The Strasburg Watch: NCAA Regional Edition

At this very moment, ESPN's roving on-field camera is all up in the nostrils of the guy catching lobbed-in throws from the San Diego State's infielders and flipping them to the coach hitting fungoes next to him, as the Aztecs take infield and batting practice prior to this afternoon's NCAA opener against Virginia at Anteater Ballpark on the campus of UC-Irvine.

That, of course, is because the fungo-flipper is none other than SDSU junior Stephen Strasburg, killing some time before taking the mound about 75 minutes from now.

They had to put up about a 50'-by-'50 tent to accomodate the overflow media contingent, of which I was an early-arriving member. (Having never covered a college baseball game, I didn't realize there was no pregame access to players or coaches, which made my 1 p.m. arrival for a 4 p.m. game [west coast time] quite unnecessary and in fact rather foolish. It's also about 60 degrees with intermittent drizzle, but that's the end of my whining.)

The crowd this afternoon is expected to include agent Scott Boras, who is Strasburg's advisor, and the requisite member or two of the Washington Nationals organization, which has had someone on hand for every one of the starts of their projected No. 1 overall draft pick.

I'll have more after we get underway, as long as you folks don't mind the intrusion into your Mike MacDougal discussions.