A Couple Tuesday Quick Hitters

Getting back on track soon, but for now, here's a couple of tidbits to hold you over:

• One plus of the SEC-TV Merger is that now the coverage of SEC Baseball has about doubled. 46 games this year (up from 18 last year), including 5 Auburn games (vs Carolina 3/27; @ UA on 4/3; vs LSU 4/9 and 4/10; and @Vandy 4/18). The wording also enables outside broadcasts to pick up the games (meaning a couple of random CSS games, though unlikely, could happen). You can check out the full schedule here.
• Hunter Morris gets some love being named a Preseason All American.
• Up I-85, Coaching Legend Q V Lowe picked up his 900th win at AUM and his 1,000th career win. A huge deal, because as long as AUM has had a baseball team, they've had Q V Lowe to lead them. Lowe is both a legend at Auburn-Montgomery (where he's built the Senators into a NAIA power) but also an Auburn baseball legend. Lowe took Auburn to the 1967 College World Series as a Senior for the Tigers and holds two Tiger records: Best Career ERA (1.69) and Most Complete Games in a season (10 in his senior year). Reread that, Lowe pitched 10 complete games.
• I've yet to see it myself, but rumor has it that Plainsman Park is undergoing some minor changes with padding being put up along the K-Corner Wall (which will affect the K Corner Magnets) all the way down the outfield wall and along the Green Monster. Also going up (according to Coach Palowski at a team banquet) will be four numbers (but those have yet to be revealed)
• Remember the Strike Out Cancer 5K and Fan Day is Saturday.
• Tomorrow night before the Men's Basketball Game against Georgia, the Baseball team will be in Beard Eaves signing Autographs.

Also two of my favorite things collided when Auburn turned up on one of favorite blogs, Mental Floss, when they talked about 14 Quirky College Donations (With Strings Attached):

When Miss Eleanor Elizabeth Ritchey, granddaughter of the founder of the Quaker State Oil Refining Company, died in 1968, she left Auburn University a generous gift of $2.5 million. She also gave the school something a bit more unusual: the responsibility for 150 dogs. Ritchey, who owned a ranch in Florida and loved to adopt homeless dogs, made the large cash donation contingent on the school finding good homes for all 150 of her dogs. The cash was then earmarked for veterinary research.

Finally, and hopefully a new feature. Your Sig of the Week. I post on a ton of messageboards and everyone is always looking for unique signatures to use. So I figured, I'd make a couple, post them here and share the wealth. To start off we'll get a two-fer:

A quick note on these. PLEASE DON'T HOT LINK THESE IMAGES. I don't want Photobucket suspending my account. Just right click and download and then upload to your preferred file hoster.

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Tuesday Odds and Ends

 

It's signing day eve. Can't you feel the chill in the air? Also, more than likely it will be a light posting week with work (thanks real job), the premier of Lost, and signing day Wednesday.

• Oscar Nominations came out Tuesday. And The Blind Side picked up a Best Picture Nom. How? Beats me. How you take an in-depth look at how Lawrence Taylor's freakish ability as a defender transformed an oft neglected position (left tackle) into one of the highest paid and most highly sought into a movie that has racial undertones and takes big liberties with the actual Oher story? Just odd.
• Tickets for Year 2 of the MAX Capital City Classic (Auburn vs Alabama in Montgomery's Gorgeous Riverwalk Stadium) are on sale. If you are in the area, it's definitely a must attend. The Riverwalk crew really push for a College Football atmosphere (complete with band and cheerleaders)
• A SF Chronicle Article about the intense focus Under Armour puts on marketing its product:

He pounds away on his cell phone, sending text messages and photos from the practice field back to headquarters in Baltimore. He has spotted a big problem with the Auburn team's practice shorts: The UA logo is at the top by the hip, obscured by the oversized shirts the players wear untucked.

"You can NOT see any logo - I would move it to the bottom in the future!" he types. Then: "Let's get out to see this stuff!

• Austin Hubbard was named to the NCBWA Stopper Watch List.
• Inside the Auburn Tigers has their Baseball preview up ($)
• Gabe Gross from from Tampa Ray to Oakland A. He signed a 1 year contract that's incentive (re: at-bat) based
• Mike Svzetitz profiles Jay Jacobs and mentions the hiring of Coach John Palowski being his first high profile search and hire.
• The Auburn baseball team selected their team captains for the 2010 Year: Austin Hubbard, Ryan Jenkins, Kevin Patterson, and Jon Luke Jacobs
• Over at CollegeBaseballInsider.com Returning Pitcher Corey Luckie speaks about the upcoming year.
• Auburn Baseball Fan Day and the "Strike Out Cancer 5k" will be Friday February 13th.
• Another Preseason Poll came out (NCBWA Top 30) and Auburn, as expected gets no love. The poll below, with 2010 Opponents Emboldened.

2010 NCBWA DIVISION I PRESEASON TOP 35 POLL (FEB. 1)
Rk. School Conference Record Pvs.
1. Texas Big 12 50-16-1 2
2. LSU Southeastern 56-17 1
3. Virginia Atlantic Coast 48-15-1 6
4. Cal State Fullerton Big West 47-16 7
5. Rice Conference USA 43-18 9
6. Florida State Atlantic Coast 45-18 10
7. UC Irvine Big West 45-15 13
8. Arizona State Pacific-10 51-14 3
9. Georgia Tech Atlantic Coast 38-19-1 19
10. Florida Southeastern 42-22 14
11. TCU Mountain West 40-18 11
12. Miami Atlantic Coast 38-22 20
13. North Carolina Atlantic Coast 48-18 4
14. Clemson Atlantic Coast 44-22 15
15. Arkansas Southeastern 41-24 5
16. East Carolina Conference USA 46-20 16
17. Coastal Carolina Big South 47-16 21
18. Oregon State Pacific-10 37-19 24
19. Louisville Big East 47-18 17
20. Ole Miss Southeastern 44-20 12
21. South Carolina Southeastern 40-23 23
22. Southern Miss Conference USA 40-26 8
23. Ohio State Big Ten 42-19 -
24. San Diego West Coast 29-25 -
25. Oklahoma Big 12 43-20 18
26. Georgia Southeastern 38-24 26
27. UCLA Pacific-10 27-29 -
28. Texas A&M Big 12 37-24 25
29. Vanderbilt Southeastern 37-27 29
30. Stanford Pacific-10 30-25 -
31. Wichita State Missouri Valley 30-27 -
32. Alabama Southeastern 37-21 30
33. Kansas Big 12 39-24 -
34. Kansas State Big 12 43-18 22
35. Minnesota Big Ten 40-19 -
Others receiving votes (listed alphabetically): Army (26-21), Auburn (31-25), Bethune-Cookman (32-28), Cal Poly (37-21), Charlotte (33-22), Connecticut (36-24), Dallas Baptist (38-17), Dayton (38-19), Elon (41-18), Florida Gulf Coast (36-18), Florida International (34-23), Fresno State (32-30), George Mason (42-14), James Madison (30-24), Kentucky (28-26), Long Beach State (25-29), Middle Tennessee (44-18), Mississippi State (25-29), Notre Dame (36-23), Oklahoma State (34-24), Oral Roberts (33-15), Pepperdine (31-23), Rhode Island (37-20-1), San Diego State (41-23), South Florida (34-25), Tennessee (26-29), UCF (22-35), UNC Wilmington (31-23), Washington State (32-25), Western Kentucky (42-20), Xavier (39-21).

Yes, every SEC team received votes, and 9 (out of 12 SEC teams are ranked in the Top 30)

Finally, in honor of Groundhog Day:

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Auburn Basketball Mad Libs

Hey Kids! Did you ever want to be a sportswriter? Do you like low pay, long hours, and little appreciation? Do you love Auburn basketball? Well here’s your chance to shine with Auburn Basketball Mad Libs. Write your own column about the game. Just fill in the information below:

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Disarming the F-Baum

On a personal note, I could care less about Alabama fans. It’s not really the hatred that most Auburn fans feel, but more of a general apathy. They do their thing, I do mine. Simple as that. I’m probably in the minority in that regard.

That being said, when idiocy rears its head it does get me riled up. Tremendous blood boiling rage type riled up. Idiocy like this:

One observer close to the scene said the coach’s wife accused Finebaum of being friends with Nick and Terry Saban. (Several people saw Terry hug Paul Finebaum on the field after the Alabama victory while Nick Saban was doing television.) Jonna [Chizik] accused Finebaum of bias, and told the radio host that he didn’t know he possessed “all this power” over the lives of coaches, players and recruits. Malzahn’s harpy concurred, and participated in the verbal attack.

That’s from a “blog” called The Capstone Report. An Alabama “blog”. (Seriously, if you want a well written bama Blog then at least head over to DBH Dance Party or Roll Bama Roll)Hiding behind the general anonymity by saying the blog was authored by “capstonereport”, meaning there is no author is lay blame to. It also enables them to make accusations about Auburn paying recruits and other stories of that ilk, without a real threat of recourse. It’s relating a story of some Auburn coaches wives expressing their displeasure. It continues:

What does this say about Chizik & company?

They aren’t ready for primetime. When you are so insecure you send your wife out to fight your battles, then you aren’t a man. You are pathetic. Perhaps he is as pathetic as a basketball coach who allowed his wife to yell at a reporter—Mark Gottfried.

I’ll Let Gary Coleman convey my reaction:

Say-a-wha now? Two coach’s wives, acting on their own, reflects the Auburn coaching staff and their “(in)ability” to stand up to the media. I don’t buy it. However, we’ll stick with the conspiracy theories that the wives were sent as “hitwomen” on Paul Finebaum. Continuing:

Ever wondered why the Birmingham media is so servile to the Auburn Tigers? Now you know. When a media personality dares to challenge the Auburn family, the attack dogs, err bitches, err dogs, err wives, err harpies bare their claws and scratch out the eyes of dissenters.

We’ll move (lightly) lightly past the fact that the poster is calling women “bitches” and thinking its cute. Instead, and the real focus of the article, is that apparently, to the author of the article, Auburn is so averse and irate at State Media, that they continually berate them whenever an unflattering story is published. That leads them to do things like this:

At the 2009 Iron Bowl, Paul Finebaum was spat on, yelled at and at one point private security was forced to separate a deranged Auburn fan from the radio host. And this was during the walk to the stadium. A walk that had several observers shocked at the behavior of SEC football fans. It was a rude welcome to SEC football 2009-2010.

I call B.S. Namely because I was there. Working. I worked on a show with Mr. Finebaum throughout the college football season last year. He was on Auburn’s campus numerous times for those shows. Each time he was given safe distance, and outside of a normal jeer from a fan(which he eats up by the way) it was relatively tame. Iron Bowl weekend, yes it is possible that the above event could have happened. However, I’m sure I would have heard about it. During the broadcast he spent most of the time surrounded by the “Sons of Saban” and not Auburn fans. Here’s what I can tell you first hand about Paul Finebaum and his treatment of Auburn fans (and Alabama fans):

He doesn’t care either way. As much as Auburn fans want to believe it, Finebaum has no loyalties to either school. He cares about one thing: Putting on a show. He’s actually quite genuine and easy to work with (not a diva like you would expect). He’s also very smart. Extremely smart media-wise. You know all of those rumors, “lies”, and halftruths that get Auburn fans riled up. Attributing those to Finebaum? 9 out of 10 times those come from callers. Paul never actually says them.

But the problem is that we, as Auburn fans, get so worked up about it. We honestly shouldn’t. People have a huge misinterpretation of the media and that sports guys throughout the state spend their days finding ways to get at and bury Auburn. They don’t. Not at least the ones I’ve worked with. They think the Sports Media is out to get Auburn. It’s not. I can only speak to the ones I’ve worked with first hand, but for the most part, the media in this state is just committed to providing information that will get the viewers to watch.

But just a suggestion Auburn fans. Quit listening. Seriously. Just don’t listen to him. Your day will not be any worse or any better because of it. I even made a flowchart if you are still confused:

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