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Texas Baseball 2025 - The Schwining tradition starts here...


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Posted
10 minutes ago, tejas60 said:

This the DKR Memorial stadium history thread? Jesus. 

I know this should be about the history of Clark Field

Spoiler

Clark Field

Writer: Jody FergusonJody Ferguson
 
 
 
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One of the unique lost treasures of old Austin was the baseball diamond known as Clark Field that sat directly across the street from DKR Texas Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Texas. Each year as baseball season begins, I am reminded how much the game is woven into American history, from larger-than-life exploits to cheating and drug scandals, from overt racism to desegregation (the first large American institution to do so, preceding even the U.S. Army), the role teams play in civic pride, and the outsized role immigrants (or sons of immigrants) have played in the game. For me one of the endearing aspects of baseball is that among all competitive sports it is the only one, besides golf, wherein the field of play is not regulated. Some fields have long outfields, others have almost little league-size distances to the foul poles. Some fields have towering walls, others have waterfalls just beyond center field.

 
 
 
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Clark Field, home of the Texas Longhorns’ storied baseball program from 1928 until 1974—long enough for me to have attended games as a kid—had one of the most unique features of any ballpark in America. A limestone cliff ran across most of left and center field, inside the fences, meaning that if a ball landed on top it was still in play. The cliff could only be accessed via a small goat path in left field. Consequently, it became known as Billy Goat Hill. Texas outfielders had an advantage in knowing how to get up the cliff quickly to field a ball, thus potentially saving a run and holding the runner on second or third base.

 
 
 

In 1930 Lou Gehrig reportedly hit a towering 550-foot home run in deep center field over Billy Goat Hill, when the New York Yankees played the Longhorns in an exhibition game.

 
 
 

Unfortunately, Clark Field was paved over to make way for the Bass Concert Hall.

 
 
 

I mention “Billy Goat Hill” along with other Texas historical trivia in my novel Above the Water.

 
 
 
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Photos: The University of Texas

Please excuse the picture of that football field. Next, we can do the history of Disch-Falk Field and how hot the original turf was and how high the ball would bounce on it.

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Posted
46 minutes ago, BachelorTrek said:

Long before that, in the early 70s, I was in the seats underneath the West side overhang until that fateful year that had multiple rain games.

Then the suddenly-desirable "Options" seats on the West side Upper Deck moved to underneath the West side overhang. We moved to the West side Upper Deck seatback seats (formerly the "Options" seats) in Section 104 and enjoyed many decades of seasons there. 

My folks sat in the option seats in 103 second row. I roamed the knot hole seats and we agreed to meet up at the gate with the giant seal after the game. It was the best of times. 

Posted
32 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Is it just me or does the team look more excited, engaged, and shows more emotion this year? 

18-3, beat LSU on a Saturday night in a packed stadium. And we have one of the best coaches in college baseball. I would hope they are fired up

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Posted

Fun game last night, my wife and I will be there again with our oldest. Good to run into hornian before the game. 

Full disclosure, my son is a huge LSU fan so was funny to see him go through the emotions of the game, up until the end of the game. He didn't take the loss very well (he's 11), but excited for the rubber match. 

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Posted
56 minutes ago, Mez2 said:

Fun game last night, my wife and I will be there again with our oldest. Good to run into hornian before the game. 

Full disclosure, my son is a huge LSU fan so was funny to see him go through the emotions of the game, up until the end of the game. He didn't take the loss very well (he's 11), but excited for the rubber match. 

Do you have another son to take to the game? 

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Posted
9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Tough to imagine a better start to the Schloss era . . . keep it up, gentlemen.

Is anyone else surprised by how quickly Schloss and staff have got us playing so well?  And the great thing is that we have plenty we can improve upon.  This is fucking beautiful.

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Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, cafe society said:

Is anyone else surprised by how quickly Schloss and staff have got us playing so well?  And the great thing is that we have plenty we can improve upon.  This is fucking beautiful.

Not one bit. Elite coaches don’t need that much time to turn a roster around, even if they can’t inject too many new players into the roster initially. I think of Vic’s first season, taking that team to the Elite 8, with very little infusion of talent. Or Mike White taking that first team to a super, forcing a game 3

Edited by Js1
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Posted
3 minutes ago, Rholl said:

That was really really fun!!! 

thank you CDC for crushing aggy souls!

Wait, A&M is 0-6 and we're 5-1?  Oh damn I feel bad for Mike Earley.

Just kidding.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Js1 said:

Not one bit. Elite coaches don’t need that much time to turn a roster around, even if they can’t inject too many new players into the roster initially. I think of Vic’s first season, taking that team to the Elite 8, with very little infusion of talent. Or Mike White taking that first team to a super, forcing a game 3

That's all well and good, but I never in a million years thought we'd be 5-1 in conference at this point.

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Posted
Just now, jimmyjazz said:

That's all well and good, but I never in a million years thought we'd be 5-1 in conference at this point.

Just shows how bad the coaching was previously. Schloss and Wiener getting way more out of these players than Pierce did 

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Posted
35 minutes ago, cafe society said:

Is anyone else surprised by how quickly Schloss and staff have got us playing so well?  And the great thing is that we have plenty we can improve upon.  This is fucking beautiful.

The pitching approach is clearly so different. We attack the strike zone instead of nibble at the edges. 

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Posted
33 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Just shows how bad the coaching was previously. Schloss and Wiener getting way more out of these players than Pierce did 

It's been a nice mix of Schloss getting more out of returning players plus some really good new pieces on the roster, which is so fucking rewarding to see as a fan after the Pierce era coaching!! 

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Posted

It's kind of funny to see people shit on Pierce, since he is a good coach. A pretty good college coach. And will be good someplace else.

We just don't put up with that pretty good shit here at Texas Baseball. 

We want excellence, and it's great to see.

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Posted
2 hours ago, hobbes2702 said:

The pitching approach is clearly so different. We attack the strike zone instead of nibble at the edges. 

My favorite part of this change in staffs.  The "play footsie" with the strike zone approach under the previous regime was maddening.

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Valmy77 said:

It's kind of funny to see people shit on Pierce, since he is a good coach. A pretty good college coach. And will be good someplace else.

We just don't put up with that pretty good shit here at Texas Baseball. 

We want excellence, and it's great to see.

He was and is a good coach.  He also had, and probably still has, too little imagination,  creativity, and feel for the moment.

Schloss is quite the different cat when it comes to that.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Cajun said:

He was and is a good coach.  He also had, and probably still has, too little imagination,  creativity, and feel for the moment.

Schloss is quite the different cat when it comes to that.

Recruiting wasn’t elite for any number of reasons and his refusal to let anyone else actually do any pitching coaching was his downfall. And by all accounts was hard to play for.

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Posted
20 minutes ago, Cajun said:

He was and is a good coach.  He also had, and probably still has, too little imagination,  creativity, and feel for the moment.

Schloss is quite the different cat when it comes to that.

Like giving the tv crew the business when Riojas got down 2-0. 😂

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Posted
47 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Recruiting wasn’t elite for any number of reasons and his refusal to let anyone else actually do any pitching coaching was his downfall. And by all accounts was hard to play for.

I have not paid much attention to rankings much historically but was a bit curious this weekend.

 

Perfect Game rankings on a per player basis had us 3rd in 2024.  From what I could tell this was post draft.  We lost was it 3 to the draft? In 2023 we were 8th on a per player basis. We were 15th in 2022.

For 2022, Tennessee, Florida State, Alabama and Kentucky recruited a lower quality player.

We were in the ballpark.  As of now, we’re at the top for 2025 and 2026.  There’s no doubt NIL and the SEC matter.  Using that top 15, there were around 8 non-ACC/SEC teams over the past 3 years.

Maybe there’s a correlation with Allen.

There is plenty of talent here.  And quite a bit of it is experienced and mature.

Sounds like lots of weird stuff behind the scenes but a lot of issues last year were injury related - Witt, Mercer, Shaw, Harrison, Santos (I’d like to know this guys story).

Posted
1 hour ago, thunderlounge said:

 

I’ll be there for all 3. 

I've not been to this stadium before. Can we just walk up and buy tickets, or should we purchase in advance. Anyone know what baseline will be Texas', and where general admission is? Last year we ended up in SRO at K State. 

Posted
17 hours ago, cafe society said:

Is anyone else surprised by how quickly Schloss and staff have got us playing so well?  And the great thing is that we have plenty we can improve upon.  This is fucking beautiful.

I'm a little surprised with how salty the pitching was this weekend, especially the back half of the weekend. in all fairness Spencer pitched well, LSU was just nails on Friday night across the board.

I expected to be competitive and would have bet 2/3 at Miss St and 1/3 last weekend. so we are +2 games in conference already. I'd have expected at least 2-3 more drops in pre-conf too but that didn't happen.

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Posted

https://www.kxan.com/sports/

 

KXAN has a great postgame interview with Schloss (have to scroll down).    I can't get it to embed nor find it on YouTube.  If someone can that would be great.

He talks about the game but also mentions the injury status of Whitehead, McCreery, and Mercer.   Mentions how Spencer was required to take an overload of summer courses to qualify.   Worth 10 min of your time.

 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, troph said:

I'm a little surprised with how salty the pitching was this weekend, especially the back half of the weekend. in all fairness Spencer pitched well, LSU was just nails on Friday night across the board.

I expected to be competitive and would have bet 2/3 at Miss St and 1/3 last weekend. so we are +2 games in conference already. I'd have expected at least 2-3 more drops in pre-conf too but that didn't happen.

It's Schwinning Time, baby.

Posted
18 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Wait, A&M is 0-6 and we're 5-1?  Oh damn I feel bad for Mike Earley.

Just kidding.

Yeah the aggy tears aren't quite as delicious because even THEY know their season is basically already over.

It would have been nice for them to think they're still doing something and come to Austin to have their souls taken.

17 hours ago, bureaucrat said:

It's been a nice mix of Schloss getting more out of returning players plus some really good new pieces on the roster, which is so fucking rewarding to see as a fan after the Pierce era coaching!! 

But I heard no players leaving aggie to come to Texas was a sign of "just what kind of coach he really is"

Also...maybe he didn't want any of them, cause they're pretty shitty right now.

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