BYU has some beasts! In their second matchup of the regionals BYU handed it to CSULB 11-6. No matter who the Dirtbags put on the mound, BYU had their number. The game started off promising with Long Beach taking a 3-0 lead, but it pretty much went downhill from there.

Nebraska went on to win the College World Series, so De Schazer should be happy. CSULB finished ranked #41 nationally heading into the off-season. I’m excited to see who the Dirtbags pick-up during the off-season and I expect to see an even better team take the field next year.

Today I began my playoff run in the Stanford Regional that will hopefully end in a College World Series Championship!

Game 1 had the Dirtbags (ranked #37) vs BYU (#33). Long Beach appeared to have BYU’s number heading into the top of the 9th with a 4-3 lead. The Dirtbags brought in Vogl, their closer who had been lights out all year with a 0.40 ERA. Then the unthinkable happened. Vogl gave up 3 runs, leaving the Dirtbags down 6-4 on their final 3 outs. Still in shock from BYU’s comeback, CSULB was unable to score, losing game 1 of the double elimination tournament.

In Game 2 the Dirtbags were facing WSU (#11) who had just lost to Stanford. Both teams were facing elimination and needed to win. The Dirtbags turned to their ace, Compton, who had been lights out all season long. For 8 1/3 innings Compton gave up only a single run, while the Dirtbag hitting came alive, scoring early and often. The Dirtbags finished off WSU 6-1 to stay alive.

The Dirtbags will now face BYU again after their loss to Stanford.

I decided to do a little testing between my older Canon s30 and the new Nikon d50 and see how they compare when it comes to depth of field (making the background blurry and the subject in focus) and also how they compare in terms of picture quality.

The DOF tests show that a much greater variation is possible using the d50 because it has a much bigger sensor than the point and shoot s30. From what I’ve read, DOF is very difficult with point and shoot digital cameras no matter how good a photographer you are, simply because of the small sensor size. First up, the s30. Rollover the image to see the difference.

Following in the footsteps of my brother, our new Nikon D50 dSLR camera arrived today in the mail (he’s got the even fancier D70). It’s a fancy schmancy digital camera that takes pictures like a real SLR camera, has all the features of an SLR, but it’s digital. You can replace the lens with other types for different shooting purposes and conditions.

I haven’t taken "real" photographs since my senior year in High School, so I’m a little rusty. Luckily the camera takes excellent pictures on full auto, and then for certain situations custom settings can be used. I bought a 2 gig SD card which can take over 600 pictures on max JPG settings, or 250 in RAW.

We don’t have kids yet, so here’s pictures of the dog.

I haven’t posted about this game since back in January when I was begging people to give me their videogame systems. Since then I’ve been playing a dynasty with the Long Beach State Dirtbags, and I just finished my first season. We finished about 6 games above .500, second place in the Big West behind UC Riverside. I’m now entering the regionals and playing BYU in my first game.

One of the best parts of the game is recruiting and building your team. During the season you recruit High School and Community College players to come play for you. There are four main guys I recruited very heavily, so it will be interesting to see if they all come and play for me next year. During the off-season players also progress at random, some improving their skills and some declining.

My team this year has been an excellent pitching team with a so-so offense. Two of my starting pitchers are Juniors and one is a Sophmore, so that pitching should continue next season. Hopefully my off-season recruiting helps to improve our team hitting. I did have a 3rd team all-american (sophmore pitcher with a 1.35 era).

I will keep you posted on this most fictitious outcome of college baseball.

Recent events have led to a conundrum. First a little background: The Dead Blarg Friends category was originally created for blogs that have "died." Activity on said blogs stopped without warning, giving the appearance that the owner of the blog, or less gruesomely, the blog itself was dead. Recently though several members of our blog group have voluntarily decided to stop blogging, at least for the time being. Because of this we need to pool our collective creativity and decide on a new category for this special group of blogs.

What should the category be called for those that will be leaving the blogosphere temporarily? The only requirements are that it has to follow the current naming scheme of "_______ Blarg Friends." So what do you got funny blog people?!

*I would like to add that I am flattered other people care enough about my silly blog to consider what category they are in. Thank you.

Can you say SWEEP?!

Today I went out to the ballpark to celebrate Tim’s waning days of freedom. Luckily for us the Dodgers continued to play some great baseball. Unfortunately for us it was HOT! I remember it being hot last year for my bachelor party, but the humidity today was insane. Today we were on the 3rd base side out near the foul pole, so I spent much of my time harrasing Andre Ethier for a ball. I was not successful. Brad Penny did so-so, but the bats were still hot and helped us win our 4th in a row.

Good luck Tim and Melissa!

We were back at Chavez Ravine for game 2 of the weekend series with the Pirates. Once again the Dodgers beat the Pirates into the ground winning 7-0. Aaron Sele pitched a great game, and the relief was effective. Andre Ethier came up with two key singles giving him 4 rbi. This guy is the real deal. It also looks like Jeff Kent is finally healthy and ready to contribute in the fashion we’re used to.

Up next is Brad Penny versus some guy with a 16 ERA.