For many years, people have asked when I would be doing D3baseball.com. The answer was always “never.”

Well, never say never, because we’ve opened the doors on D3baseball.com. Though it’s not a brand-new site. Like D3hoops.com was, D3baseball.com is an existing site that is coming under the D3sports.com umbrella. Jim Dixon’s Division III Baseball Online is now part of the family.

I’ve written more on the D3baseball.com Daily Dose about how the site came about, how it will be run, etc., but we hope you will stop by the site, which is probably about 85% complete.

If you’ve previously registered to comment on the D3football.com Daily Dose, you should be able to comment on D3baseball.com’s Daily Dose as well with the same username and password.

Thanks to Jim Dixon, but also thanks to Ralph Turner, who nurtured the baseball fan base on our message boards last season. Jim’s participation on those boards last year helped pave the way for this, I believe.

Over the past few years we’ve featured Stagg Bowl photos in the banner at the top of the site. The logo remains the same but we have new images each year.

Just a note to let you know that the 2007 banner is up. You may have to hit refresh on the page to see it. Otherwise it will break through your cache in a week or so — we have files cached to make the site load faster.

From left to right: Pierre Garcon leaping into the end zone for a touchdown (by RC Workman); coaches Bob Berezowitz and Larry Kehres talking to Whitewater players (by Ryan Coleman); and Justin Jacobs handing off to Justin Beaver (by Ryan Tipps).

Congrats again to Mount Union and UW-Whitewater. To the victors go the spoils. Nearly as prestigious as the trophies they took home, no doubt. 🙂

One of the joys of the offseason is that there’s time to surf around the Net and find stories I may have missed during the season.

OK, I lied. There’s no time because we’re working on D3hoops.com and another big project this time of year. And there’s no joy in the offseason. It’s too long! However, I really did stumble across a blog entry from a parent of a Loras player who spent 18 hours in a car one weekend to drive from Tennessee to Dubuque for the school’s Homecoming game.

That’s the round trip, though — let’s not get crazy!

I’ve often wondered how many other people are as crazy as we are — and by the ‘we’ I mean those of us at D3football.com who would hop into a car and drive hundreds of miles at the drop of a hat. People like myself, Keith McMillan, Gordon Mann, Ryan Coleman, Pat Cummings, John McGraw. When I read the following, I was hooked:

It’s an estimated 10-to-11-hour sojourn. This is true if a) you average about 60 miles per hour; b) you stop only for gas and snack while you drive; c) you don’t get lost; d) there’s no construction; and e) the traffic cooperates. Those seemed like a lot of factors to have to fall into place, and, even at that, the prospect of 10+ hours in a car, without anyone to share the driving, still seemed pretty daunting. But I’d never seen my son play a college game, and I was determined to make the trek.

It is a great description of some of the great things about Division III football, and it is definitely worth your time to read.