I don't know if anyone could have predicted that the Fresno State softball team would get off to such a great start this year with so many new faces. Let's see... the Bulldog softball team already has wins away from home over #21 UNLV and #25 Texas. The Bulldog baseball team began by losing a pair of games at Beiden Field to UC Davis. It's still early in the year but the early indications are that softball will have the better year. The WAC is a much tougher softball conference this season than a baseball conference. The WAC in softball is likely to get 3 NCAA bids, while baseball may only get 1. Also very interesting is the fact that Fresno State softball outdrew baseball in the teams' respective home openers. Softball drew 2,239 for the home opener vs. Pacific while baseball drew 1,938 for the home opener vs. UC Davis. I'd venture to say that Fresno State is the only school in the country that could accomplish that feat.

Let's not start the gender divide. We are very fortunate that we have two very talented and exciting teams. Hopefully they will both be successful. I attended both games (softball and baseball). The fact of the matter is that the softball game was played under rather comfortable weather conditions. The baseball game was played in a cold and wet (raining) night. So who cares who out drew who. Go and enjoy the games...for the sake of the games; not to cause controversy between the teams.

Well, The Bee seems to want to start the gender divide by asking the question, don't you think? It is amusing to see what headlines The Bee chooses to use in certain sports. For example, last weekend, both teams played doubleheaders and both teams split. The softball opponents were both NCAA Tournament teams from a year ago. The baseball opponent was UC Davis. What did The Bee choose to write for headlines? For baseball it was, "Bulldogs save face with split." For softball it was "Dogs end tourney with loss." That's a huge difference there because The Bee chose to completely disregard the softball team's win earlier in the day. Gender bias? Only The Bee can answer that one.

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As the online content producer overseeing sports, I have no intention of creating or stirring up gender issues. This topic is a simple question of which team will have a more successful season.

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Fresno State softball remains the only team to win a national title in school history. Wouldn't we all like to see this done in other Bulldogs sports? - John Mincks, Moderator

I don't live in Fresno any more but hanging on the wall of my study are four pages from the Fresno Bee. On the front page of the news section is a picture of Amanda Scott leaping in the air. I know why she's leaping. I was in Oklahoma City watching her leap and she had just seen Angela Cervantez field a grounder off of first-team All-American Nancy Evans of Arizona for the 3rd and final out of the national championship game. Cervantez ran and touched 1st base and Amanda Scott leaped in the air.

So did about 500 Fresno State fans and players.

A confused fan from Arizona wondered what all the fuss was about. He wasn't aware that because ESPN insisted on a one-game, winner take all championship, the game against Arizona was for all the marbles. Boy! Was he miffed.

Those moments are carved in stone in my memory. I count it as one of the happiest moments of my entire live. I sat there and cried.

I had just completed the first online play-by-play of a national championship in the history of college sports. I broadcast 13 games of that Women's Colllege World Series from an Apple Macintosh 140 laptop computer and I did it for my hometown team and especially for Margie Wright who, to this day, is a hero to me. I did it for Diane Milutinovich as well. She's my hero, too. I did it for Melanie Parrent whose talent and fine character actually made a softball fan out of me.

I felt like I was a member of that team then, and I feel the same way today even though I don't get to see the Bulldogs play. I was so frustrated with the Fresno Bee back in those days. I did research to see what the Bee had written when Fresno State played UCLA back in 1982 in the first NCAA Div. ! national title game in history. What did I find? Well, I had to look hard to find anything at all. Somewhere among the bowling scores I found a tiny little mention that the softball team had lost. It was about two lines of print that strained the eyes. In fairness, the Bee's Ron Orozco was not a mere reporter who was assigned to cover softball; he was also a fan and in the 1990s he wrote brilliant coverage of Fresno State's softball campaign.

But I still remember the hateful public bludgeoning the women at Fresno State got in the pages of the Bee. It made me wonder of any of those sadistic bastards had any females in their family. No mother? No sister? No grandmother? No niece or female cousin whom they would honor by honoring the achievements of women coaches and athletes? No. Apparently not.

Fresno State's national title and their tradition of winning came in the midst of deliberately inflicted pain from the athletic administration and the fat cats who OWN the Bulldog Foundation and that just goes to show you how tough you have to be to be a female and an athlete in Fresno. You also have to be tough to be a fan of these women and I give all praise to the hardy souls of the Bulldog Diamond Club that have stuck by the team and never flinched.

I know there are plenty of people from Fresno who would never even admit they from from there if you asked them about women's sports at Fresno State. That's because they have too much shame to bear.

Fortunately, I don't. The best days of my life were spent being a Bulldog softball fan. I'll be one until the day I die. I love them and I'm proud of them and I don't give a damn who knows it.

A song for Morgan Melloh from a fellow Hoosier and a Bulldog softball fan for life.

Back home again in Indiana,
And it seems that I can see
The gleaming candlelight, still burning bright,
Through the sycamores for me.
The new-mown hay sends off its fragrance
Through the fields I used to roam.
When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash,
How I long for my Indiana home.