10:00am | Now presenting your Dust Plus, Notes on the Back of Sheet Music Edition. The song is a Three Dog Night classic, “One is the Loneliest Number…” and the arithmetic is, well, really simple.
Baseball represented the theme by continuing to play low scoring one run games, and Sunday they did the deed winning 2-1 in just one minute past two hours. As our old pal Gordie Verrell would say, “A deadline friendly two hours, one minute.” But as our astute new pal Bob Keisser quizzed Coach Buckley in the post game presser, “could you do this on a Friday night, not just on Sunday afternoon?”
This one run contest came thanks to Kellen Hoime’s RBI single which in turn allowed Long Beach State its second straight series win and a successful start to the 2012 season. The other baseball number of note came from the talented left arm of Ryan Strufing who gave up zero walks and his “just keep it low” strategy got him eight strikeouts and no walks for a two game line in 14.2 innings. Mind you, all that comes without ever touching 90 on the MLB radar guns.
The Dirtbags, who started the season with seven straight home games, now continues their PAC 12 tour with a single game at No. 22 UCLA (Tuesday) then three at No. 24 Oregon this weekend. The last time the Beach played Oregon and ex-Fullerton skipper George Horton LB won two of three and game management confiscated some illegal Duck Calls that George’s grand kids were using during the game. NCAA rules are sometimes good.
Next Number One is the fast finishing 49ers of Coach Dan Monson who are not only winning but winning comfortably. The coach told his post game presser, “What’s most pleasing to me was our approach and our focus for this game,” Monson said. “We are playing our best basketball at the right time. This is a game we’re supposed to win and we still had the edge. I told our guys this is the last step to becoming a great team.”
One more One, “It was one of our most complete games,” said star Larry Anderson, who became the all-time 49ers steals leader (201) with a first-half theft.
In the almost packed house was retired NBA star Bryan Russell, “B Russ”, who I spoke with years ago after he signed his first free agent contract. What about the big bucks we asked? “it is stupid money…” Noted, so who is in line for the next bag of ‘stupid money’ try junior James Ennis, the spider-like, ultra quick leaping lord of the dunk.
Long Beach State moved its record to 21-7, including 14-0 in the Big West Conference. LBSU’s 14 wins to start the conference season is the most ever by a 49er team, eclipsing the 12-0 record during the 1973-74 season and its second straight Big West Conference title (the first time LBSU has won back-to-back league crowns since winning eight in a row from 1969-70 to 1976-77.) Defense, holding UC Santa Barbara (15-9, 9-4 Big West) to 35.7 percent (20-for-56) and the smothering of free-shooting Riverside are impressive.
As by now you know the U.S. men’s national volleyball team still needs to get one written invitation for the Olympic party in London. That chance comes May 7-12 when the NORCECA Olympic qualification tournament is help at the Pyramid. The other teams in that event are the Cuba (currently ranked fifth in the FIVB world rankings) plus Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
This is just a joke—but do you find it curious that both the men’s and women’s basketball teams have seven players? Actually the hair on Coach Dan Monson’s neck stands up when he hears that and he took a good hunk of his Saturday press conference to explain his sub policy which at times is more complicated than the sub policy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Jody Wynn doesn’t think it is funny either, but her reasons are more painful, as in the pain suffered by five of her young talents, out for the year gals Ella Clark and Sendy Valles and the recently hobbled, Devin Hudson, Bianca Baltizhar and Mary Ochiltree. Monson had good reason to spare his kids the trauma of close contests with the likes of Kansas and gave crowd favorite Peter Pappageorge 15 minutes Saturday and should get Nick Shepherd back for duty this week.
Last our ‘Ones’ is the extra $360 million George Washington’s the NCAA would take in based on the new ‘plus one’ football playoff plan. Without knowing if games would be played on a campus, in the bowls or bid out to cities like a Super Bowl, the powers that be could direct some of that extra dough to places like; say volleyball, tennis, track, or any of the Olympic Sports…Just my crazy idea.—DR. DAN