Baseball has been berry, berry good to us

Have you been reading your Big Ten Hardball lately? Maybe college baseball's under your radar, but it's definitely worth some of your time.

Brian has been doing some killer work and put in some serious time at U-M's Fisher Stadium over the past week. (I feel bad that I didn't offer him room, board, and breakfast. But he may have been offered other sleeping arrangements near the ballpark, anyway. Wait, that sounds funny, doesn't it?)

Not only was he witness to the Wolverines clinching the Big Ten championship over "my" Hawkeyes, which earned Michigan the right to host the postseason conference tournament, but Brian also watched the Maize-and-Blue (or is that maize jerseys with white pants...?) win the the damn thing and with it, an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Michigan will play Vanderbilt in Atlanta on Friday, a match-up my dad surely would've enjoyed (though he didn't watch much college baseball), as one of his best friends is a professor at Vandy. Could've been a great road trip. Oh well.

The greater focus on BTH has come at the expense of Beyond Boxscores, one of my favorite blogs, but hey, the man had to prioritize. He has an obvious passion for college baseball, and I think it's really cool that he took it upon himself to fill a niche in the blogosphere that deserved some attention.

After he whetted my interest in college baseball back in April, I regret that I wasn't able to join Brian at "The Fish" last week, if only to subject him to all my questions about how postseason college baseball works.

"Wait, so they lost, but they're still in it? And Whoever U beat Middle State, but Middle State gets to advance in the tournament? Right, right - double elimination. I'm with you. Okay, explain "round-robin" to me. Okay, now explain it again."

It would've been scintillating conversation for him, I'm sure. And I likely would've been sent for hot dogs five or six times, just to go away.

Anyway, I think it's great that Michigan's found itself some success this season in a sport that hasn't gotten a lot of attention in these parts. Things are definitely looking good for the program. And it'd be fun to see the team put together a decent tournament run. And if they do, Brian will tell you all about it. Great work, sir.