Monday, June 22, 2009

Danny Hultzen: Cavalier of the Year


A worthy selection. As I opined last week, the baseball team had the best season of any Virginia athletic squad. They also had very, very few seniors, which opened the door for leadership from elsewhere. Hultzen stepped in to help fill the gap.

Most impressive about him, I think, is his performance in "first" games. His first college game ever, he shut out Bucknell during his seven innings. In his first ACC game, he shut down Wake Forest with 2 runs in 7 innings. First ACC tournament game, he shut down mighty UNC: 1 run in 6 1/3 innings. First NCAA tournament game, UC Irvine never crossed the plate in his seven. Do you see a pattern here? Danny Hultzen pitches with the confidence of a guy who doesn't need to prove himself. His honors and accolades are well-spelled-out already, right here. In a couple years he'll be able to add "MLB first-round draft choice" to that list; for now, he'll have to content himself, meager though the award may be, with being the first FOV Cavalier of the Year.

Muchas gracias to those of you who voted. I have big plans: in a few years, we're taking this thing straight to Vegas. Lights, cameras, red carpet, the works. This thing will just ooze prestige, and we can all look back and laugh about when we celebrated this with nothing more than a goofy Photoshop. I dunno when that'll be.

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