The Cougar baseball team played their first series in Pullman this weekend, and I was able to attend Sunday's game, against UW. I haven't been to a college baseball game since I saw my cousin's last game at Pacific, and two things struck me right away: Major Leaguers are great defensive players and college players hit a TON of home runs. The jet stream to right certainly helped the hitters, as four of the six home runs (yes, six) were hit down the right field line. Three of the right field shots were by righties. It seems like the wind will blow to right for most games this year, so cheesy Derek Jeter-style home runs look to be the norm in Pullman. As far as the defense went, there were only a couple of errors, but there were also a couple of infield hits that I thought could have been played into outs, as well as a badly misjudged fly ball that was played into a triple.

WSU has made some renovations to its baseball field, adding Field Turf. Interestingly, the entire field is in Field Turf except the mound and the area around home plate. The basebaths, and even the sliding areas around the bags, are turf. A couple of runners fell well short of second base on slide attempts. It will be interesting to see if dirt basebaths are added.

When it's nice outside like it was today, I'll be going to Cougar baseball games whenever I can. I actually got a sunburn on my legs, and it's only March. Nice.