It has come across our desk via the official OSU website that defensive end Victor Butler has been selected as a pre-season cantidate for the Ted Hendricks Defensive End of the Year Award.  Take a look at Victor's profile and stats for more about him. 

You may know that a few OSU baseball players have been spending their summer on the east coast playing baseball in the Cape Co League. Well, Ryan Ortiz is one of them, and he will start the 2008 Cape Cod League All Star Game for the East All Stars. Ortiz will start in left field, a position that he's been playing this summer as well as catcher and first base.

UO defensive back Todd Doxey was remembered with a celebration of life yesterday morning in his hometown of San Diego. Todd drowned in the McKenzie River on July 13. Boyce Garrison has a report from the funeral. Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the Doxey family.

Are you worried sick that USC has been losing their offensive production lately? Me too. Conquest Chronicles looks at both the receivers and the running backs as the areas that have declined. Dude, I think you're going to be alright.

Ever heard of scoreboard envy? Rob Mosely, UO beat writer for the Register Guard, enlightens us the Ducks are installing a new video board to replace their old "Duck Vision." Head over to Moseley's blog for all you'd ever want to know. And if you just want to see a picture, click here. I can only imagine the phone conversation between Kilkenny and Knight on this issue:

Kilkenny: Hey Phil, did you hear Oregon State has the biggest video board in the Pac-10?

Knight: Damn. When did that happen?

Kilkenny: I don't know. I heard they actually have to raise money down there. 

Knight: Oh. Well, I just wired you $2 million. Get er done. 

Kilkenny: Thanks, man.

Knight: Alright, later.

<dial tone>

Lastly, if you want to hear UCLA fans argue about the design of their media guide cover, here's the place for you.

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--

While I would like to say that I just got back from a five day excursion to the Bahamas or took a cross-country flight to attend the Home Run Derby and All Star Game at Yankee Stadium, that's not the case. I've been busy. That's my excuse for the lack of posting.

But, the show must go on. And now, it's time to unveil the second round match-ups for the Moment of the Year Tourney. Sadly, there were no upsets:

Second round voting will start on Monday. 

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--

Mike Riley and the Oregon State Football program announced their fall practice schedule Wednesday. Twenty-eight practice will take place between August 1 and August 26. The Beavers open the season August 28 in Palo Alto against the Stanford Cardinal. This year's roster has a combined 234 starts with defensive backs Keenan Lewis and Brandon Hughes leading the way with 31 a piece. Practice are open to the public, so if you happen to stop buy for a session or to, tell us about it! I would love to hear your thoughts in the FanPosts section. Head over to OSUBeavers.com to view the fall practice schedule.

Fellow SB Nation Blog Sunday Morning Quarterback released their preview of Penn State yesterday. It's a great preview that might give Phil Steele a run for his money. While you're at it, you can check out SMQ's preview of Cal that was released the other day. And, if you haven't seen it, there's the Oregon State preview too.

In Wednesday's Morning Orange Juice, I told you about the Portland Tribune article on Derek Anderson's return to Scapoose. You can also check out the Oregonian's Aaron Fentress' article on the same subject.

Remember to cast your votes in the opening round of the Moment of the Year tournament. The 1/8 and 4/5 polls will close next Thursday, and the 3/6 and 2/7 polls will close next Friday. As they say, vote early, and vote often! Good luck with that, though. To view all the moment of the year posts, clickity the mouse here.

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--

It's the last poll of the opening round, folks:

Football upsets #2 Cal: The Beavers optimistically traveled down to Berkeley with the memory of a 2005 upset in the back of their helmets. With the Bears ranked #2 in the country and talks beginning to talk about National Championships, the Beavers stunned the Bears, or the Bears stunned themselves, in a roller coaster game that ended on this play:

Jay John Firing: After a 6-12 start to the season and a 0-6 mark in the Pac-10, Bob De Carolis fired Jay John on January 21. Said Bobby D:

"It was a tough decision to make, particularly since you have a good guy with a great family, a guy who truly cared about trying to turn this program around," director of athletics Bob De Carolis said, according to the Portland Tribune. "He worked his tail off trying to do that. Sometimes things just don't work out. That was the case here.

The Beavers would wind up finishing the Pac-10 schedule 0-18 with interim head coach Kevin Mouton. Later, in early April, Oregon State hired Craig Robinson to take over head coaching duties.

***

So what meant more to you? Oregon State upsetting the #2 team in the country? Or the dismissal of a coach who had an overall conference record of 28-68?

Vote! As always, share your thoughts in the thread if you wish. You have a week to vote.

To save space, MOY now stands for "Moment of the Year."

Here's the first poll of the tournament. The two contenders:

OSU wins Civil War: For the last nine years, the home team has won the Civil War. But not this season. With time expiring in regulation, the Ducks failed to ground the ball, forcing their kicking team onto the field with the clock approaching zero. The kicker was rushed, and the extra point fell short. In OT, an Alexis Serna 41-yard field goal sent the game into double OT. In that overtime, it was the infamous James Rodgers fly sweep that put the Beavers on top. Then, it was the Beaver defense shutting down Jonathan Stewart on fourth and one to seal the game. 

Gymnasts advance to NCAA's: The #8 ranked gymnastics team put on a dominant showing at the NCAA West Regional, upsetting #5 Michigan to take the title and earn a berth to Nationals. They posted a score of 197.100 on the regional, sweeping the individual awards. The Beavers came in fifth at nationals, but did win the regional championship title for the first time since 1992, the ninth time in school history. 

Now... vote! You are encouraged to explain your selection in the comment thread. You'll find my thoughts there.

Voting will close a week from today.

After two rounds of voting, the field is finally set:

The tournament will begin tomorrow. Brace yourselves...

For now, speculation and predictions sounds like a good idea. Where do you think the upsets will occur? What moment is going to take it all? I'll post my ideas in the comment thread. Join me there.

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--

First off, it has been announced that Oregon State's September 6th matchup with Penn State will be televised on ABC from Beaver Stadium in State College, PA. Nine of twelve games on the schedule will be picked up by either ABC, ESPN, FSN, or Versus. You can check out the full television schedule here.

Former Beaver catcher and current Mariner back-up catcher Jamie Burke took the hill for Seattle Sunday afternoon in the 15th inning against the Tigers. Mariner skipper Jim Riggleman had already used up all the arms in the bullpen, prompting him to make the move to Burke. 

Burke gave up a double to the first batter he faced, Miguel Cabrera, and was somewhat doomed from there. A pinch runner went in for Cabrera, then a wild pitch (See below) moved that runner to third. All it took was a sacrifice fly by Marcus Thames (also, see below) to score the run from third and put the Tigers up for good, 2-1.  Since the MLB utilizes ridiculous technology that tracks every pitch precisely, let's take a look at the sacrifice fly at-bat. Pitch #5 is the wild pitch, and pitch #6 is the sacrifice fly.

And in case you were wondering, here are the stats on the final pitch of the at-bat, just because we can:

Pitch type: Fastball
Release speed: 84.9 MPH
Result speed: 77.9 MPH
pFX: 10.8"
Break: 5.1"
21 degrees

Hopefully you all feel as enlightened as I do.

You may remember Marcel Jones from the 0-18 Pac-10 basketball squad. Well, he's playing summer ball alongside the likes of Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas, and others on the Chicago Bulls summer league team. You can see the roster here, and if you're interested in checking out his personal website (trust me... it's worth it....(heh)) that can be found by clicking here. Credit to Tim Brown for the find.

The blog "No Regard" which is all about "SPORTS NEWS, OPINION AND DISCUSSION WITH LITTLE TO NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE..." has published their Pac-10 Haikus. Here's the Oregon State poem:

Riley a great coach
Lost too many starters on D
Bruin game defines year

Huh. All the haikus can be found here.

Lastly, I'd like to welcome ESPN's Ted Miller to the Pac-10 blogosphere. Things started a bit rough when called this blog "Building the Dame" in his sidebar, but we've since moved on from that. You can read his welcome post here, but basically, he's a east coast turned west coast college football fan. He's covered Auburn and Washington, and now writes for ESPN. His blog's homepage is here, and would make a nice addition to any Pac-10 fan's bookmarks. To get a taste of what Ted's stuff is like, here's a nice Pac-10 piece. I look forward to working with Ted in whatever form arises in the future.

Have a great Tuesday.

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--

Steve Mims of the Register-Guard has a great story on former Oregon State track star Dick Fosbury and the "Fosbury Flop" that he reinvented. Fosbury was a 1965 graduate of Medford High School, and ran track and field at Oregon State, where he perfected the flop. It was at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, however, that he changed the future of high jumping forever. After Fosbury won gold with the bar set at seven feet, four and one fourth inches, the old "straddle" method of jumping suddenly went on the decline. Here's video from those 1968 games. Note the two separate styles, and the atmosphere surrounding "the flop".

Jon Wilner of The Sporting News is running through the top 50 College Football teams in preparation for the season, and Oregon State comes in at #47. That puts the Beavers at sixth in the Pac-10 behind USC (#3), Oregon (#15), Arizona State (#17), Cal (#31), and UCLA (#43). Non-conference opponents Penn State and Utah come in at #29 and #32, respectively. If these rankings are correct, the Beavers would go 1-2 in non-conference (beating Hawaii), and 4-5 in conference play (beating UW, WSU, Stanford, and UA). Put those numbers together, and the Beavers would have a 5-7 record at the end of the year.

Dave over at Addicted to Quack has a story up regarding his love of college sports and the recent decision to move the Sonics out of Seattle. While I also am a huge college fan and not much of a professional sports fan, Dave's point seems a bit elementary to me. College sports take place at universities. Every university has it's campus. It's not like someone is going to buy out Oregon State, pick the university up and move it to Wyoming. It just isn't going to happen. But with professional teams that are not tied to an academic institution, things like that can happen. And maybe that's what Dave is trying to get across... Maybe I'm taking this too seriously. But I mean, yeah. A college team isn't going to pick up and move. Still, the post is worth the read.

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. 

Football season is still over 50 days away, all of the spring sports have ended their seasons, and the next event on the athletic calendar is an August 20 Women's Soccer match against Portland State.

That gives us some time to run a small tournament to decide our favorite Oregon State "Moment of the Year". This will be an eight-moment tournament, and the first four seeds have already been determined. It's your job to decide the second half of the field. You'll find the options in the poll below.

Look for more information on the tournament soon.

Thanks for voting, and GO BEAVERS! 

Like I said earlier, I'm out of town for the weekend. So this is the last you'll hear from me until Monday.

via yerffejp's Flickr photostrem

Have happy and safe holiday. Don't get hurt now, College Football is only 56 days away. Wouldn't want you to blow out those remote clicking fingers now.

GO BEAVERS!

--JB--