Breaking news out of Tempe, Ariz.: Pat Murphy has resigned as head coach at Arizona State. The Sun Devils have just released this statement:

Arizona State University baseball coach Pat Murphy announced his resignation today. An interim head coach will assume responsibility for the program until his replacement is selected.

ASU will immediately begin a national search for a new head baseball coach.

We’ll have much more on this major development as information becomes available.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Oregon State coach Pat Casey, who had not yet heard the news about Murphy’s resignation and was understandably stunned. Casey is one of Murphy’s closest friends in the college coaching world, and the fact that Casey hadn’t heard this news indicates that this decision was not planned well in advance. Casey even said he spoke with Murphy on the phone "the other day" and Murphy did not say anything about a plan to resign. Reaction in the baseball industry—scouts, agents, coaches—has been shock across the board.

Next year, the California Collegiate League will expand from a five-team league to a seven-team league. The league voted to add two new teams—the San Luis Obispo Blues and another team that isn’t even based in California.

The second new team will be the Las Vegas Summer Baseball Club, a team that will be composed mostly of players from the Four Corners area that includes Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

The team will be coached by Buck Thomas, a coach and part-time Angels scout from Las Vegas. Thomas started the Las Vegas Summer Baseball Club last year, and the team played independently, going 27-10.

Being on the team will provide players in the Four Corners the chance to get acclimated with the rigors of Division I or professional baseball—something Thomas felt wasn’t previously available in that area of the country.

"I just felt there were so many guys that were not getting the opportunity to prepare for the next level in Vegas, so I just went out and put that team together and put that schedule together," Thomas said. "It’s a great opportunity for those Four-Corners kids to get out. They get stuck playing (American) Legion and beating up on the same kids for four years, and then they go out to Arizona and (the University of San Diego) and whatnot and they’re not as prepared as they could be, so I think it’s a good thing."
[...] Continue Reading »

Creighton has reached an agreement with the Omaha Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority (MECA) for the Bluejays to play their home games at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, the future home of the College World Series starting in 2011. The MECA board approved a 10-year lease agreement with Creighton on Tuesday.

Under the lease agreement, Creighton will play some home games in 2011 and all of its home games in 2012 at the new park. [...] Continue Reading »

Gary Carter is leaving the Atlantic League for Division II baseball.

Carter, the Hall of Fame catcher best known as a player for the Expos and Mets, will become head coach at Division II Palm Beach Atlantic, near his Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., home. Carter managed the Long Island Ducks in 2009 and in the independent Golden League in 2008, after managing for two seasons in the Mets farm system.

Carter, 55, has lived in the area since 1982—the Expos used to have their spring training home in West Palm Beach—and his daughter is a softball coach at the school. He will work with present Sailfish head coach Rob Avila this coming season and will take over the program on his own on June 1, 2010.

He’s the second Hall of Famer coaching in college, joining San Diego State’s Tony Gwynn.

The New York Times is reporting that the NCAA has agreed to pay former Oklahoma State lefthander Andy Oliver $750,000 to settle the lawsuit between the two sides. Oliver had sued the NCAA after he was ruled ineligible for being represented by a lawyer in negotiations with the Twins after he was drafted in high school.

The more significant development with the settlement is that it marks a return to the status quo. In February, Erie County (Ohio) judge Tygh M. Tone ruled in Oliver’s favor and prohibited the NCAA from enforcing its "no agent" rule. But today, Tone dismissed the case at the parties’ request and vacated the order that barred the NCAA from enforcing the "no agent" rule.

Clearly, the rule is vulnerable to legal challenges, but for now, at least, the NCAA can go back to prohibiting players from having representation in their dealings with pro clubs. [...] Continue Reading »

Former Oklahoma State and current Detroit Tigers lefthander Andy Oliver has settled his lawsuit with the NCAA, just two weeks before a jury trial was scheduled to begin in Ohio.

Oliver already won the first phase of the trial when an Ohio judge ordered the reinstatement of his eligibility in February. Oliver also sued the NCAA for breach of contract and damages, and those complaints were settled this week. Terms are confidential.

"I believe we would have tried and won a very large judgment, the NCAA would have appealed and this would have dragged on for three to five more years," Oliver’s lawyer, Rick Johnson, told the USA Today. " . . . This was all about the right to counsel. (The NCAA) punished this kid because he had a lawyer. It was absurd from the beginning, and it should never have come to this."

NCAA president Myles Brand died Wednesday after a nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Brand, 67, was diagnosed with the disease in January.

Though former Mississippi State coach Ron Polk famously crusaded against Brand for years over the NCAA’s relationship with baseball, American Baseball Coaches Association executive director Dave Keilitz has long maintained that Brand is a great ally for the sport. Last year there was some momentum on the Board of Directors to reduce baseball’s games from 56 to 52 or 50, but Brand assured coaches he would fight to ensure they kept 56 games, and they did. Brand further showed his support to the coaches by appearing and speaking at a coaches summit in Indianapolis last November.

"I thought his talk was the most significant thing of the whole event," Keilitz said last November. "What the coaches heard and saw was, ‘Wow, we’ve got somebody here at the very top that cares for us and supports us.’ That’s the message he conveyed, and I think the coaches felt very, very good about that."

Brand has been the NCAA’s president since 2003.

"Myles Brand was a dear friend and a great academic leader. He was a tireless advocate for the student-athlete," Georgia president Michael Adams, the chair of the NCAA executive committee, said in a statement. "Indeed, he worked to ensure that the student was first in the student-athlete model. He will be greatly missed."

San Diego announced Monday that it has hired a replacement for pitching coach Eric Valenzuela, who left to take a job at crosstown rival San Diego State last month. USD coach Rich Hill hired Tyler Kincaid from nearby Palomar (Calif.) JC to be the new pitching coach, and he elevated hitting coach Jay Johnson from associate recruiting coordinator to head recruiting coordinator and top assistant. The Toreros also elevated Ramon Orozco to volunteer assistant assistant and added Nik Crouch to the staff as director of baseball operations.

Kincaid had been the pitching coach at Palomar from 2005-09. His pitching staff this spring led all California junior colleges with a 2.60 ERA, and two pitchers on the staff earned all-America honors. Before that, Kincaid served as pitching coach at San Francisco State from 2002-05. But his five summers as pitching coach for the Chatham A’s in the Cape Cod League also played a significant role in his hiring at USD. [...] Continue Reading »

Mitch Gaspard has made an impact hire in his first major move as Alabama’s head coach. Gaspard, who was promoted from assistant coach to head coach when Jim Wells retired last week, hired Kyle Bunn as the Crimson Tide’s new pitching coach Wednesday. Bunn spent the last two years at Clemson, where his pitching staff ranked fifth in the nation in ERA (3.68) in 2009. Prior to that, he spent six years at Mississippi under Mike Bianco.

“Obviously when we started this search, Kyle was our number one target from the outset,” Gaspard said. “We loved his style; he has a great mentality and a great knowledge of pitching, and his development of pitchers is obvious.

“Kyle is a dynamic recruiter. What he is going to give us is an opportunity to really go after the elite arms in the country, and he did a very impressive presentation for us, showing us how he goes about getting those top arms in the country. I know he is a relentless worker, and he’s the perfect fit for us."

A memorial service will be held Thursday at 5 p.m. CT to honor the life of Western Illinois head coach Stan Hyman, who passed away early Saturday morning at the age of 50 after battling leukemia for the past month. The public is invited to attend the service for Hyman, which will be held at WIU’s Alfred D. Boyer Stadium. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Stan Hyman Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o Western Illinois University, 1 University Circle, 103 Western Hall, Macomb, IL 61455.

Hyman served as head coach for the Leathernecks for eight seasons. He won his 350th career game against Centenary on May 16th and has recorded some of his most proud victories over highly regarded opponents such as Long Beach State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Iowa, Kansas State, Michigan State, Illinois-Chicago and Oral Roberts during his tenure at Western. [...] Continue Reading »