Dozen of tractors overturned in Fresno following College World Series win

FRESNO, CA - Law enforcement officials picked through the debris Thursday morning after celebrations turned violent following Fresno State's College World Series-clinching win over Georgia the previous night. Raucous fans left overturned hundreds of pieces of farm equipment and left countless heads of cattle, sheep and other livestock "startled but otherwise unharmed."

The harsh light of morning revealed tractors, harvesters and balers that had been overturned during the celebrations by out-of-control fans. Officers in helicopter patrols during the night had reported multiple incidents of fires being started in celebration, but later investigations discovered that these were merely cases of farmers performing regularly-planning burning of leaves, weeds and other agricultural rubbish.

Still, many area residents who went to sleep to the sounds of wild celebrations woke up to a tremendous shock this morning. John Mosesian is a farmer with a 1,200 acre grape vineyard in Fowler.

"I start going to bed, next thing I know, I hear all this shouting and hollering coming from down the road," Mosesian said. "I just thought it was the neighbors getting into it again, so I went to bed. I wake up in the morning, and someone's set my compost heap on fire, and my rotary tiller's been dumped on its side."

Mosesian paused to survey the damage before reflecting on the clean-up effort.

"It's a damn shame - it's going to take hours for Juan, Jose, Paco and Manuel to clean all this up, and they still have 12 hours of field work to do," he said, shaking his head. "They'll be here well past sundown."

Mosesian then drove off in his pick-up to his traditional two-hour breakfast at Lou's Diner with other hard-working farmers.

There were no confirmed reports of injuries or deaths following the incidents, although three Visalia men were arrested and charged with public intoxication and animal cruelty after tossing a pig into the air repeatedly in celebration. The pig was slaughtered as planned later in the morning and was said by observers to be "delicious."

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:19 PM 0 comments  

That Bulldog fever

The Fresno State Bulldogs were thwarted in their first attempt to make it to the College World Series final series, as North Carolina rallied for a 4-3 victory on Saturday night to force a rematch today, with the winner moving on to face Georgia. Now, normally, I wouldn't pay too much attention to the College World Series - somehow, I've managed to remain immune to the "ping" of metal bats. But...Fresno State's run to the precipice of the College World Series final series is significant enough to make me care, and that's not just because I grew up 20 miles away from Fresno.

What Fresno State is attempting to pull off, frankly, would be the equivalent of a No. 16 seed winning the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. Quite literally - they were a No. 4 seed out of four teams in their sub-regional - essentially one of the 16 lowest-ranked teams in the tournament (so I guess they could have been as high as a No. 13 seed, but...quit ruining the narrative with your math, Mr. Math!). After making it through that, they took down nationally-ranked Arizona St. on the road to punch their ticket to Omaha - despite the Sun Devils' "fake fight", which I haven't mentioned here yet, but it's one of the stupid things I've ever heard of. Even my kickball team - the one that almost burned down our park this season - wouldn't pull something that stupid.

It's pretty amazing stuff. As I've mentioned here before, the local community has a special bond with Fresno State teams, especially the baseball team, which is almost entirely made up of players from the area. The whole Central Valley will rally around a Fresno State team when it does well, especially because in each local town like Visalia or Turlock or Hanford, there is a kid that plays on the team, and that they can rally behind. At least, they would if everyone in town wasn't too busy hiding out in their houses with the air conditioning cranked up, afraid to turn the TV on for fear that the heat from the TV will be the tipping point that causes the house to catch fire.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:08 AM 0 comments  

Crotchety old man doing crotchety old man things at MSU

Mississippi State baseball coach Ron Polk retired this season after 35 seasons and 1,373 wins to his name. As you might expect, he thought he should have some say in the hiring of his successor, backing longtime assistant coach (and former player under him) Tommy Raffo. However, Mississippi State recently brought in a new athletic director, Greg Byrne. And he, for obvious reasons, wanted to put his own stamp on the athletic department, and decided to hire Kentucky coach John Cohen.

Big mistake.

Polk is, as they say down South, madder than a toothless dog with a bone. (I don't know if they actually say that; I might have mixed up my Southern sayings with the wisdom of Ed Anger.) Polk has ripped into Byrne, said that he is "on the war path" and has vowed to "do everything I can to make his life miserable."

Among Polk's plans to protest the "snub" of Raffo are:

• Removing his name from the stadium
• Taking Mississippi State from his will
• Use his influence to undermine several successful booster clubs
• "Personally" take down banners that display his name and number
• Hold his breath until they hire Raffo or he dies, in which case they'll have to live with that the rest of their lives (Editor's Note: I made this one up)

Other than pointing out that it's shame that his wife and family will presumably will have to be written back into his will (and that I'd like to see him on a ladder, angrily taking down banners as if he's a homeowner whose house just got TP'ed), I feel like Polk has a point here - other coaches who have reached legendary status in their respective fields have had the chance to hand pick their successors, so why shouldn't he? Again, I don't think it warrants him acting like a petulant child who didn't get to buy a toy at Wal-Mart, but who am I to judge?*

*Answer: a member of the World Wide Blogosphere, that's who.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 9:30 AM 0 comments