Quotes & Notes: Photos, Umps, RPIs,

■ John Burch has uploaded a new set of photos from MU vs. OU on April 4th.

■ Tex Little, after the home plate umpire got hit with a ball during Wednesday's game:

Now he's being asked to tell how many fingers he sees, where he is, his social security number, and how much money he makes . . . if he gets all those wrong, then he can umpire.

■ Eric Sorenson at CollegeBaseballToday.com has an interesting interview with NCAA Umpire Dave Yeast. Some quotes:

Q: How much of the crowd comments can you hear? Have you ever thought you’ve been influenced by the crowd? Would you admit to it?

Dave Yeast: Absolutely not. At this level, you can’t do that. I mean, you hear it, especially at a game with only 100 or 200 people there. Anybody tells you they don’t hear that, they’re lying. But the higher level you get, the easier it is to umpire. The bigger the crowd, the less you hear. It’s just a dull roar and that makes it great.
But the worst thing is when you get a guy with nothing better to do than to come out to a game with 100 people there and he just rags on you from the first pitch.
. . .
The high strike hits close to home for me.The NCAA changed the strike zone to bring it up more in 1995 or ‘96. As coordinator I thought it was important to enforce it. A couple years ago, I was working the Hawaii-Hilo at TCU game and the WAC had an umpire observer at the game, I am calling the strike zone as it’s written by the rule and I’m getting crap for it from the fans, coaches and players, which is good because then I know I’m doing my job.

But the observer writes in his report, “Dave Yeast is doing a good job but he’s got a high school strike zone” Again, that’s good for me, ‘coz I know I’m doing my job of calling the top end of the zone. Usually people adjust as the game goes on and quit complaining about it because you’re calling it both ways.

■ As I mentioned yesterday, Boyd Nation's RPI Needs Report assumes a team needs to be in the Top 45 RPI in order to have a decent shot at getting an invite to the Regionals. I'm fairly certain the tigers have been ranked lower than 45th at least once or twice in the past 6 years of Regionals, but the theory is sound in general. It is especially true if you are a team that has struggled all year long, as the Tigers have, because the committee is going to have to be convinced that a "troubled" team outside the top 45 deserves an invite.

Anyway, my goal is to update the current Pseudo-RPI from Boyd's World the day after each series is done. Those rankings and MU's ranking in the other polls (which right now is non-existent) are in the left-hand bar on this page.