Burnt Orange Nation, a Texas Longhorns community

John Curtiss was one of the brightest spots in an otherwise dismal 2012 Texas baseball campaign. The now-sophomore injured his elbow in the season's final game and now he'll miss the 2013 season thanks to that injury.

Texas A&M baseball was top 5 to start the year and a near unanimous preseason pick to win the Big 12 crown but they will not even make a super regional after getting crushed 10-2 by future Big 12 squad TCU. The Ags still haven't won a College World Series game since 1993. Helps dull the pain of our three year drought.

Aaron Fitt and Baseball America puts the Horns at 13 in the season's first poll, behind 2012 opponents Stanford (#2), Arkansas (#4), Rice (#6) and A&M (#7). The Horns will also face #19 Oklahoma this season. Fitt also has a nice writeup on what we'll see from Texas. You may have heard this before -- great pitching, good defense, hope somebody steps up on offense.

Matt Dean, a 13th round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays, got things going by signing for an alleged $750,000 bonus (well above slot). Further updates as they appear in the thread to minimize the disruption to Aggy bashing.

Chance Ruffin became the 100th Longhorn to play in the Big Leagues on Monday just 13 months after ending his career in Burnt Orange. The good: Chance struck out a hitter over 1.2 innings of relief for the Tigers. The bad: 3 hits and 2 ER (2 HR) over that span.

No surprises here. Cole Green allegedly gets $100,000 from the Reds, so his extra year in Austin cost him roughly $100,000. Sam Stafford, on the other hand, gets a reported $400,000 from the Yankees, so his three years in Austin nets him a hefty sum of cash. Congrats to them both.

No doubt as a result of our campaign, Taylor Jungmann has been named college baseball's best player. In addition, freshman Corey Knebel was named the closer of the year by the NCBWA. No depressing editorializing here, just hearty congrats to them both.

Taylor Jungmann's 13-0 record with a 0.95 ERA and Corey Knebel's freshman record of 16 saves (1.32 ERA) were enough to garner first-team All American honors from Collegiate Baseball.

Oklahoma had a good year last year. They were fortunate to win a home regional then had a nice super regional win over UVA. Who cares if they haven't beaten Texas in a series since Clinton was in the White House and their greatest advantage (the home run) may have been devastated by new NCAA rules? Anyhow, the coaches like Oklahoma.

To the surprise of nobody, Cole Green and Taylor Jungmann are All-Americans. Green was named to the NCBWA first team while Jungmann was a second teamer. The two reversed places on the Louisville Slugger Preseason All-American team. Two more months until baseball starts.