Quotes & Notes: Ball State, ESPN, Vacation

■ Ball State CF Jeremy Hazelbaker (whose photo makes him look about 14) was named the MAC West Player of the Week:

Hazelbaker is the second straight Cardinal to earn MAC weekly honors as freshman
first baseman Ian [Floyd] Nielsen (La Porte, Ind./La Porte) earned the honors last week.

■ InsideMizzou.com says Mizzou baseball team happy to be home:

Senior pitcher Ian Berger, who had struggled in his performances last week, got
the start for the Tigers and showed improvement on the mound, not allowing any
runs and no hits retiring the Leather Necks in order.

“I was proud for Ian,” Coach Jamieson said. “He definitely pitched better tonight; we need for him to continue to get better every game.”

■ Aaron Senne and Trevor Coleman have dropped off the list of Rivals.com's Power Rankings. Did someone leave the box of Kryptonite open again?

■ Cody Ehlers (01-04) will be playing in the Independent Leagues this summer, according to Baby-Bombers.com:

Former Staten Island Yankee first baseman Cody Ehlers was released during the tail end of the 2008 season after he batted just .200 with the Trenton Thunder in the Eastern League. In five minor league seasons in the Yankees organization he had a career .253 batting average with 289 RBIs and 47 homeruns across four levels. Now he will be manning first for the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the Northern League.

■ ESPN has released its schedule for its comprehensive, no-holds-barred coverage of college baseball in 2009. There are no regular season games on ESPN or ESPN2, but there are games on ESPNU. Of course, none of these includes Mizzou - or any other Big 12 team. Baseball America gives us the schedule in its entirety:

April 3: UC Irvine at Cal State Fullerton (10 p.m. ET)
April 5: Louisville at Cincinnati (2 p.m. ET)
April 5: San Diego at Santa Clara (6:30 p.m. ET)
May 1: Liberty at Coastal Carolina (6 p.m. ET)
May 2: Delaware State at Bethune-Cookman (3 p.m. ET)
May 22: Long Beach State at Cal State Fullerton (10 p.m. ET)
May 23: Big East Championship (1 p.m. ET)

■ Believe it or not, I will not be at the Ball State series this weekend. My wife and I will be on a vacation for a week. Yes, there are some things in my life more important than Mizzou Baseball. I will have a laptop and wi-fi, so I'll be listening to Tex and Hud online, and will be posting here at SimmonsField.com.


■ Speaking of vacations, Simmonsfield.com regulars may remember that I went on a "vacation" to Villa Union, Mexico in January. This was a mission trip with the Mizzou Christian Campus House.

I just today received pictures of the progress on one of the buildings we worked on. The photo at right shows the roof that has been added since we left. One of our projects was to frame and and erect the 2nd floor walls and to paint this building. All 35 of us slept on the floor on the 1st floor. I just thought some of you would be interested to see what it was that dragged me all the way to Mexico.