Erik Bird is a sophomore relief pitcher for Nebraska who will contribute a
weekly journal to CollegeBaseballInsider.com in 2007. Bird, a native of Omaha,
Neb., went 0-2 with a 0.82 ERA as a freshman and becomes closer for the
Cornhuskers this year. Opponents hit only .218 and only 2 of 23 inherited
runners scored off of him in 2006. Bird's brother Brandon pitched for Creighton
and helped the Bluejays to the NCAA tourney in 2005.
March 11, 2007
Road Rage
On Thursday, we took a three-hour bus ride from Lincoln to Omaha, which is
pretty ridiculous because Omaha is 50 miles away from Lincoln. We had a bad
snowstorm Wednesday night that closed the interstates down. It was pretty
obvious that we weren’t going to take off on time, but we still drove to Omaha
without taking the interstate.
They gave us our plane tickets like we were
going to fly somewhere, and we sat there for four hours. It was about 4 p.m.,
and then they decided to cancel our flight. So, we took a two-hour bus drive
back to Lincoln.
We tried to reschedule for the next day.
Thankfully, [Athletic Director] Steve Pederson got us a chartered flight from
Lincoln to Orlando on Friday, and we got to the airport and flew to Florida. We
got to our hotel, changed clothes and went to practice. Our bus driver missed
the turn on the way to the practice and decided to turn on the side of the road
and got the bus stuck in some sand, which also was pretty ridiculous. We tried
to get the bus out, but that didn't work, so we had to walk to practice.
After practice, we walked back to the bus and
waited until the tow truck came over and got us out. We got to the hotel, and my
roommates and I went to Pizza Hut and they didn’t have pan pizza because they
were out of dough. We were ticked off, and didn't understand how a pizza place
runs out of dough.
On Saturday, we thought we were going to play
and we got rained out. It is Saturday night, we traveled 12 hours over two days
and haven't played any games yet.
Erik Bird
Previous
Entries
Feels Like the First Time (3/2/07)
Greetings from the Heartland (2/23/07)
(photo courtesy of Nebraska Media Relations Office) |