OMAHA — Tony Renda’s eyes flicked back and forth across the field as reporter after reporter asked him about the incredible journey the Cal baseball team has endured on the road to Omaha. He acknowledged their fight to save the program, their battle against elimination in Houston and every other Read More…
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Here are the dry logistics: On Sunday night, the Cal baseball team beat Dallas Baptist, 6-2, to advance to the College World Series. The game took two hours and 41 minutes. Erik Johnson was the winning pitcher for the Bears and catcher Chadd Krist hit a Read More…
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — An eternity ago, Cal second baseman Tony Renda stood stone-faced, steps away from the auburn dirt of Evans Diamond. His team, 118 years of history be damned, would disappear in a few months, a victim of plummeting state budgets. Reporters and cameramen ringed around him, waiting. Read More…
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Midway through what was supposed to be its final season, the Cal baseball team’s bats fell flat and its arms looked drained. A program with no future, its present started flickering away as well. “We’re going to rebound like no Cal team has before,” starting pitcher Read More…
In the incredible rush of winning the Houston Regional on Monday, this week’s MLB Draft found a way to fade into the background. Nonetheless, through the course of the Draft’s 50 rounds, seven Cal baseball players had their lives changed in another new way. Righty pitcher Erik Johnson led the Read More…
Some ancient philosopher, probably misattributed and misquoted through the centuries, once said that the rough road leads to the height of greatness. Maybe this isn’t the height; maybe there are greater things left to achieve for a team that, not long ago, had no future. But this must be close. Read More…
On Sunday afternoon, the Cal baseball team’s season seemed like it would never end. For nearly three hours, it sat around as lightning warnings repeatedly delayed an elimination game tied at 3-3 midway through the eighth. But a little rest was all the Bears needed to survive another day, notching Read More…
One day after spotting Baylor a 6-0 lead in three frames, the Cal baseball team generously handed Alcorn State four second-inning runs Saturday afternoon. Luckily for the Bears, the Braves more than returned the favor, handing coach David Esquer his second postseason win at Cal and first since 2001. “We Read More…
If the Cal baseball team got points for trying, it would have won its first postseason game in 10 years. But there are no sympathy runs in baseball, so the Bears instead fell, 6-4, to Baylor on a 93-degree afternoon at the Houston Regional. The loss leaves them playing for Read More…
The Cal baseball team slumped its way to the end of the year, finishing its regular season by being swept at home by Stanford. Offensive troubles, pitching stumbles and defensive missteps plagued the Bears in turn — and sometimes simultaneously — as they fell to sixth in the year-end conference Read More…
