Why Friday night game was delayed

Um yeah, good decision. It's tough on both teams (UTSA, CSU Bakersfield) to have to get up, mentally, for such a big game the next morning, and it's terrible to affect both teams' starting pitchers, but Friday night's game had to be delayed. It will resume Saturday morning at 10 a.m. CT.

A Fernando sighting!?

Courtesy WACSports.com

Kind of looks like I was calling a game pitched by Fernando Valenzuela on Thursday, doesn't it?

That's actually CSU Bakersfield senior lefty Jonathan Montoya, who stands just 5-foot-8 and throws a mean change-up. He was part of Bakersfield's first recruiting class and holds the school record with 20 career wins, including the Roadrunners' win over Sacramento State in both teams' second game of the WAC tournament.

For more on the WAC tournament, visit Tournament Central. I'll try to have some highlights up in the next couple of weeks.

Great 1st day in the books at WAC tourney

Whenever I get the chance to attend a baseball game, I'm reminded of how much I love the sport and most of what goes on around it. I have a particular affinity for the college game, having been deeply involved in it as a college student, and Wednesday's opening day of the WAC Tournament in Grand Prairie, Texas, was a reminder of plenty of the great things about college baseball.

Of primary importance, of course, were the games. All three were competitive, two very close, and one - the opener - provided a lasting memory. UTSA and Sacramento State battled into 14 innings with great pitching and one dramatic double play before R.J. Perucki led off the bottom of the 14th with a no-doubt, walk-off home run to deep left field. My call may not have been an epic one, but given that it was my first baseball game in two years, I felt OK about the result -- check it out here courtesy of UTSA's Soundcloud account.

The middle game had some of that college spirit, as the very vocal San Jose State dugout made up for a slight lack of crowd noise, with both SJSU and CSU Bakersfield understandably bringing very few fans to Texas. Nothing like a little bench jockeying to provide some atmosphere!

The nightcap featured the two co-hosts, UT-Arlington and Dallas Baptist, and had by far the best atmosphere of the games. I could let the game breathe for 10-15 seconds at a time, and the ambient noise in the stadium sounded like a baseball game anywhere in the country. It was a tense one, too, with UT-Arlington starter Brad Vachon recovering from a rough 2nd inning to pitch into the 8th inning, allowing only two hits and striking out 11. An amazing performance, considering there were relievers throwing in the bullpen almost every inning.

One day in the books and four more to go here in Grand Prairie - let's hope the whole tournament is this much fun!

Players to watch at the WAC baseball tournament

NMSU's Bobby Lecount led the WAC in OPS this year.

I'm on my way to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex today to call the 2013 WAC Baseball Championship at QuikTrip Park in Grand Prairie. The games - three per day until Sunday's championship game - can be seen on WACSports.tv.

Here are a few of the individuals who have caught my eye while preparing for the tournament, all well worth watching this week:

CSUB – LHP Jeff McKenzie was a struggling junior college outfielder two years ago when his team ran out of pitchers in the highly competitive California state tournament. Having thrown only five innings all year, McKenzie took the hill and threw a complete-game victory. CSU Bakersfield offered him a scholarship based on that performance, and he has repaid the favor with a 2.67 ERA last year and an amazing 12-2, 1.79 line in 2013. His streak of 11 consecutive wins was broken last Friday by San Jose State, who he could face in Wednesday’s opener.

UT-Arlington – DH Matt Shortall is from the Dallas area and transferred back to home from Tulane after the 2011 season. Think he’s important to his team’s offense? Consider that he has 21 more RBI (54) than the next closest teammate (33).

Texas State – RHP Austen Williams had a minor role in Texas State’s bullpen in the first month of the season, but he has been nearly untouchable since March 3, allowing just two earned runs in his last 22 innings (0.82 ERA), lowering his season ERA from 11.37 to 2.93. Williams, closer Hunter Lemke (1.42 ERA in his last 38 innings), and lefty Donnie Hart (2.21 ERA) make for the league’s top bullpen.

UTSA – C John Bormann has thrown out an amazing 29 of 49 runners trying to steal against him this year (59 percent!) and has picked 14 runners off first base. It's hard to find context for how impressive those numbers are. I can't find a list of NCAA leaders (they apparently don't deal with fielding stats), but UTSA informs me Bormann ranks 2nd in the country in throwing out runners and first in runners picked off. The best college arm I've ever seen, that of Rice catcher Justin Ruchti, threw out 60 percent of runners (23/38) in the 2003 national-championship season. An arm like that behind the plate really limits the options for opposing teams to move baserunners.

Sacramento State – 1B Chris Lewis was told by head coach Reggie Christiansen that he should go to junior college before trying to contribute at Sacramento State. Lewis said, ‘No thanks’ and enrolled, took a redshirt last year, and proceeded to light up the WAC this year to the tune of .396/.439/.545 in conference play. Lewis gets good lineup protection from 2012 WAC Player of the Year Andrew Ayers, and both will need to play big roles if the Hornets, who were 9th in the WAC in hitting, can perform better at the plate in the postseason.

New Mexico State – 3B Bobby Lecount is a Moneyball type of player who seems to personify New Mexico State’s hitting philosophy. He walks a lot, strikes out a lot, and hits for serious power. In WAC play, he ranked first in OPS (1256), slugging (.778), OBP (.478), and walks (21) and finished 2nd in home runs (9) while striking out once per game.

Dallas Baptist – 3B Duncan McAlpine erupted with a 10-for-16 series against Texas State last weekend that included 4 home runs, and 11 RBI to finish first in the WAC in conference home runs (12) and second in slugging (.697). He is one of several ringleaders of the Patriots’ grip-it-and-rip-it offense on a team with serious postseason experience.

San Jose State – RHP Kyle Hassna was the Spartans’ main weapon out of the bullpen for most of the year, but he stepped into the starting rotation near the end of the season and provided a very strong start against CSU Bakersfield. If he can pitch in the vicinity of his 2.50 ERA in the tournament, it gives the undermanned Spartans a fighting chance in an extra game.

Calling this week's WAC baseball tournament

In a departure from most of my recent broadcasting and blogging but a return to my roots, I’m really excited to be calling the Western Athletic Conference baseball tournament this week in Grand Prairie, Texas. I started my broadcasting career in college baseball in 2002 at Rice University, which was in the WAC at the time (although there was no conference tournament then) and I’ve been trying to find college baseball work all season, so this is going to be a lot of fun.

The tournament has two groups of four teams each, combining for three games per day from Wednesday-Saturday. That’s right, games at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7 p.m. (all Central Time) all by my lonesome for four days in a row. Then a one-off championship game on Sunday. It’s going to be crazy. And hot, I’m thinking, thanks to the artificial turf at QuikTrip Park. You can check out the games at WACSports.tv, although it looks like there will be a charge to watch games.

I’ve been studying the WAC teams intently for the last two weeks, and here’s a very quick look at the teams in the tournament and some of their characteristics.

The favorites:
CSU Bakersfield led the league throughout the regular season thanks to its outstanding pitching, but the Roadrunners dropped their final series of the season to San Jose State, which is the team they will face first on Wednesday. CSU Bakersfield is only in its fifth season of D-I baseball and is looking for its first NCAA tournament berth.
UT-Arlington claimed a share of the regular-season title after an impressive three-game sweep of Sacramento State on the final weekend of the year. The Mavericks reached the NCAA tournament last year after winning the Southland Conference and have a balanced squad with a strong bullpen.
Texas State led the league in OPS and was second in ERA during conference play, including the league’s best bullpen. But the Bobcats slipped to third place because of their atrocious defense. In one four-game stretch last week, they made 19 errors, and they field at a .957 clip, by far the worst in the league.

In the mix:
Sacramento State came agonizingly close to its first NCAA tournament berth last year, needing to win one of two games against Fresno State in the WAC tournament final, but losing the second in an epic, 13-inning loss. The Hornets built their success on pitching and defense, but both seemed to desert them in last weekend’s series loss to UT-Arlington. If their pitching rebounds this week, they’re a big threat.
Unsung UTSA also passed Sacramento State on that final weekend, and the Roadrunners are interesting as an aggressive hitting team that does not rely on power. They swing early and often in the count and may have just enough quality arms to make a run.
After reaching NCAA regionals the last two years (and the super regionals in 2011) as an independent, Dallas Baptist spent its lone year in the WAC as the preseason favorite. The swing-from-their-heels Patriots are all power, all the time at the plate, but their pitching and defense have not matched expectations.
New Mexico State also made the NCAA tournament last year after winning the WAC regular season. The Aggies always put up big offensive numbers in terms of power, walks, and strikeouts, and this team is no exception. The pitching staff has powerful arms but ranked last in the WAC in ERA.

Long shot:
San Jose State squeaked in the tournament by taking two of the three games against CSU Bakersfield on the season’s final weekend, with both wins coming in the final at-bat. The Spartans hit for average without much power and really do not have the pitching depth needed to win four games in a row, but stranger things have definitely happened.

If I learned one thing from following WAC baseball over the last several weeks, it’s that very few games go according to either team’s plane, and lots of late lead changes are the norm. Most importantly, I don’t think any of the teams are in the running for an at-large bid to the tournament, so they’re all going to be playing desperate baseball throughout. Should be an exciting week!

The demo reel

Those of us trying to make a career in broadcasting have quickly learned that it takes a lot more than a deep voice or a knowledge of sports to find work on the airwaves. It takes preparation, connections, practice, and a little bit of luck. But one of the most important calling cards – and part of the process that you can control – is the demo reel. (Here's my current crop)

Making a demo reel is no simple task. It is completely impractical to make a separate reel for each job one applies for, yet each hiring manager is looking for something different. One network may value letting the game breathe, while another may value over-the-top histrionics. Some may prioritize play-by-play work, some may be most focused on your comfort level in front of a camera, and still others most want to hear how you call the big play. A demo reel should find a way to impact any viewer.

This year I’m trying to raise the level of my demos by adding some excitement up front. I may be laid-back, but I like to think I know when to get excited, and I need to show that to producers.

So for my latest soccer demo, I gathered some of my favorite calls from the last four years of soccer broadcasting. As you may imagine, this was half the fun! Looking back on some of the most dramatic and memorable moments from the past few years (and evaluating my call of the play) probably took up the better part of 2-3 days. I went back through my highlight DVDs from the 2009 and 2010 Dynamo seasons and looked at most of my televised broadcasts from 2011-12, wrote down what I thought were the best calls and plays to grab someone’s attention, and then began to narrow the list.

The finalists amounted to about 12 minutes of footage, and that’s without almost anything from the 2011 Dynamo season, since I don’t have easy access to video from that year. Since I was aiming to keep the total demo around 10 minutes long, and I still had to fit in some play-by-play, cuts were a necessity.

As I narrowed things down, I also had to choose between putting all the highlights together or splitting up the radio and television calls. Since so much of my career has been in radio, and those are some of my most passionate calls, I definitely wanted them in there. But games are called very differently between radio and television, so in the end, I decided to split up the radio and television calls, labeling them appropriately.

Once I had the highlights down to about 5 minutes, 30 seconds, I had to identify a good on-camera clip so that television producers know what I look like. Last year was my first year in television, and it definitely took me a little while to get comfortable in front of a camera. I wound up going with part of the demo that helped land my ESPN3 work last year, an opening with Brian Dunseth from a Dallas-Philadelphia game.

I wanted to use a different game as an example of play-by-play, but after checking out a few clips, I decided it was important not to use a game I called remotely from a studio. While it is a skill in its own right, calling a game from studio does restrict your sense of atmosphere and does not allow for the sort of perspective I tend to use in a broadcast. So I picked a five-minute segment from a Dallas-Seattle game that included chances at both ends and a discussion with partner Ian Joy about the importance of a halftime substitution.

In the end, I've got a video less than 15 minutes long that should give you an idea of what I bring to the table as a soccer announcer. Hopefully it does the trick! Here's the final product:

Ten years later: The Streak

DataOmaha.com
It wasn't part of the streak, but Rice went on
to win the 2003 national title.

April 8 marks the 10-year anniversary of the most impressive sports streak I have ever personally witnessed, Rice University’s 30-game baseball winning streak in 2003. Ten years ago tonight, Rice beat Texas A&M 8-0 at Reckling Park in Houston to mark the Owls’ 30th consecutive win and run the team’s record to 33-1 on the season. They stood just four wins away from tying the Division I record of 34 consecutive wins, set by Texas in 1977, and 10 games shy of the NCAA record of 40 consecutive wins, set by Division III Marietta College (Ohio) in 1999.

Rice's streak came to an abrupt end the next night, with Lamar beating Rice 7-5. Somewhat appropriately, Rice will play Lamar head-to-head on Tuesday night, this time in Beaumont, 10 years to the day after the Cardinals ended Rice’s run. That Lamar win actually sent Rice into a tailspin that saw the Owls go 4-6 in their next 10 games and finish the regular season 15-9.

But the story has a happy ending for Rice alumni like me, as Rice went 10-2 in the NCAA tournament and won its first – and only – national championship, finishing a remarkable 58-12. As a Rice sophomore and radio broadcaster for the baseball team at the time, that entire season provided a series of special memories impossible to forget.

With my scorebooks packed away in storage, looking back at a simple list of results to remember the 30-game win streak is a bit odd. I actually don’t remember that many of the individual games, which is rare for me. Here, however, are a few I definitely recall:

Feb. 23 – Game No. 5 – A dreary Sunday afternoon at the end of a home tournament, Rice and UT-Arlington made it all the way to the 10th inning without scoring before a bloop single from Austin Davis gave Rice the win. Coming on the heels of a 6-0 win over SEC power Ole Miss, it felt like a prime example of a trap game, but Rice somehow found a way to win.

March 11 – Game No. 13 – The big one. Rice 2, Texas 1, a scoreline that never gets old. Enrique Cruz hit a dramatic late-game home run – to the opposite field – while Wade Townsend hit 97 on the radar gun with a strikeout of Omar Quintanilla and David Aardsma helped keep UT at 1 run in the late going. For a Rice person, it doesn’t get much better than that.

March 21 – Game No. 19 – Rice 20, Liberty 1 – It’s a mismatch and a blowout, of course, but I remember it because fourth-string walk-on catcher Jon Gillespie, a favorite of everybody involved with the program, got in the game and pulled a single through the right side. Jon wound up finishing with the highest batting average of any Rice player in 2003: a perfect 1.000.

April 8 – Game No. 30 – Rice 8, Texas A&M 0 – With Rice playing in the WAC at the time, facing Big 12 opposition on Tuesdays was a big deal, and Rice downed Texas, Nebraska, Baylor, and A&M during the streak, including this comprehensive demolition to reach No. 30.

I’ll leave you with the opening from an old newspaper article that includes one of my favorite ledes I've ever written, appearing the week before the streak came to an end:

Crash Davis, the wise catcher in the movie Bull Durham, once said “a player has to respect the streak.”

Rice baseball players respect their school-record 26-game winning streak, but they aren’t afraid to talk about it.

“It’s a blast,” sophomore first baseman Vincent Sinisi said. “We came back this year with a lot of confidence, and that’s all it is – a bunch of confidence. Everybody comes out every night expecting to win the ballgame.”

The Owls have won almost every ballgame for the past month and a half, running their record to 29-1 and claiming the consensus top ranking in the country.

'Sabo'-metric look at scoring stat

Courtesy Real Salt Lake

There are a lot of statistics in soccer these days, and most of the time, I’m all for it. Finding numbers to illustrate key points or tracking long-running streaks can provide great talking points. But I get really frustrated when statistics are quoted out of context.

One such statistic caught my eye in this week’s MLSsoccer.com piece by Simon Borg, a friend and colleague with whom I love to argue and debate. In writing about Real Salt Lake forward Alvaro Saborío, Simon passed on a couple of statistics cited by Real Salt Lake GM Garth Lagerwey, presumably to indicate that Saborío is a clutch goalscorer and essential to his team’s success. The big statistic?

Real Salt Lake is 31-5-6 in all competitions when Saborío scores.

I have seen this stat used before in game notes, on television broadcasts, and in articles. But I have never found it to be particularly enlightening. After all, soccer is a low-scoring game. Isn’t it pretty obvious that a player scoring a goal is going to increase his team’s chances of winning? Don’t most teams have a high winning percentage when scoring at least one goal? Even if a team’s record when an individual scores is better than the team’s record when anybody scores, is it really because that player scored or is it perhaps because the team happened to play better defense in those games?

I asked Simon for his thoughts on the statistic, and he thought it was useful because it illustrated “the sense of Lagerwey and [head coach Jason] Kreis that [Saborío] is a clutch scorer. … There are plenty of scorers out there; not all of them show up when it counts.”

That’s certainly fair enough. I rate Saborío very highly and definitely consider him a key ingredient of Real Salt Lake’s success. I have enjoyed my conversations with both Lagerwey and Kreis, and I have an excellent relationship with the RSL communications staff. But I remained unconvinced that the statistic itself is all that indicative. I expected that most teams would have a winning record when their leading scorer found the net. I had no proof, however, so I set out to look at a few cases to test my theory.

In MLS last year, 13 players scored at least 10 goals. For each player, I went through his game-by-game log (thank you, Peter Hirdt and Elias Sports Bureau) and totaled his team’s record when he scores. I then looked up each team’s regular-season record when it scored at least one goal.

The win percentages based on individual scoring ranged from .500 (Will Bruin) to .857 (Steven Lenhart), with an average of .751 and a median of .773. Most of the numbers clustered between .750 and .789, and most players’ teams had suffered at least two losses when they scored.

The team numbers were, across the board, lower than the individual numbers, ranging from .500 (New England) to .818 (Real Salt Lake) and averaging .705.

Next, the crux of the issue: the difference between a team’s winning percentage when scoring any goal and its winning percentage when a particular individual scores. The average difference was .046, meaning a team wins 4.6% more of its games when its 10-goal striker scores than when just anybody scores. The highest number belonged to Steven Lenhart (.857 when he scored vs. 719 when any Earthquake scored), while the lowest number belonged to Will Bruin (.500 when he scored vs. .667 when any Dynamo player scored).

Player - 2012 season	Ind%	Tm%	Diff.
Steven Lenhart, SJ	.857 (5-0-2)	.719 (19-5-8)	+.138
Kenny Cooper, NY	.846 (10-1-2)	.714 (16-4-8)	+.132
Saer Sene, NE	.611 (4-2-3)	.500 (9-9-5)	+.111
Robbie Keane, LA	.750 (8-2-2)	.655 (16-7-6)	+.095
Thierry Henry, NY	.800 (8-2-0)	.714 (16-4-8)	+.086
Chris Pontius, DC	.833 (7-1-1)	.750 (17-4-5)	+.083
Chris Wondolowski, SJ	.789 (13-2-4)	.719 (19-5-8)	+.071
Eddie Johnson, SEA	.750 (8-2-2)	.704 (15-4-8)	+.046
Fredy Montero, SEA	.750 (6-1-3)	.704 (15-4-8)	+.046
Alan Gordon, SJ	.708 (7-2-3)	.719 (19-5-8)	-.010
Kei Kamara, KC	.773 (8-2-1)	.788 (18-3-5)	-.016
Alvaro Saborio, RSL	.800 (8-2-0)	.818 (17-3-2)	-.018
Will Bruin, HOU	.500 (2-2-6)	.667 (14-5-8)	-.167

Nine of the 13 individuals had helped their team to a better win percentage when scoring, but Saborío (RSL was 8-2 when he scored) was actually one of the four who did not, along with Bruin, Alan Gordon, and Kei Kamara. Ironically, RSL was 7-0 in the 2012 regular season when since-traded forward Fabian Espindola scored.

Interestingly, a team’s defense might make it harder for a forward to steal the show. Of the seven players with the highest difference in the above table, all seven played for teams that allowed at least 43 goals. In the bottom six, only one (Gordon) played for a team that allowed at least 43 goals.

I would like to see Elias or Opta take a crack at these numbers and consider a much wider range of players and teams. But the data so far does not give me any reason to change my conclusion: Real Salt Lake does have a better chance of winning if Saborío scores, but not a significantly better chance than if anybody else scores.