Well, ok, baseball is already here at least where college baseball is concerned.  As a matter of fact, Arkansas beat Alabama today with the help of Springdale native Thomas Hauskey.  Go Hogs!

I’m actually thinking minor league, specifically Northwest Arkansas Naturals, baseball.  Season tickets are being mailed out this week!  The season starts Thursday, April 8!  On Friday, Centerfield by John Fogerty came on my iPod and I got excited.  It’s not a Friday night post-game fireworks show without that song being played.

Minor league camp is still in session so the opening day roster hasn’t been announced yet.  One bit of roster news from this past week is that Fayetteville native, former Hog, & recent Kansas City Royal draftee Ben Tschepikow (pictured above) has voluntarily retired from MLB because of injuries that have plagued him since the end of last season.  No Naturals uniform for Ben.

See you at Arvest Ballpark April 8!

Today is the first Arkansas Razorback football game of the season.  The Razorbacks are taking on the Missouri State Bears at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.  Go Hogs Go!

Some Exciting Former Hog News:

• Former Hog baseball player Craig Gentry has been called up from AA Frisco to the majors – the Texas Rangers.  Northwest Arkansas has been fortunate enough to keep up with Craig’s progress through the Rangers organization because Frisco plays the Northwest Arkansas Naturals.  Good luck, Craig!

Brad Keselowski has helped Dale Earnhardt Jr make JR Motorsports a weekly contender in the NASCAR Nationwide series.  Brad has 5 wins in the NW series and got his first Cup series win in April at Talladega.  Penske Racing announced Tuesday that Brad will join them beginning in 2010 and will drive the #12 Penske Dodge in the Sprint Cup series.  Congratulations Brad on this great opportunity!  Just remember that Rick Hendrick & Hendrick Motorsports isn’t out of reach!

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals have 3 games left (with only 1 win needed) and they will have clinched a Texas League playoff spot for the 2nd straight season (in only 2 seasons in existence in NWA).  Good luck Naturals against the Tulsa Drillers this weekend!

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals opened their 2009 home season on Thursday evening at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale.

The first home series of the season was against the San Antonio Missions.  The Naturals won the series with 5-4 win on Thursday night and a 5-2 win last night.

Thursday & Friday night I sat in my regular seats, which are located kind of behind home base.  My view is what you see in this picture.

Saturday night me, Shelby, Mom, & Dad got tickets to sit up in a suite.

Both views are great.  I like sitting in my regular seat because of how close it is to the action.  I also like sitting up in the suite because you get a whole different perspective on the action.

Friday night was a special night called “Pink in the Park”.  The Naturals wore pink uniforms.

The uniforms were auctioned off at the end of the night with proceeds going to the Susan G Komen Foundation to help fund breast cancer research.

As I mentioned in a blog entry earlier this afternoon, northwest Arkansas has been fighting the rain off and on all weekend.  Both Friday & Saturday evening games saw rain coming down pretty steadily at times.

We saw a rainbow on Friday night.

Saturday night’s rain required the tarp to be rolled out.  Luckily, the rain quickly passed and, as you can see in the picture above, the Naturals crew got to put the tarp back up and finish the ballgame.

Springdale resident Vance Wilson has joined the NWA Naturals this year.  He has previously caught for the New York Mets & Detroit Tigers.  He has been rehabbing from elbow surgery and is expected to join the play rotation soon.  There were lots of VDub fans in the audience each night.

Check out my photo album from the Naturals-Missions series.

I hope everyone’s holiday weekend is going well so far.  We made cupcake bites to take to Easter dinner tomorrow.  They are so cute!

While I’m waiting on supper to finish cooking, I thought I’d share a couple of pieces of news from this past week that interested me.

No More No. 8

It was annnounced this week that, because of lack of sponsorship, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing shut down the No. 8 team (driven by Aric Almirola).  This leaves the No. 1 car (driven by Martin Truex Jr) as the only remaining original car from Dale Earnhardt’s original DEI stable.  On one hand, I saw this coming the minute Junior announced he was leaving DEI.  On the other hand, I find it very sad.  Dale Sr’s team is slipping farther and farther away.

We’re No. 1?

The University of Arkansas baseball team is having a great 2009 season so far.  After last weekend, the hogs and Arizona St were splitting the no. 1 ranking in various polls.  Arizona St just happened to visit Baum Stadium Tuesday & Wednesday.  Arkansas came up victorious in both games.  Go Hogs!

Update:  Arkansas lost to Vanderbilt last night and this afternoon.  I’m hoping they can pull out a win tomorrow and still manage to come out with a great ranking Monday.  I guess we’ll see.

My department went to the Arkansas baseball game Tuesday night against Nebraska for some team building.  We got to sit in the company suite, which allowed us watch baseball and keep up with American Idol & Dancing with the Stars.  We got Flying Burrito to cater for us, which is always great.  Arkansas beat Nebraska 7-3.

Tuesday was St Patrick’s Day so Arkansas wore green ball caps.  (The first 1000 fans into the stadium got a green ball cap as well.)

Fayetteville native Ben Tschepikow hit a two-run homerun in the first inning.

I’m not sure I really like this tagline – “You will be in emBAUMed.”  It is a catch phrase, using the name of the stadium (Baum), but it’s kind of creepy too.

Here is a slide show of some of the photos I took at the game.

After beating Auburn yesterday, No. 15 Arkansas is now 5-0 in SEC and 15-4 overall.  They are trying to sweep the tigers today down at Auburn.  Go Hogs!