Pat White may know more about the situation with West Virginia University baseball than most of us. Maybe he's heard more from other people in the athletic department and spoken to some of the baseball players. That may have been why he dropped a bomb on Greg Van Zant at the Big East Football Media Day suggesting racism was an issue with the coach of the baseball team.

But is it racism at West Virginia or is West Virginia just like a lot of other collegiate baseball teams, woefully short on African-American player for reasons beyond its coach?

Certainly, no one seems to be rushing to Van Zant's defense. So White may be accurate when he said Van Zant is "not well-liked." The most that has come from the West Virginia Athletic Department is Athletic Director Ed Pastilong issuing the following statement.

"The university is committed to diversity as evidenced by the development of the OneWVU program. Our coaches and staff also are committed to an atmosphere of community for our student-athletes. I look forward to speaking with Pat more about his thoughts."

Not exactly a defense of the baseball coach. Heck, Van Zant himself hasn't said anything.

Others have noted that there are no African American ballplayers on the present West Virginia baseball team. Something that on its face, would suggest a problem.

Maybe there's something to what Pat White said. It could also be that West Virginia is just like a lot of other collegiate baseball programs. To make the statements he made regarding Van Zant and the West Virginia baseball program, however, requires him to back up what he said other than pointing out that there aren't any African-American players on the team.

Like a whole lot of other serious bloggers, I didn't need much of an excuse to take a piece out of Buzz Bissinger in the aftermath of his infamous appearance on Costas Now with ex-Deadspin Editor Will Leitch. Since then, Bissinger has been making more positive noises about blogging.

Then again, after getting roasted the way he did online, I don't doubt that he might have come to the conclusion that bloggers could just as easily kill his next book as vault it to bestseller status. But today, I come not to bury Bissinger but to praise him. In particular, to praise him for standing up to the ninnies at the NCAA after they physically subdued Bissinger at the College World Series for -- wait for it -- trying to pass through the turnstiles while carrying a "professional grade" digital camera.

Apparently, Bissinger had been carrying said camera into Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium all week long without incident, until he was prevented from entering the stadium with the camera in tow, presumably to prevent him from taking shots of the action and selling them.

The only thing better than a silly media feud is a silly media feud that involves two attractive women, especially when only one of them knows the silly media feud is going on. Such is the case with the non-fight between Erin Andrews and Jenn Sterger. Ms. Sterger hopped on ESPN Radio 1470 recently and kind of ripped into EA, presumably because Andrew is more talented. Or something.

She's very talented. But it's so funny because if you look at her old tapes back when she worked at the Lightning, it was the most dreadful stuff you've ever seen in your life. People compare me and say, well, she's no Erin Andrews ... and I'm like, well, who's No. 1 on the computer. Suck it."

Sterger also went on to talk about Jill Arrington and turtlenecks (she apparently doesn't want to end up as one in one), Derek Jeter (she's not interested) and some film she's in ("it's a very smart film"). And in non-mocking fairness, she also called herself "marginal" by Florida State University standards for women.

Regardless of her brief stint with humility though, it's pretty ridiculous that she thinks she can even remotely compare to Erin Andrews. And this isn't some super-blog-crush thing either; Andrews comes across as a talented, smart woman who is knowledgeable in her area of employment. Sterger on the other hand, sounds like a slightly more funny Brenda Walsh who wears cowboy hats and kind of likes sports.

Of course, Jenn has the solution for EA -- make everything more entertaining by acting like Matt Berry and "talking about midgets." Yes. That seems like the solution to all the world's sideline reporting problems.

(Via TBL)

A pair of LSU runners, Richard Thompson and Kelly Baptiste, won the men's and women's 100 meters at the NCAA track and field championships. Thompson and Baptiste are both from Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean nation with a population of 1.3 million. Here's Thompson talking about it afterward:

"It says a lot to come from a little country like Trinidad, I think it shows the quality of sprinters that come from there," Thompson said. "It feels great to follow in the footsteps of Hasely Crawford, who won the Olympic games in 1976. He was an NCAA champion."

Thompson was also part of LSU's winning 4x100-meter relay team, which was anchored by Trindon Holliday, who is also a running back on LSU's football team.

The NCAA Super Regional is kind of a big deal. There are eight of them, and the winner of each advances to the College World Series. LSU's chances of making it to Omaha got a lot slimmer after losing to UC Irvine yesterday.

The final score was 11-5, but the outcome could've been different if not for this:

Top of the 7th, bases loaded, two outs, and Tigers' junior junior Derek Helenihi, batting .303, coming to the plate with LSU down four runs. Except second-base umpire David Rogers, consulting his Magic 8-Ball, called D.J. LeMahieu out.

Apparently, LSU played one of its worse games of the season, and Rogers' bogusness didn't affect the outcome. Which probably makes LSU coach Paul Manieri feel much better about the whole situation.

"I can't tell you what the umpire told me," said Manieri ... [but] "I thought he was clearly safe getting back ... I didn't think the umpire was watching. There was a long hesitation. I think their second baseman sold them on the call by showing them the ball and running off the field."

Okay, so the ump didn't have a Magic 8-Ball, he was just guessing. Even better.

via Fark

No other way to put it.

For years now west coast baseball fans have been up in arms and for good reason: their teams keep getting worked over by the selection committee.

The basic process itself makes sense: automatically invite conference champions, allow top teams to host regionals, quarrel over remaining "at large" teams. It's quite similar to how the NCAA basketball tournament works.

The major problem seems to be the introduction of several biases in this process. Although it's cited as "just one measure", the RPI rating system seems to be of heavy focus. The RPI itself, according to some, is heavily flawed and works strongly against west coast teams in particular.

Another error is how teams are allocated. This year, like most years, most of the west coast teams are bunched together in a small pack of "regional" groupings, limiting the number who can potentially make it to Omaha for the College World Series. Yet the SEC and ACC get much more favorable treatment.

There are 25 schools in the Pac-10, Big West and West Coast Conference. Eleven made the tournament field. Nine are stuffed in three regionals, meaning only 33 percent of them could advance to a Super Regional.

There are 24 schools in the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference. Fifteen made the tournament. They are stretched across 11 different regionals, so 73 percent could advance to the next round.

This has been going on for years.

Here's the brief story of Western Oregon College softball player Sara Tucholsky, who hit the ball out of the park against Central Washington but tore a knee ligament while rounding first base. It's not a home run unless she makes it home, and she couldn't walk, so two Central Washington players carried her around the bases:

The Central Washington players are getting almost universal praise for a show of sportsmanship, but there are some contrary points raised about the incident as well. John Canzano of The Oregonian writes:

If we're being real, we should all acknowledge that if this were a men's game, at any level, on any field, what we'd have is a pinch runner at first base and nobody thinking twice about what a tough break it was for the batter.

J-Red of East Coast Bias writes:

Could you EVER imagine this happening in a men's game at the college level or above? If Wes Welker, generally considered a good guy, were streaking down the sideline with no one able to catch him, but he trips and falls or catches a cleat, could you imagine an NFL player explaining after the game that he didn't touch him down because he "deserved" the touchdown?

I'm not completely convinced that this couldn't happen in a men's competition, but I am in agreement that this really isn't the "great sportsmanship" that it's being labeled on all the morning news shows that are featuring it today. Sportsmanship is about playing by the rules, being humble in victory and being gracious in defeat. It's not about helping your opponent beat you.

UPDATE: As commenters have pointed out, Western Oregon could have simply put in a pinch runner and the whole thing never would have happened.

Sports columnist Selena Roberts is a gifted writer who usually sounds just the right notes in writing about the way sports intersects with issues like race, class, politics and the law. But she was dead wrong about the Duke lacrosse case. Roberts wrote a terrible column on March 31, 2006 that centered around this 20-word paragraph:

But why is it so hard to gather the facts? Why is any whisper of a detail akin to snitching?

Roberts' thesis was that the Duke lacrosse players were banding together to protect the rapists in their midst. Of course, as we now know, it wasn't so hard to gather the facts in the Duke lacrosse case -- the facts were right there, out in the open, but a corrupt prosecutor named Mike Nifong (the only person who went to jail for the Duke lacrosse case) was so eager to twist the facts to his own political advantage that he would have sent three innocent men to prison had the attorney general not taken the case out of his hands.

But while Roberts got the story wrong in March of 2006, that can be understood -- it was a complex story, one that most members of the media got wrong. What is harder to understand is Roberts' continuing refusal to admit she was wrong, nearly two years after the fact.

In Washington today, the remaining members of the Duke Lacrosse team who were not originally prosecuted for rape by the city of Durham, North Carolina announced that they were filing suit against both the University and the city for the emotional distress they suffered over the course of the case.

In all, more than three dozen current and former students will take part in the lawsuit that was filed today in Federal court in North Carolina. Pictured above is Steve Henkelman, father of former Duke lacrosse player Erik Henkelman, speaking his piece about the suit today at the National Press Club.

Previously, the three former students who were falsely accused of the crime, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, filed suit separately against former Durham prosecutor Mike Nifong, the city and the University. They reached a settlement with Duke in June while the other cases are still pending.

In March of 2006, when a stripper falsely claimed that she had been raped by Duke lacrosse players, no media outlet spilled more ink detailing the since-disproved allegations than the New York Times.

Nearly two years after the fact, the Times' coverage of the Duke lacrosse case is still often held up as an example of the way the media can run amok and damage the lives of innocent people as a result. So it's not surprising that when Times sports editor Tom Jolly did a Q&A with readers this week, one reader asked this question:

Q. When the Duke Lacrosse "rape" case first erupted, the New York Times sports section was one of the leading cheerleaders for the conviction and slandering of the Duke team as a whole and the three charged players. When the charges imploded, the players exonerated, and Michael Nifong disbarred, the sports section and "pundits" remained steadfastly silent. Since you are the chief editor, one must assume that you led and approved of all the reporting (and non-reporting) and the commentary (however incorrect and one-sided). Question: As the editor of the sports section how do you justify your behavior in toto?

Jolly's answer expressed regret.