brandonhyde

brandonhydeWe haven’t had a “Notes on My Napkin” session since last year so let’s play our Crimson Tide hurry-up offense and clean out the inbox. Baseball of course ranks pretty high on my interest list and thus another shameless plug for the Dirtbag Leadoff weekend. As you have read earlier, there is golf and actual games and the wildly popular Leadoff Dinner.

The weekend will start on Thursday, January 24 with the annual Leadoff Dinner, with the latest gun-slinger imported to lead the sometimes-woeful Cubs into the post season. That would be keynote speaker Brandon Hyde, ironically a free agent signed by the Chicago White Sox in 1997. Hyde follows in the spikes of a galaxy of diamond stars on the dais: Tommy Lasorda, Sparky Anderson, Tony Muser, Bill Russell and Bert Blyleven. Terry Collins, Dave Snow, Jason Giambi, Bobby Crosby, Mike Gallo, Jered Weaver, Troy Tulowitzki, Jason Vargas, Evan Longoria and last-year Danny Espinosa.

Hyde never really had the bat, glove or arm for the pro playing fields, but he has made a career in major-league baseball, currently serving as the new Director of Player Development for the Chicago Cubs. He is so new that the Cub media relations office doesn’t have a photo of him in the Chi uniform but he did serve for a cup of coffee as a manager and coach in the Florida Marlins organization (that picture we have).

After spending a number of years as a manager in the minor leagues, Hyde was promoted to bench coach for the major league club in 2011. After the sudden resignation of manager Edwin Rodriguez on June 19 of that year, Hyde was pressed into service as the acting manager of the Florida Marlins, in the process becoming the first former Long Beach State Players to serve as a major league manager. The banquet routine is the usual–hosted at The Grand, with cocktails at 6PM followed by dinner and the program at 7PM. Plus the always entertaining intros of players by their team mates and plenty of autographs and camera phone photos.

The next day, Long Beach State will host the 11th annual golf tournament, just behind Blair Field at Recreation Park. Actual baseball, hangovers permitting, begins on Saturday, January 26 when the team will host the Alumni Baseball Game at Blair Field at 11AM before an intra-squad game featuring the 2013 Dirtbags beginning at 2PM. Admission is free for both games. Prices vary for the dinner, golf, sponsorships etc. For details and more information on any event during Alumni Weekend contact Ryan Weigand at (562) 985-5910.

NEXT UP NAPKIN—Last week was tough for the Niner Nation, three Beach teams all playing at 4PM.

My Beach bright spots were both in the backcourt. First is Mr. Keala King who is so basketball savvy that several times he played like a football d-back, anticipating when opponents would kick the ball outside and the King would jump the route, steal the pass and break up the play.

The ladies rep is the steady Sophomore Alex Sanchez who was picked as the Big West Women’s Basketball Player of the Week. She led LB to a 2-0 start in conference play with last weekend with15 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals in a 62-52 victory over Cal Poly and led the slow downing of UCSB in LBSU’s 52-45 triumph. Asked in post game about how she dealt with the frantic Gaucho attack, “well I am pretty slow anyhow so I guess that worked out for us.”

Alex had a pair of 3-pointers, including one that broke a 41-41 tie with 3:32 remaining and added a crucial free throw with 53.9 seconds left. This week the tied for first 49ers (LBSU (9-5, 2-0 Big West) go on a tough road trip to Cal State Northridge on Wednesday night then on the plane to Hawaii on the weekend.

WHERE ARE THEYJanae Coffey didn’t work out at the Beach and transferred to Bakersfield. More to her liking, she scored 21 and had six blocks vs Fresno State on but her team lost.

Anne Donovan, who was invited to apply for the Beach women’s basketball job some years ago and later moved on to coach Seton Hall, is the new head coach of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun.

Alan Knipe found his clipboard and playbook for Long Beach State men’s volleyball team and his troops took third place at the UCSB/Asics Invitational. The hitting hero is junior Taylor Crabb but this is still a work in progress with a new libero and an uncertain block. The tourney floor will seem familiar to the 49ers since they open the MPSF slate back at UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday night.

Lastly the Beach men of hoop-ness got some highlight reel dunks to defeat UCSB 77-70 on Saturday evening. The Beach shot 53% in the first half, while out-rebounding the Gauchos 18-14. They tallied three blocks and four steals in the first 20 minutes and should be able to exhale this week when they return home to the Pyramid for games against Northridge on Wednesday at 7:05PM and Hawai’i on Saturday, at 4:05PM.

CLOSING QUOTES FROM OUR FOOTBALL FILE—“Show me a good and gracious loser…….and I’ll show you a failure.”–Knute Rockne /Notre Dame “I make my practices real hard ……..because if a player is a quitter…..I want him to quit in practice, not in a game.”–Bear Bryant / Alabama “At Georgia Southern, we don’t cheat…….That costs money and we don’t have any.”–Erk Russell / Georgia Southern. See you on the fiscal cliff.—DR DAN 

Photo: His new uniform hasn’t arrived yet but Brandon Hyde will be there for the Dirtbags 2013 Leadoff Dinner. Credit: The Chicago Cubs