The Husker baseball team kicks off the real season this weekend as Big 12 conference play begins against the highly-ranked Texas Longhorns. Oh, sure, Nebraska has played 15 games already leading to a 8-7 record. You can consider them exhibition games or pre-season games, but whatever you do, forget about them. 

The Huskers spent the first few games getting acclimated to playing baseball outdoors and finding their line up. They've found a freshman weekend starter in Tom Lemke. Casey Hauptman and Michael Mariot are pitching well - Hauptman with a 1.96 ERA while Mariot has thrown a complete game recently against Houston Baptist.  Adam Bailey continues to be a Big 12 leader in hits at third with 28 already this season. Bailey is hitting a team-leading .412, with DJ Belfonte at .377. 

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The Husker baseball team faces a tough challenge this week as they head to California to take on the UCLA Bruins. UCLA has started the season at 6-0, their best start since 1997. They've played nearly perfect ball already this season,  with wins over Southern, Bethune Cookman, Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, Vanderbilt, and USC. 

As a team the Bruins are hitting .379 while holding their opponents to .188. They've outscored their opponents 65-14 over those six games and they have 11 players hitting over .300. It's early in the season and people in the know are starting to take notice that UCLA may be a special team this season. 

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The Husker baseball team will be looking for more wins this weekend against Texas A&M- Corpus Christi, Elon, and Rice this weekend in the Rice Invitational in Houston, Texas.

The Huskers start the tourney off at 1:00 pm Friday against TAMU-CC, one of the favorite whipping boys of the Big 12. TAMU-CC finished last in the Southland Conference last season with a 9-24 record, and it's doubtful things will get much better this season for them. They come into the weekend at 3-0, with wins over Prairie View and Houston-Victoria. They return a fair amount of pitching experience, but lost a lot of their offense from last season. Anyone can beat anyone whenever, but Nebraska should pick up a win here.

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The Huskers picked up their first win of the season, beating Fresno State 4-1 as freshman newcomer Tom Lemke pitched five shutout innings, giving up five hits and striking out six, while another freshman Kurt Giller threw the final four, giving up a run and five hits.

It was a disappointing series on the surface since most people (that especially includes Husker fans) measure everything in wins and losses. If you're looking at it from the glass empty perspective, there's plenty to complain about, although not much of it from the final game. Nebraska didn't get timely hitting and they couldn't hold a lead. Mike Nesseth comes out of opening weekend with a 18.00 ERA after giving up six runs in three innings worth of pitching. You have to hope this was just a bad weekend for him.

On the positive side, Nebraska was in every game against Fresno State but just couldn't pull out all the wins in the end. That two new pitchers stepped up and threw as well as they did has to be uplifting, as well as the play of DJ Belfonte and Adam Bailey. A lot of new guys saw the field, while Ryan Hughes, Chase Adams, and Khris Tate got their chance to show their stuff on the mound.

For the 100th time, folks, this ain't football. Losses, especially early season losses on the road against a non-conference opponent, don't count for much. The wins could help the RPI, but the main focus here is getting prepared for conference play, especially since we open at Texas (who, btw, lost their #1 ranking this week, so there's more positive for you). You'd rather see losses on the road against a quality opponent than warm-ups against teams that could produce easy wins.

Next up is the Rice Invitational against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Elon, and Rice.

Husker baseball season got off to a rocky start this weekend after losing three straight games to the Fresno State Bulldogs. The bad news is the way they lost. In game one, the Huskers lead 5-3 going into the bottom of the ninth, then gave up four runs,including a two-run game-winning home, to lose 7-5. In game two, they loaded the bases in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings, but failed to score a single line. The result was a 8-2 loss.

The third game was more of the same, as Nebraska lead 8-6 going into the ninth, but allowed Fresno State to score two runs to tie the game and put it into extra innings. The Huskers lead 9-8 in the 11th, but again allowed Fresno State to score two runs, the game winner coming on a wild pitch.

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The ‘ting' of the aluminum bat, the sound of college baseball season, is almost upon us as the Huskers are in Fresno to take on the 2008 CWS champion, the Fresno State Bulldogs. The Bulldogs are picked to win the Western Athletic Conference this season, so Nebraska has their work cut out for them. The Bulldogs return all three of their weekend starting pitchers, as well as their mid-week pitchers. Suffice it to say the Huskers have their work cut out for them.

If it's the start of baseball season in Nebraska, it must be time to start bitching about Mike Anderson. Some are still pining away after Dave Van Horn, and some are convinced that Rob Childress should have been the guy that stayed. I've come to the conclusion that fans like this don't really follow college baseball much, but are just generally bitchy people who show up and act as if they're following the sport when they really just want to bitch about something.

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Perhaps the people in charge of the Big 12 should start here.

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College baseball season begins anew this weekend, and I'm sure you're wondering where you can catch all the games this season.

The SEC and ESPN together with FSN and Comcast will feature 46 SEC baseball games on TV this season. If you want the complete, ginormous list, you can download the PDF here.

The Big 10, the cold-weather conference that's been largely irrelevant in college baseball for the past, oh, 40 years, will be showing 33 games on the Big 10 Network, you know, that one that features "second and third tier sporting events". They're most likely all going to be in HD, too. Imagine that, college baseball in HD. Wow, technology.

Up next, the Big 12. After the jump comes your enormous, humongous long-listing of the Big 12 games that will be shown on television this season. I had to move it after the jump because it would take up the whole front page.

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The 2010 Husker baseball season begins this Friday as Nebraska travels to Fresno for a four-game series against the Fresno State Bulldogs. Normally we'd be talking about where Nebraska stands in the pre-season rankings, but 2009 was a disastrous season that saw the Huskers suffer their first losing season since 1997 and finishing last in the Big 12 with a 8-19 conference record.

Fortunately, I shut down the Big 12 Hardball site I started last season after determining I couldn't handle the workload, and all the posts about last season are locked away to not be seen again. It's almost as if last season didn't happen, so I'd rather not say anything more about it.

Unfortunately, last season is difficult to escape. It's apparent it is for everyone else as well. That thought was brought home when I saw the 2010 Big 12 preseason coaches poll. Apparently everyone else isn't ready to forget about last season as the Huskers are picked to finish tied for eighth with Missouri. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

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