All Entries Tagged With: "Dan McDonnell"

Kime Chooses Louisville Over Pittsburgh Pirates

Don’t look now but Dan McDonnell is reloading.

Dace Kime, a right-handed pitcher selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates during the eighth round of the recent Major League Baseball draft, has decided he prefers playing baseball at the University of Louisville over the rigors of minor league play. Source.

Kime, from Defiance, Ohio, compiled a 7-1 won-lost record with a 1.31 ERA and 108 strikeouts in 69.2 innings. His team finished 29-2 and advanced to the state semifinals in 2010. He was selected 237th overall.

“I know there are no guarantees, but now I get the chance to go to school to get an education and still play baseball,” he told the Defiance (Ohio) Crescent-News. “My focus now is going to be on doing the best I can in the classroom and on the baseball field. I’m very excited about going to Louisville.”

U of L baseball fans are exuberant. Here’s a video from MLB draft day:

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Cody Ege Commits To Louisville Baseball

Cody Ege, a player with impressive hitting and pitching credentials from Cherokee, Iowa, has told Coach Dan McDonnell that he wants to play college baseball at the University of Louisville.

The center fielder batted over .450 at the plate this season, including eight home runs. As a pitcher, he has a 3-1 record with 92 strikeouts in 41 innings, including a 21-strikeout no-hitter.

Ege was brought up to the varsity as an eighth-grader. His team made the Class 2-A State tournament four consecutive seasons. He was a part of the school’s winning the state championship team in 2007, finishing in second place the following season, and making the semifinals last year.

Source: Des Moines Register

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Dog Days Arrive For Louisville Fans

Forever until September.

July only now arriving, still only one-third of the way through a record hot summer. Dog days. Boring. Not much happening in University of Louisville athletics.

Wrong.

• Over at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, seats are still being installed at a record slow pace, at least four or five chair backs at day. Advertising panels are being added to the video scoreboard. Workers are putting finishing touches on the luxury suites, with interior decorators breathing down their necks.

• Football players doing individual workouts. Charlie Strong awaiting test scores.  Attracting four-to-five-star transfers at a record clip.

• At the new KFC Yum! Center, the video scoreboard is up, as well as ancillary units. Massive heating and air conditioning system nearing completion. Exterior glass being sealed. Marble flooring going down in the spacious lobby. Plush red seats being added, getting snatched up by corporations and fans as fast as they can be installed.

• On campus, players working out, following through on individual instruction. Rick Pitino hiring new assistants, awaiting test scores and securing transfers. Meeting himself coming and going to the airport attending summer shoe camps.
  

• At Jim Patterson Stadium, baseball coach Dan McDonnell is conducting youth camps, padding his salary. But he’s also keeping a wary eye on the Aug. 15th signing deadline, hoping most of the seven underclassmen and two high school recruits picked during the Major League draft are enrolled next semester.

• Women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz is salivating over the prospects of a top five recruiting class, hoping  the chemistry is as good as the player rankings. Trying to forget all the injuries, knowing it could never be as bad as last season.
  

• Tom Jurich is still breathing a sigh of relief that the Big East was untouched during the latest round of conference expansion. But he’s not waiting for the phone to ring either. Not Tom Jurich.

No sitting around for some during the dog days.

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Dan McDonnell Returns To Louisville Dugout

Dan McDonnell returns to the dugout.

He returns having been relegated to lower-than-spectator status for three of the most important games of the best regular baseball seasons in the school’s history. Having been embarrassed, admonished and punished for a fiery display of passion in defense of his University of Louisville baseball team. He has apologized for his action and will think twice the next time.

But McDonnell’s intensity remains in tact.

He makes what has to be a highly emotional return, with an opportunity to get his team to an NCAA Super Regional for the third time in as many seasons.  He has built a following of fans with an equally emotional bond to Louisville baseball, along with a bevy of bandwagon jumpers. He has restored a love for baseball for many, if only for the U of L brand.

Return now, Dan, to finish the job.

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The big question, of course, is whether Thomas Royse will return to the mound for the decisive game against Vanderbilt. The  junior righthander, who compiled a team-leading 9-1 won-lost record, has been missing in action during the Louisville Regional. No explanation has been given for the absence.

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Sunday Nap: Vanderbilt 7, Louisville 0

One of those games when the University of Louisville players are unable to get the bats off their shoulders, this one denying U of L a NCAA Regional baseball championship. Handcuffed by the mysterious and little used Richie Goodenow allowing Louisville only two hits and four base runners.

These kind of games seem to happen on Sundays, the sleepwalking, the going through the motions.

Dan McDonnell is back Monday. All hands on deck.

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Video: Dan McDonnell’s Brush With Umpires

Perhaps the video below might provide some clarity into the encounter between Louisville baseball coach Dan McDonnell and Big East umpire Mike Shields during the U of L-St. John’s game on Saturday. A few things one might want to note in the video:

• How far off the plate the pitch is to Louisville’s Drew Haynes.
• Haynes disgustedly flinging the bat, getting ejected.
• How McDonnell returns to the dugout after initially protesting the call.
• How the umpires seem to be acting more like overzealous security guards at times.
• How something an umpire says spurs McDonnell into returning to the field.
• How little contact, incidental at most, is initiated by McDonnell with any umpire.

You be the judge but nothing will change the fact that the U of L coach has been banned for the next three games. And, as a wise man said very recently, “No use getting the bad side of umpires. You can’t win that fight.”

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Handling Adversity Key For Louisville Baseball

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Not liking the way things have been going lately.

Far too many come-from-behind wins required late in the season, a weak showing in the Big East baseball tournament, and a three-game suspension for Dan McDonnell as NCAA action begins.

Louisville batters making too many opposing pitchers look good with their collective hitting slump and too many of U of L’s relief pitchers, especially Gabriel Shaw, looking vulnerable. Even super stopper Neil Holland giving up a home run in his most recent outing.

Don’t look now but it looks like the return of more wet weather, rain delays, late starts, later endings.

Gotta get better for this University of Louisville baseball team.

A few weeks into the season, Dan McDonnell said that the true measure of a team is how it responds to adversity. “Bad things are going to happen,” he stated. “You have to prepare for them, make adjustments and move forward.”

When asked about playing without McDonnell, shortstop Adam Duvall responded, “We’ll miss him but we’ve been preparing for this all season, overcoming a lot of challenges. We just want to play baseball, and we’re ready to get back out there.”

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