Play Ball!

Football season’s almost over. Basketball, well, it doesn’t really matter until June, unless you’re a college fan, then you can wait until March. And hockey, uh, what exactly happened to those guys anyway?

But for baseball fans everywhere, the moment is now. Pitchers and catchers don’t report for Big League spring training for a good 3 or 4 weeks still, but if you need a little fix, LAist suggests you get in your car and hightail it over to one of the many storied colleges in our greater metro area. We Angelenos have some pretty good teams to root for…Baseball America’s Preseason Top 50 names 6 local LA schools to its prestigious rankings:

Cal State Fullerton: #3
Long Beach State: #22
USC: #30
Pepperdine: #32
Cal Poly: #38
UC Irvine: #40

While Fullerton clearly has the horses to make another good run at a national title, LAist strongly suggests die hard baseball fans take a trip over to Southern Cal and check out catcher Jeff Clement, who is probably the best Trojan backstop since Jack Del Rio. You’ll thank us later.