Sons of Bart Brush Preview Spectacular

SoBB recently notched its 10,000th hit. (It's true! Check the counter!) After realizing that Brian, Faiz and I really could've accounted for but so many of these, I'm pretty floored by this fact. Thanks to everyone for stopping by and spreading the word about the site. Most importantly, continued thanks to the Harvard baseball team for fighting the good fight and making my time here a lot more enjoyable.

In order to properly commemorate SoBB 10K, celebrate the one-year anniversary of the site and get ready for an exciting new season of Harvard baseball, we've done something a little different. Hit the comment button and let us know how the preview below works on your machine. This is new technology to us, and the feedback is very useful.

With that, we unleash Coach Walsh upon an unsuspecting world:

Levelling the playing field a bit?

As many of you know, Harvard baseball tends to get off to a late start compared to the rest of the country. There are some obvious reasons.


A reliable informant points us to this news of a change in the NCAA baseball start date effective in 2008. We're talking late February from then on, with the 2008 start date set at February 22. (Florida, this year's first Harvard opponent, has been playing games since February 10; Harvard plays its first games this year the weekend of March 12).

One of many gaps between Harvard and the cream of the college baseball crop, true, but something that could ultimately make a difference given how vast an advantage playing a full additional month would seem to be.

In other news, Shawn Haviland has been named to the Northeast Baseball Review Preseason All-Northeast Corridor Second Team . Paul Christian (Brown) is listed on the first team.

Captain Morgan, True Scholar-Athlete

Congratulations to shortstop and captain Morgan Brown, recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship to do research in India after graduation. Morgan was one of eight student recipients at Harvard College.

Official spring practices start...

According to The Crimson. With national title contender Florida (the 2005 runner-up) first up on the schedule, it seems sophomore Matt Vance has wasted no time in providing the Gators with bulletin board material:

“That should be interesting,” Harvard sophomore Matt Vance said. “We’re hoping to take one if not two.”

And later...

“We’re all pretty confident,” Vance said. “We plan on [Florida] maybe not coming out as hard as they can.”

Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, Alex McPhillips also reports that the team's traditional practice facility in Palmer-Dixon is being re-floored, leaving the team to practice in other venues like past favorite Lavietes Pavilion. The article also mentions the arrival of Todd Carroll ("Tom" in the article) in addition to Tom LoRicco. Carroll will serve as a volunteer assistant coach and bullpen catcher. We're guessing he's the same Todd Carroll who has recently served as an assistant coach at UMass and Salem Community College. Here is Todd's Salem bio:

Coach Carroll enters second year as assistant for the SCC baseball team. During the summer months, he helps coach the Mill City All-Americans of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Coach Carroll’s experiences as a player at the JUCO and four-year level brings added knowledge to the SCC staff.

Coach Carroll’s foremost responsibilities are working with the pitchers and catchers. Coach Carroll did a wonderful job last season with the pitchers and catchers, with the pitching staff having a team ERA of 3.50 and the catchers throwing out an outstanding 60% of base runners. He also oversees the pitchers’ conditioning and weightlifting programs.

Coach Carroll is a native of Burlington, Massachusetts. He credits Jim Curtin, Dave Bettencourt, Mark Bettencourt, and Bobby Powers as his coaching mentors. Carroll currently resides in Pennsville.

Seems to pretty much fit the mold of a Walsh guy.