‘Table For Four’ With Paul Mainieri

I don’t know if you remember the IFC show “Table For Five” that actor/director Jon Favreau hosted for a couple of years. It was the free-form interview/conversation show where he would go to a restaurant with four of his favorite actors, directors or musicians and just sit down at a table to talk about movies, [...]

Q&A With UC Irvine’s Mike Gillespie

Mike Gillespie is as close to an institution in college baseball as we get in our sport. And I don’t mean that in a stuffy, boring, museum-like way. He’s old school cool with a new school rule.

You have to excuse the guy for having a laissez faire attitude to his UC Irvine team being given its No. 1 ranking in just about every poll out there. Because this guy really has been there, done that. He’s seen fame be fleeting, rankings meaning nothing and teams being snowed under by their own press clippings.

From winning the 1961 College World Series championship game for USC to taking the reigns of a program that was built by a legend to winning a national title of his own to taking a team with a nickname of “Anteaters” to a No. 1 position in the land, Mike Gillespie could be the one person we all agree has lived a college baseball dream.

Best part is, he doesn’t seem to be even remotely close to being done.

Q&A with North Carolina’s Mike Fox

I don’t think people appreciate North Carolina coach Mike Fox enough. I really don’t.

To bring his team to Omaha three years in a row and get THISCLOSE to winning a national championship each time – that’s a pretty incredible run he’s on.

In fact, I said after returning from Omaha last June that, even though I respect the hell out of what Mike Batesole and Fresno State accomplished last season, I still thought Mike Fox deserved the national coach of the year for keeping his team at a high level all season long and just making the field of eight in the promised land once again.

So while on this trip to Tarheel country this past weekend, I couldn’t wait to get a chance to talk with Coach Fox about what he’s accomplished and the state of his program.

Q&A With Umpire Extraordinaire Dave Yeast

I’m a big fan of umpires. Unlike most fans, I dig their work.

Any guy that can stand behind the plate and watch 90mph fast balls come straight toward his forehead while another guy waves a hunk of metal four feet in front of him, and oh by the way, also hope this other dude crouching behind the plate catches this vapor trail projectile as he tries to decipher if that piece of hardened rubber, twine and horse hide is over this 17-inch area and not outside it… he’s got my respect.

Dave Yeast, the umpire on the right with my hair cut, shares a laugh between innings.

So when I got the chance to talk to long time umpire Dave Yeast, a pillar in the umpiring profession and former National Coordinator of umpires for the NCAA, I didn’t hesitate to put on my bubble chest protector and black wire facemask on and fired away at him.

Q&A with Michigan’s Rich Maloney

I’ve been hoping to do a back-and-forth with Rich Maloney for a long time.
Especially after that stunning regional win down in Nashville in 2007 where his Michigan Wolverines knocked off the No. 1 national seed Vanderbilt Commodores, shocking the college baseball world.

So I was able to catch up with the architect of the new Michigan program during last weekend’s series at Arizona.

I decided to start the session with what most people want to know about when it comes to Northern baseball in this warm-weather sport.

Q&A with LSU’s Paul Mainieri

As some of you know, I don’t like to do phone Q&As too often. It’s okay if you’re just calling a coach or player to get a little information for a column, but for full Q&As I find It’s a little on the impersonal side and plus, it’s impossible to get the direct quotes from a person absolutely correct over the phone, no matter how good of notes you take. But I will do them once in a while.

One of those exceptions was when I got the chance to talk to LSU coach Paul Mainieri on Monday morning after his teams series with Illinois.

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I was actually planning on calling coach after this weekend regardless of the outcome of the UI series, but when the Illini pulled the upset it made for an even more poignant interview.

Q&A, Bill Kernan, Cal State Bakersfield

Like a Broadway play director about to unleash his newest production in front of a theater full of critics, Bakersfield head coach Bill Kernan couldn’t wait for opening day to get here. But at the same time, he seemed strangely at ease, even a tad jovial. Like this was a big secret he was about to stun Mr. and Mrs. America and all ships at sea.

Coach K as part of the opening ceremonies at Cal State Bakersfield