As with many of the Commodore bats, sophomore slugger Conrad Gregor struggled to get anything going at the plate. (Photo Jimmy Jones)
Vanderbilt kicked off the season before I could finish my season preview, but that’s not going to stop the Week Behind, Week Ahead from going forward on schedule. It would have been nice to have some had positive preview stories to kick off the new year. Instead, Vanderbilt transitioned from perhaps their best season on the diamond into the worst weekend of the Corbin era out West.
The Commodores took their traditional west coast voyage to start the year, a tradition that has seen visits to Arizona State (DeMarini Classic), Stanford , UCLA (Legends Classic) and San Diego in the past four years. The common theme of the sunset trips has been an unpleasant experience at Sunken Diamond field. While the Dores went 1-6 in their trips to Palo Alto (including a 2009 loss to Cal-Berkley), they had a good deal of success in Tucson, Los Angeles and San Diego, not to mention a clean sweep of the Houston Minute Maid Classic in 2007. So perhaps the lesson here is to stop scheduling trips to Palo Alto.
I recently finished reading Lawrence Krauss’ A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing while on vacation. A quick and easy read for those with a decent level of scientific literacy, it was graced by an afterward from Richard Dawkins. It’s unfortunate that Christopher Hitchens’ planned forward for the book was derailed by his illness; nevertheless, a book featuring two of the four prominent American scientist-atheists (joining Neil de Grasse Tyson and Dan Denntt) still provided quite a bit of umph to it.
I still intend to get around to doing a review of the book, but in the meantime I thought I would share this outstanding talk between the two authors. It was hosted by the Origins Project headed by Krauss at Arizona State University and featured a fine discussion on science in general, atheism and a bit on American politics.
This is no debate, as these two scientists share a similar world view and the audience also trended toward the science-focused, areligious types. Perhaps as a result, Krauss tends to earn some cheap laughs at the expense of the Republican leadership. That doesn’t prevent the video being well worth the viewing time for an intelligent discussion on abiogenesis, evolution and the exciting quantum physics discussed in “A Universe From Nothing.”
This is the prelude to a full season preview that I hope to release before next weekend.
A series of real world events have strapped me of the time needed to finish my annual preview of the Vanderbilt baseball team. As a result, I’m publishing instead this short weekend preview for the Stanford series.
I still intend to conduct a five-part preview of the (i) newcomers, (ii) pitchers, (iii) position players, (iv) season schedule and (v) future recruiting classes. That said, they likely won’t be done until the home opener next week, at the earliest. I also intend to continue the tradition of the Week Behind, Week Ahead recaps, starting Monday morning.
In the meantime, Vanderbilt has announced the starting rotation for the Stanford series this weekend. Some quick thoughts and a few videos after the jump.
Trying out some new technology here tonight. It was the VU Baseball Banquet and the house was packed. For those out of town fans, the Dores are kind enough to live stream the event. It isn’t archived on www.vucommodores.com, so I’ve done the next best thing and recapped some live tweeting of the event.
Tim Corbin was a maestro on the stage, showing off an impeccable memory and some sly humor. Look for me to start rolling out my season previews sometime this week.
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while on vacation. A quick and easy read for those with a decent level of scientific literacy, it was graced by an afterward from Richard Dawkins. It’s unfortunate that Christopher Hitchens’ planned forward for the book was derailed by his illness; nevertheless, a book featuring two of the four prominent American scientist-atheists (joining Neil de Grasse Tyson and Dan Denntt) still provided quite a bit of umph to it. 
