Yessiree, the big day is finally upon us!  We’ve moved on up to the Big Time, joining Sports Blog Nation as their newest blog.  Check us out at www.californiagoldenblogs.com

"Why move?" you might ask.  "What’s wrong with good ol’ Blogsome?"

Oh, nothing much.  But we feel we’ve taken this reliable ol’ bucket of rust about as far as we can.  I mean, this site is nice and all, but we feel that with SBN’s new platform and network of quality blogs, we can take this thing to the next level.

For starters, we’re most excited about the FanPosts feature, where anyone can add content about whatever (hopefully somehow related to Cal).  For example, this morning reader RR left a comment on my ‘Diamond Notes’ post below, mentioning,  "I don’t know if you guys heard about the murder in front of Top Dog yesterday (southside). …"  Wow, no we did not.  Crazy.  Anyway, his comment was somewhat off-topic, as well as buried at the bottom of my post.  BUT, on SBN, RR can write up his own FanPost about it, and it’ll appear on the front page, where everyone else can see and comment on it.

Anyway, it’s a neat setup, and TwistNHook already has our first post on the new site up now.  Buried within his idiotic ramblings about boy bands from the late ’90s is some actual information.  (It’s about two-thirds of the way down.  You can pretty safely skip everything before that.)  Go check it out!

One new feature: logins!  With the new site, you’re going to have to get a login/password to comment.  Sorry!  However, it’s super-easy, takes like 10 seconds, and all you need to give us is your email address and a password.  No personal information whatsoever.  (I would steer clear of using any email addresses that contain your SSN/bank account number.  Using david.w.pierce553586902@BankOfAmerica1728372833.com would probably be a bad idea.)  Plus, if you already have an account at one of SBN’s other sites, you can just use the same username/password.  Easy!

This site will remain, archiving everything we’ve done over the past year and a half, but this will be the last post on this site.  Since that’s the case, I now give you an updated ‘Best Of’ listing, highlighting our best writing from the past 18 months.  The stuff that kept you coming back.  Most of you have probably seen all this, but if you’ve just stumbled upon our site, I’d suggesting starting here.

TwistNHook

Photo Blogging
Friends Forever!!!!!!!!!!!
Stalking Ben Braun Is Not Creepy
Just Hanging Around, Officer

Words.Cannot.Describe - The 2007 Cal Football FanFest
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Well, *that* Sucked
Part I | Part II

The Odious Machine
Part I | Part II | Part III

Other Stuff
Never Forgive! Never Forget!
Dear Santa…
Blast From The Past!
The Bronze Medalists!
Stay Ironic, California
Why
Dynasties Do Happen
Trying Times
Running On Empty
It’s In! It’s In!
Why I Hate USC
Video Review

Ragnarok

Ben Braun - Should He Stay Or Should He Go?
Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Ragnarok’s Top 8 Pac-10 Road Trips
#8 WSU | #7 OSU | #6 USC | #5 Arizona | #4 ASU | #3 UCLA | #2 Oregon | #1 Washington

Death By Turnover
Part I | Part II

Top 12 Moments Of The Ben Braun Era At Cal
Part I | Part II

Golden Bear Classic? I Am Jack’s Utter Disinterest
Pac-10 Bowl Tie-Ins : Why So Terrible?
The Bay Area Road Trip
I Hate Los Angeles
I Like Trees Too, You Know
Clearly, The Fanbase Is Agitated
A Dose Of Perspective
The Bowl Name Game, Sponsored By Wikipedia
Recruiting’s A Crapshoot or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Ignore The Star Rating System
Standards Of Excellence
Is NFL Caliber Talent Enough?

Yellow Fever

Bowl Game Blowout!
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI

Interlude
Marshawn Speaks, You Listen
Fun With The Madden 08 Nickname Generator
Of Mikes And Men - And Stewart Mandel Commandments
The Tedford Effect
Cal Football Academic Standards < UCLA Football Academic Standards?
You Ask, I Answer

HydroTech

The Tennessee Debacle: Out-played or Out-coached?
Part I | Part II | Part III | Coda : Audibles and Options

The 2006 Holiday Bowl: A Model of Perfection?
Part I | Part II | Part III

Tedford’s Evolution Of The Offense
Part I | Part II | Part II Cont.

Signal Stealing
Cal vs. Tennessee Film Study
Cal @ Oregon Analysis
Game Planning U$C
True Blue Parents
Lack of Leadership?

CBKWit

Moving On, In 1200 Words
OJ Is Sharp, But The Bears Survive
Cal Women Lose Heartbreaker; Men Also Participate In Basketball Competition

Tedford On Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of 17 Year Olds
Part I | Part II | Part III

Multiple Authors

Our Brush With Greatness
Love & Basketball : The Jackson State Story
Live From My Couch…
BREAKING NEWS!! BREAKING NEWS!!
On Blogging

The Triple Option
Breaking Down The Triple Option
Tricky Triple Option

The Theory Of Playcalling
Run Or Pass? The Theory of Playcalling
The Further Intricacies of Playcalling

Our Interview w/ the man who would become HydroTech
Part I | Part II

Interview with a Mic-Something (Kate Troesher, the Mic Chick)
Part I | Part II | Part III

Other Authors
I Be-Levy!
Five Stages Of Grief
An Informed Legal Opinion From Oaktown Mario
Zoo News Speak!

What are you still doing here?  Get your butt over to our new site already!

Well, there’s been an unfortunate delay in the process for going live with the SBN site.  An unfortunate power outage in Texas beyond our control.  The evil Machivellian machinations of Mack Brown?  This random blogger with no added insight into the situation and a paranoid personality certainly thinks so!

"I’m a gonna get you California blogging community!  First, I took your Rose Bowl and now this."

We are being told it will be fixed soon and the move can be made as soon as possible.  But while we wait, we didn’t want to have another content-less day roll by, shortchanging the readers of this blog.  So, I thought we could look a little bit more in depth at recent games by ace pitcher Tyson Ross.  He’s our best starter, a potential draft pick, and he Ks a ton of dudes.  Last year against *snicker* Oral (!!!!!) Roberts, he struck out 16.  16!  If Cal is to have long term baseball success this year, he has a key role to play.  

Given the setup of college baseball, having Ross pitch (and win) on Friday was huge.  That guaranteed win from the Ace meant that all we had to do was win one of the next two games to take the series.  Our poor midweek record showed that Cal’s depth was not as hoped for.   And for a while Tyson Ross was that Ace, cutting down all in his path.  Earlier this year, he was nigh unstoppable racing out to a 5-0 record.  In that 5th win, he shut down the defending national champions, Oregon State.

But let’s look at some games since then. 

The first game since he won that 5th game was against USC.  Always an important game to defeat those Trojans.  Plus, we were ranked 5th at the time.  What happened?

California             IP  H  R ER BB SO 

Ross, Tyson         4.0 10  6  6  3  6 

The next game was against UDub.  Tyson’s line looked like this:

California             IP  H  R ER BB SO 

Ross, Tyson        7.0  9  4  4  3  5

Here, Ross was lucky and/or timely in his strikeouts to only give up 4 runs.  With a poor WHIP like that, he probably had men on base all the time.   

Ok, so by that point, Cal had fallen to 8th in the nation, but then moved back to 7th.  Nothing to sneeze at.  We headed out to Tempe to take on the #6 team, ASU.  Big matchup.  Time for Ross to shine.  Here are his numbers from his game against ASU.

Cal Golden Bears       IP  H  R ER BB SO

Ross, Tyson             5.1  8  9  8  5  5 

California             IP  H  R ER BB SO 

Ross, Tyson         8.0 11  3  3  3  5 

California             IP  H  R ER BB SO 

Ross, Tyson         8.2  5  3  3  2  5