Hey Stitch-heads out there. Thought I’d give you guys a head’s up on a few things that will be going on during this off-season for college baseball.

Later on this week I’m going to be starting a new feature called “The Best of the 2000s.” Since we’re heading into a new decade, beginning with the 2010 season, I thought I’d give a quick look back at some of the best-ofs for this past decade – especially since, with the exception of my inimitable colleague Mark Etheridge, I’m the only college baseball writer that has been writing about our sport the entire past 10 years. So that helps.

After those series of Top 10-styled features, I might go into the cave for a few months as I prepare my 2010 season preview, which will include all the usual creative whistles and bells and, of course, the ONLY place to find a decent preview of all 302 Division I teams. (Unless Baseball America or Rivals looked at my voluminous preview from last year and decided they needed to start doing that too.)

Couple other things before I go:

- The first “Best of 2000s” will probably be posted at the end of this week.

- In case you’re jonesing for any of my college football work, check out CBSSports.com’s college football page on Sundays and Mondays as I’ve been doing a couple of columns there, including a weekend wrap-up called “11 Lessons Learned,” a feature I had been doing every Sunday the last few years of my CSTV days and have carried over to CBS.

- I spent last Friday night writing about the Boise State-Fresno State game for my buddy Jerry Palm’s CollegeBCS.com site and sat next to Fresno baseball SID Theresa Kurtz in the press box. Interestingly, she said the Fresno baseball team viewed last year as a “remodeling” season as opposed to a “rebuilding” season, since they DID make the NCAA tournament again, but it was still a team with a large amount of new faces. Last year’s exceptional recruiting class should pay bigger dividends this spring.

Me, as I'm about to take a picture of Boise QB Kellen Moore.

- Speaking of the BSU-Fresno game, 2008 College World Series MVP Tom Mendonca was back on campus and given an award at halftime by WAC commissioner Karl Benson. The man known as the stellar third base vacuum machine got a nice applause from the Bulldog Stadium crowd. Theresa told me Mendonca had a really solid summer after leaving the Dogs following the Irvine Regional losses, including closing out the season with a short stint with the Bakersfield Blaze of the California League.

Former Fresno third baseman Tom Mendonca waves at the crowd as WAC commissioner Karl Benson cheers during halftime of the Boise State game last Friday..

- Not sure if you guys have seen the latest national recruiting rankings from Collegiate Baseball, but here is the Top 40 as they announced last week:
1- Florida
2- Arizona State
3- LSU
4- Central Florida
5- Cal State Fullerton
6- Kentucky
7- TCU
8- Vanderbilt
9- Miami
10- Virginia
10- Stanford (tie)
12- Texas
13- Nebraska
14- North Carolina
15- Mississippi State
16- Rice
17- Oklahoma State
18- Ole Miss
19- Wichita State
20- Georgia
21- Southern Miss
22- Florida State
23- Oklahoma
24- California
25- Oregon State
26- Oregon
27- Clemson
28- Louisville
29- San Diego
30- South Carolina
31- UC Irvine
32- Missouri
33- UCLA
34- Tennessee
35- Georgia Tech
36- Texas A&M
37- Georgia Southern
38- Texas Tech
39- Arkansas
40- Cal State Northridge
40- Long Beach State (tie)

What jumps off the page at you? Three quick things.

1- How about that No. 4 spot for Central Florida? Nice, huh? Gotta give it to Coach Rooney and the Black Knights coaching staff. If these recruiting results are even 25% correct (which usually they’re not even that), UCF should be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.

2- Oregon at No. 26.
This is the second good class that George Horton has brought in to his fledgling program in Eugene. Last year’s class was ranked at No. 2.

3- Lack of mid-major teams.
There are a few outside of the big six conferences – Wichita State, Georgia Southern and San Diego – but that’s about it. Of course, one thing these recruiting lists don’t count on is the size of heart a player has… and that’s what some of the mid-major schools excel in finding.

- Special thanks to all of you who have continued to write me in the off-season and all the nice things you’ve been saying. Mighty cool of ya’. Just wanted to let you all know that it’s greatly appreciated and I’ll try not to become lame and let you guys down in the college baseball writing-picture taking-no b.s. commentary departments.

More soon.