No doubt, Hudson has been busy talking to the media since he got picked up by the Rangers organization in late January.  Not only that, he will join another former Illini, catcher Chris Robinson.  Both have an invite to spring training. 

Good luck to both!

As for me , I’m in Pittsburgh for a four-day weekend with friends so I’ll miss it.  If anyone gets some good photos, contact me and we can post them here. 

In related news, Coach Hartleb got some air time with Steve Kelly a couple days ago on NewsTalks 1400 Sports Talk.  You know the Illini Baseball season is getting close when the local media begins covering the sport.  Of course, Hartleb was plugging the Hot Stove Banquet but hit on the prospects of the 2012 season, the tougher 2012 schedule and even some MLB talk.  Note: the Hartleb segment begins at about the 32:00 mark. 

Also, some good news from Hartleb… the Banquet seems to be a sellout. 

You can listen to the full episode at illinihq.com. 

Practice begins today, baseball fans. 

It’s an illuminating interview… you’ll find out Wes’ hopes for the future, favorite Jewish ballplayers and favorite pizza.

By the way, you might recognize the photo from the article.  It’s one of my photos from this year’s series against Iowa.

Way to go, Wes.

In this first one, pay close attention to the very start where you see a split second of a fabulous play by Pete Cappetta.  Then toward the end, you’ll see Davis Hendrickson’s amazing catch against Fullerton.

In this SportCenter top five, you’ll see Pete Cappetta’s play in full (the audio is bad.. it’s not my video).

SoCalBaseball had interviewed some Illinois baseball crew while they were out there for the Regionals.  Here’s a YouTube clip of Pete Cappetta getting some media attention:

…and Kevin Johnson…

…even Coach Eric Snider talked to them.

The Chicago Tribune interviewed walk-off hero Matt Dittman

The Daily Illini has a couple of interesting articles.  One on the missing trophy (stupid policy in my opinion) and another preview of the Tournament.  A quick kudos to the DI for their extensive coverage of Illini Baseball ALL season.  I hope they continue that next year.)

And since all games at the Big Ten Baseball Tournament will be televised you might be find the Big Ten Network TV Schedule link useful.

Good luck, Illini!!

The Daily Illini has a nice article on the Parr brothers not to mention Dad Cam who we find out was a shortstop himself at Huntington University.

Speaking of shortstops, former Illini shortstop Brandon Wikoff (left, during his Illini days) has been doing quite well in AA ball. Brandon is playing for Corpus Christi with the Houston Astros organization.  I won’t jinx him by quoting his numbers but you can check them out for yourself.  By the way, it was nice to see Brandon’s mom make it to Friday’s game.

Interesting stat of the day:  Illinois has a better record when they give up two or more homers (2-1) than when they don’t give up any at all (12-17).   Unfortunately, today was the exception.

IlliniHQ also had an accompanying ‘just-the-facts’ article.  By the way, it’s official, Josh Parr injured is knee during practice which explains his absence last night (I heard rumors but wasn’t going to publish anything till I heard something more detailed).

Speaking of IlliniHQ, they ran a piece on Casey McMurray that shows just how tough he really his.

“The Illinois left fielder played his entire junior year with cysts in his tailbone area that made even sitting — much less running and sliding — at times excruciating.”

Ouch.

Finally, the Daily Illini has been pretty good about paying attention to Illinois baseball all season. Kudos to them.  This past week, they ran an article on Will Strack billing him as ‘Dynamic Strack’.

Collegebaseball360.com, for example, for will be broadcasting 13 of the 24 games of the Big East/Big Ten Challenge down in Clearwater/St Petersburg, Florida.  They are increasing their broadcasting from eight games last year.  Of interest to us Illini fans, they will stream the West Virginia-Illinois game on Sunday February 20.

For more info on the Big East/Big Ten Challenge, here is the tournament web site.

Big Ten Network will increasing their baseball coverage as well. They have just posted their broadcasting schedule for the 2011 baseball season.  The BTN plans to show 30 games on their television network and stream another 50 games over the web.

Three Illinois games are scheduled to be on BTN television network.

• Saturday, April 9 Iowa at Illinois 7 p.m.
• Friday, April 22 Michigan State at Illinois 7 p.m.
• Sunday, May 15 Illinois at Purdue 3 p.m.

The Big Ten Baseball Tournament will be broadcasted in its entirety.  Here is the full Big Ten baseball schedule for the BTN.

I love this kind of stuff.  If we want statistics from Major League Baseball’s past, we only need to go Retrosheet.org or BaseballReference.com and we have it all.  It’s all there… just a few mouse clicks away.  Usually, college sports statistics from the past are a different story.  Getting college stats documented and archived is a long arduous task, I’m sure.  The Big Ten Records Book is a great step forward.

You’ll find the Big Ten Records Book landing page here at the Big Ten website.  Here is the link if you want to jump to Baseball section.

“Great job” to the Big Ten stat people!

But there’s a new bonus that probably appeals to geeks like me.  The online roster has a click-to-sort feature.  If you want to sort the players by a particular field (last name, uni number even height and weight), just click on the header field and it will do so alphabetically or numerically as the case may be.

Very handy feature, in my opinion.