar to Nebraska football fans. Colorado had a running back about 3 years ago named Bobby Purify. Purify was an awesome back, and roughed Nebraska up a couple of times.

I looked into this since I figured there couldn't be that many Purify's that are playing football at the collegiate level. It seems that Maurice is Bobby's uncle! How you might ask?

Maurice is 20. His older brother who is 40 had a kid (Bobby) when he was 16. Four years later, Maurice is born becoming Bobby's younger uncle.

Sure I know it's really strange and complex .... quite frankly, he's a 6'4" wide receiver that's ranked as one of the best in the JUCO last year. I don't care who or how he's related to anyone. I just want him to pull in 1000+ yards next year.
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