Thoughts on Hawkeye baseball, Ireland, teenagers

In lieu of an actual essay, here are four scattered short subjects:

1. Iowa baseball has a new head coach. I don't know why they aren't called managers in college or high school baseball.

He is Rick Heller, who comes from Indiana State. Iowa is holding a 4 p.m. press conference today to introduce him.

I don't expect this news to make a real ripple in Hawkeyeland, and won't until Heller skippers Iowa to either a Big Ten championship or a nice run in the NCAA tournament.

The only way I notice any Big Ten baseball team is if it knocks on the door of the College World Series. Indiana kicked the door down this year by going all the way to the CWS, the first Big Ten team to do so since 1984. So it can happen more often than we see Halley's Comet.

I go to the South Carolina-Georgia border most Aprils and am always surprised by how much newspaper and TV coverage the baseball teams of South Carolina, Georgia and Clemson get. I don't think of baseball as a Southern sport. But of course it is, at least for high schools and pros. Georgia has phenomenal high school baseball. And you don't need a magnificent indoor facility if you're college teams in the Southeast. You aren't playing April games in biting cold.

I don't care about Big Ten baseball, and a whole lot of sports fans in Big Ten country feel the same way. (Nebraska is an exception.) Maybe Heller can direct a golden age of baseball at Iowa. I know I'd happily cover an Iowa team in a College World Series if given a chance. But I've been saying that for a long time.

2. Penn State is playing Central Florida in football next Aug. 30. In Dublin, Ireland.

The next person I meet who said he or she went to Ireland and didn't like it will be the first. I made my first trip there last year. Loved it.

Penn State's reasons for doing this seem simple enough. One, the school is under a bowl ban, so this is the next best thing and maybe even better than many bowls. Two, it's a game a lot of people will watch on ESPNU.

I'm not sure how many of the good people of Dublin care about Penn State football, let alone Central Florida. I'm not sure how many people in central Florida care about Central Florida.

But Penn State's coach is Bill O'Brien and UCF's is George O'Leary. If they just get 10 percent of the O'Briens and O'Learys in Dublin to attend, they'll have a good crowd.

3. Getting back to baseball, the All-Star Game is Tuesday night.

I took a look at the rosters. There 16 players who I hadn't heard of in the slightest. Somewhere along the line, baseball lost me. Or vice versa.

Admittedly, I've never quite gotten over the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn.

Actually,  I just don't like half-hearted pickoff attempts the way I once did.

4. Sunday, I saw 19-year-old Jordan Spieth win the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic.

It's funny. You don't see 19-year-old airline pilots, or architects, or astronauts. You don't see 19-year-old lawyers, doctors, or civil engineers. (I lifted that line from Albert Hammond's smash hit, "Free Electric Band." The video is below. Turn your volume up to 11.)

But 19-year-old golfers and basketball players and Johnny Manziel (now 20) can be masters of the universe.

I've interviewed a lot of 19-year-olds in my life. Which is one of the reasons I enjoy covering the John Deere Classic every year. The competitors are a little older (or in some cases, a lot older). Their development as critical-thinkers is fuller. They have more life experiences to draw upon.

Then a 19-year-old went and won it.

Maybe I should write about civil engineers instead.