We're taking a look at my top 9 favorite (in no particular order) online resources for College Baseball information.Rivals.Yahoo.com/ncaa/baseball (aka collegebaseball.rivals.com) has become a true heavyweight in the world of college baseball.
Kendall Rogers started a little website and message board when he was a college student at Texas A&M, and called it Big12Baseball.com. It focused, logically, on Big 12 Baseball only. Then the conference yelped about his unauthorized use of the trademarked "Big 12" moniker. So the site became RosenblattReport.com, under the theory that the road to Rosenblatt Stadium (site of the College World Series) goes through the Big 12. Shortly thereafter, he expanded coverage to all of college baseball, and that's when the hobby became a full-time pursuit for Kendall.
At some point early in that process he joined up with the Rivals.com network of sites, which has since been bought out by Yahoo.
Since Kendall became the full-time paid guru of whatever you want to call the site now, he has become a nationally recognized expert on college baseball and a writer and reporter with an audience that has to be ranked with Baseball America as the reigning co-kings of the college baseball mountain. But unlike BaseballAmerica, this site is 100% free.
His nearly daily reports and summaries and interviews can range from the news-breaking and trend-setting to the elementary and repetitious. Granted, it's hard to produce original daily material during the off-season.
Some of what I find elementary, repetitions and boring is probably just what the college baseball novice needs, though. And Kendall is very definitely a man on a mission to proselytize baseball fans everywhere to join the growing throng of college baseball fandom.
And then there are the interviews with college coaches. Some of them are full of the usual canned answers and generalities (coming from coaches who have learned to talk in generalities), while others reveal unexpected news and candid opinions. Either way, Kendall gets the quotes because college coaches have learned that he has the ears and eyes of a very large audience of college baseball fans.
A good example of Kendall's ability to get the quotes is a recent article updating readers about Pat Murphy, the Arizona State head coach who resigned amidst allegations of wrongdoing nearly a year ago.
Murphy joined the San Diego Padres organization after his removal last November. That opportunity catapulted him into a position as manager of the Class A short-season Eugene (Ore.) Emeralds.
“I’ve learned so much about myself throughout this process. I’ve realized that life simply doesn’t have to be fair all the time,” he said. “In some weird sort of way, I think I’m going to be in a better place when the dust settles on this situation. I’m almost thankful for going through it.”
Personally, I spend more time on the College Clubhouse Message Board than anywhere else on the site.
Like any sports message board, there are plenty of homers and rude "yahoos" that are best ignored. But there are many participants on the boards who are highly knowledgeable about their favorite teams and conferences, and about college baseball in general. I learn a lot about other teams and other conferences just by reading their comments.
It says something about this message board that several of the guys who run other websites on my Top 9 Resources list are regular participants on the Rivals.com message board.
Another valuable message board on the site is the Scoreboard. Operating just like any other message board, this is the best placed I've found to get up-to-the-minute updates on scores from across the nation. It's more current than you'll find just about anywhere else because it's maintained and updated by the fans themselves who are listening or watching the games they're updating. It's an excellent example of how the new social media can compete with and out-perform the traditional news media.
While we're talking about Rivals.com, I should also mention SEBaseball.com, another member of the Yahoo-Rivals network. Started as SECBaseball.com, the owners ran into similar trademark problems and expanded their coverage to all teams and conferences in the Southeast part of the country - which actually made the site much better. While the articles and the message boards focus primarily on that region's teams, there are some very good conversations and some very informative articles about college baseball in general. Mark Etheridge's reputation as a college baseball guru ranks near that of Kendall Rogers, and his other regular contributors and message board commentators share a wealth of information and insight.
While we're talking about Rivals.com, I should also mention SEBaseball.com, another member of the Yahoo-Rivals network. Started as SECBaseball.com, the owners ran into similar trademark problems and expanded their coverage to all teams and conferences in the Southeast part of the country - which actually made the site much better. While the articles and the message boards focus primarily on that region's teams, there are some very good conversations and some very informative articles about college baseball in general. Mark Etheridge's reputation as a college baseball guru ranks near that of Kendall Rogers, and his other regular contributors and message board commentators share a wealth of information and insight.
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