Good morning, sports fans. All the hype and the hard work will finally payoff for the Baseball team Friday, or will it?

Friday will begin a new season for Panther baseball, when they take on Southern Indiana minus skipper Jim Schmitz. And by the way, I am still eagerly awaiting my call to help coach.

The Panthers had eight months to recover from the sting of being knocked out of the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, and are still reeling from their selection in the OVC preseason polls.

But those that are in the know are well aware that this may be Schmitz’s best team here at Eastern.

In that same regard, those that have been here long enough remember another of Schmitz’s so-called unbeatable teams that turned out to be a doormat to the league.

In 2000, Eastern was supposed to be stacked and ready to repeat as conference champs. Like this season, there was a lot of hype and everyone was wondering how good they would be. It turned out that Chucktown High could have beat them.

And while the Panthers have been set up to fall, I don’t think this is the season they will pull the flop. This team is just too good to do anything but win.

Sure, they were picked third in the conference in the preseason, but that was by every other coach in the league (managers cannot vote on their own teams), which can’t stand Eastern because we are the northerners of the conference. Don’t believe me – go to a game and watch the umpires.

Of the four teams that I have been a witness to at Eastern, this looks to have the strongest pitching staff of them all – probably even better than the staff with John Larson, Jeremy Sanders and Matt Gage.

The only weakness may be their fielding. With some players playing new positions, the glove work may not be as spectacular as Eastern fans would like, but if they are scoring between 10-12 runs per game, an error or two won’t hurt them.

Last season the Panthers went 19-1 in the OVC. To tell the truth, I don’t see them duplicating that feat again. But I do think they will run