KU @ MU: "Folks, this is huge"

■ Robby Price is contagious!!!! (Kansan.com, 5/5):

What might go unnoticed is Price’s ability with the glove. He leads all middle infielders in fielding percentage and has had an uncountable number of spectacular plays.

Ritch Price even will even go as far as to say there isn’t another second baseman like him.

“He may be the best second baseman in the country,” Ritch Price said. “He’s that special with the glove in his hand.”

But above all else, Robby Price’s personality is what keeps the team together at times. His attitude has seemed to rub off on his teammates, with the mood in the dugouts joyful and fun. as it was after the victories against Missouri and Texas.

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■ Andrew Dewitt of the Columbia Missourian has a great profile: Tex Little gives Missouri baseball voice:

Little started as the voice of Tigers baseball in 1987 and has put in 19 years behind the microphone.

“I don’t know another place I want to be other than the ballpark,” Little said.

Later, Little joins Tigers coach Tim Jamieson behind the batting cage and talks baseball. Little says he made the decision to be here when he was 21.

“I had some aspirations to do something different,” Little said. “I was either going to go into coaching or do radio, and I decided to go with radio.”

Be sure to read the entire article. You'll be sure to learn some things about Tex that you never knew.

■ Baseball roots run deep for Jayhawks (Kansan.com):

Jason Brunansky is one of three players who have close family connections to Major League Baseball. Brunansky is joined by junior relief pitcher Brett Bochy, whose father, Bruce Bochy, is the manager for the San Francisco Giants and senior catcher Buck Afenir, whose uncle, Troy Afenir, played professional baseball for Oakland Athletics for the majority of his short career.

■ Afenir catches on (Kansan.com)

Two years ago, Afenir was recruited by many schools during his senior year, one of which was the three-hour drive from home, Stanford. From little-league through high school, Afenir had been coached by his dad, Steve. Price liked that idea, knowing that meant Afenir grew up in a baseball family. Steve Afenir, on the other hand, didn’t care much for Price’s interest.

“I wouldn’t say he got bent out of shape,” Afenir said. “But at first when I first started talking to coach Price, he was like ‘No. I’m not sending my son 1,600 miles away.’ ”

Admittedly a mama’s boy, Afenir said his mom, Beth, wasn’t wild about her son moving to the Midwest either. But when the family met Price and took a campus visit, the decision for Afenir to become a Jayhawk was much easier.Adjusting to life half the country away from home wasn’t quite as easy. Afenir confessed to dealing with bouts of homesickness.

“It was just weird. I had so many different things I was always worrying about — like I had a girlfriend back home,” Afenir said. “That was just so tough with the long distance, and I was trying to keep in touch with everybody back home. It’s weird, but you’ve kind of just got to let it go.”

■ For those not raised on the depth and history of the MU-KU rivalry, Fanhouse.com presents We Burned Your Town to the Ground!!

■ Kansas baseball one step closer to Omaha (Examiner.com)

The Jayhawks currently have seven games left of the 2009 regular season and all of them come against either in-state rivals or Border War foe Missouri. KU will play WSU on Wednesday before playing three in Columbia this coming weekend and rounding the season out with Kansas State, one game in Manhattan and two in Lawrence. Think about how more padded KU's seeding could become if they won four of the last seven?

Folks, this is huge.

What's also great is that Kansas still has a realistic, but somewhat outside, chance of winning Big Twelve Conference regular season championship. Currently the 'Hawks are fifth in the conference, sitting only two games behind first place Texas, one behind second place KSU and Texas A&M and a half game behind Mizzou.

Like I said, this is huge.

■ Tournament hopes solid for Kansas (University Daily Kansan):

Kansas was a bubble team. Rivals.com, in its latest projection of the 64-team NCAA Tournament, snuck the Jayhawk baseball team in as a three-seed, and one of its last five teams to make the field. Expect all that to change when the projections are released today.

When the Jayhawks went out this weekend and earned their biggest series victory of the season — yes, even considering the sweep of then-No. 1 Texas at the Hog — they firmly thrust their name into the postseason discussion.

After showing an inability to win a road series against an inferior team (see: Texas Tech two weekends ago), Kansas silenced its doubters in resounding fashion in Norman, Okla. Kansas used big first innings and (surprise, surprise) brilliant pitching performances to win two of three against No. 9 Oklahoma.

■ From The Maneater: Missouri continues Border Showdown with Kansas on the diamond:

"This is a huge series," senior shortstop Kyle Mach said. "I mean, it's KU. It's
the series we've been waiting for all year."
. . .
"It doesn't make any difference if it's Kansas or Oklahoma State," coach Tim Jamieson said. "The bottom line is we're bunched together in the standings. We've still got a chance to win the league."

He said if the Tigers get one of the top two spots, they have a chance to host the next rung of competition.

"So there's a lot at stake this weekend, and we need to have our best performance," Jamieson said. "And then on top of that, it happens to be Kansas."

■ And finally, one of the most wonderful pieces of heckling material I've ever unearthed on the Jayhawks: Bush-league base-runner