Professor Troy Buckley, newly in charge of the laboratory designed to produce the popular spring line of Dirtbag baseball, finally exhaled Tuesday night after his worse loss of the season, a 5-1 stumble against improving LMU. With so many unknowns in his clubhouse–players (22) and coaches (4)–Buckley’s bunch hung in there from Friday through Monday, losing 2-1, winning, 8-5 and losing 4-3. The rains and the Fullerton Titans had stressed the psyche of his student athletes so the two-day break for Buck’s Beach Boys was surely welcomed but what had the good doctor of Dirtbag-dom discovered in the chilled confines of Blair Field?
 
“I know that on Tuesday we had five freshmen out there. I know that we have to pitch with more velocity. I know we have some offense to offer but we are going to have to be more creative to get it out there.”

And he knows that his opposite number this weekend has 1,003 head coaching wins and Buckley has, well, he has one. That man is Andy Lopez, a storied name around theses parts with stops at LA Harbor, Dominguez Hills, UCLA, and Pepperdine where his team won the 1992 College World Series championship over Fullerton. The Wildcats started soft this season hosting North Dakota State but their Junior RHP Kyle Simon was named one of three Louisville Slugger National Players of the Week, for his College Baseball Newspaper announced on Monday.

Simon turned in one of the best performances of his career, his 12-1 victory over NDSU which included a career-high 13 strikeouts. The sweep for Arizona moved them to No. 18. Oh yes, so far UA has been deadline friendly, all three of Arizona’s games checked in under two-and-a-half hours.

That is now, but the 49er faithful dwell in the past, 2004, when the Dirtbags (who finished 40-21 that year) were shipped as usual to the Stanford Regional. They opened with an expected win over St. Johns’ then beat the host Cardinal twice, 7-4, 8-4. The expected best of three super regional games at Stanford then were to be played somewhere else like South Bend but Arizona upset the Irish and shockingly they rented some bunting and dressed up Blair Field. Game one went to UA 6-5, game two was a laugher for the Beach 9-4 and then that fateful extra inning affair on Sunday. It ended 5-4 in 11 but to this day the locals wonder what if a certain pitcher had not been pulled in the game. Jered Weaver was the best college pitcher of his decade but the Beach brass opted to turn his game over to the pen. As my pal Gordie Verrell wrote, “Weaver did his best to pitch the 49ers to the brink of the College World Series with a dominating performance, but the bullpen blew the lead and Long Beach State lost 6-5 in front of an overflow crowd of 3,004 at Blair Field.” Yes, LB still had two great arms left–Cesar Ramos and Jason Vargas–but it wouldn’t be their year and hasn’t been since. 
 
DOPPLER DUST–Umpire Gary Gilman, who was hit under his chin by a foul ball Sunday, suffered a mild concussion and according to the LBSU trainer Shauna Horton, may be back at work somewhere this weekend… With the schedule change Beach volleyball coach Andy Read sent us this, “Looking forward to seeing a great turnout at the Pyramid tomorrow night, Feb 25th as LB State 49ers host the Trojans of USC. In addition, the 1991 Long Beach State National Championship team will be honored prior to the game… It’s been 20 years for these guys… Wow, seems like that can’t be possible.”  Great day for two games plus the wildly popular post game social… Bring chow or cash…More guessing, hopefully you are reading this on a still dry Friday because the Beach brain trust– still giddy from the basketball title– figure the rains will last 24 hours, leading to the delayed time of game for Saturday’s contest scheduled to start at 6:00pm (and a conflict with the men’s basketball’s game vs. UCSB). The Sunday baseball game time is still 1:00pm… The BWC this weekend: UC Riverside at Sacramento State; Valparaiso at Cal State Northridge; Cal Poly at Oklahoma State; UC Davis at San Francisco; UC Santa Barbara at Washington State and Fullerton at TCU.