Don't Quit Your Day Jobs Ball State Players, Which is Playing Baseball, Not Singing

The absolute cheesiness of this holiday performance by the adorable Ball State Cardinals baseball team (god we hope it's intentional) was too hilarious not to share. Enjoy... or not.

Happy Holidays everyone! We'll be back for you after Christmas.

[Big League Stew]

Tragedy Strikes Liberty University

Sad, sad news out of Virginia this morning, as another freak accident on the diamond has taken the life of a 44-year-old man.

Jeff Taylor, Sr., a professor at Lynchburg, Virginia's Liberty University, collapsed and later died at the hospital after being hit in the throat area by a line drive on a Lynchburg College field during pitching practice.

Five players, including Taylor's son, Jeff, Jr., who plays baseball for Liberty, witnessed the incredibly unfortunate accident. Taylor was an assistant professor of health sciences and kinesiology.

"Jeff Sr. was one of those guys who was always there. He was at every game and a lot of practices," said LC Vice President John Eccles.

As Hard Ball Times notes, I'm surprised that this sort of thing hasn't happened in the big leagues. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Taylor family and all of Jeff Sr.'s friends and coworkers during this horrible, faith-challenging time.

[Washington Post] | [WSLS]

CSU Baseball Coach's Pants Are On Fire

Just days after it was announced on the school's athletics site that Chicago State University Baseball Coach Husain Mahmoud will remain the head coach of CSU’s baseball team, the announcement was taken down. Why? Because he's a liar liar pants on fire, that's why.

A tip was emailed by an anonymous alumni alumnus guy who used to go there and forwarded on to us by Brian Foley of The College Baseball Blog. Here is what the anonymous snitch had to say:

I am writing you guys to let you know about Chicago State University (Div. 1 independent) Baseball Coach Husain Mahmoud.

If you click on the article that was put on the CSU website when Mahmoud was hired (link below), it states a number of things that a little bit of research by some people was found to be absolutely false.

After doing some research to verify what was said in the article, a few things were uncovered, quite easily, which make it appear that we fabricated some stuff and was not truthful. Reach your own conclusion, I am just presenting what I have found.

He says he was drafted by the Reds in the 30th round in 1971. The 30th round draft pick by the reds in 1971 was Craig Kleibl, out of Miami.

He says he lead the league in passing in this football league in both 1977 and 1978, even though it appears from the links below that the league folded in 1969, and there wasn't even a league during these years:

He says he was on the Chicago Fire in 1985, even though the Chicago Fire had stopped being a football team before 1985. [Ed. note: the article claims Mahmoud played with the Chicago Fire in 1980 not 1985. The Fire was no longer a team as of 1975, which makes him a fibber either way.]

Well I'll be. But I ask you: Why, in this day and age of the new-fangled innernets do people think they can lie about things like this? I mean, my Match.com profile says I'm 5'10 and 36-24-36. But really I'm only 5'8.

We've reached out to the school's athletic department for comment. We'll keep you posted, but we can only assume their official response will be, "Google? Never heard of it."