Charles Fischer

Oh the pride of North Eugene, (Robert Ahlstrom) was a surprise start to me. He was beat-up a bit last year, was a stud before that and only pitched four innings last week, although did well. Today he was devastating for seven innings as the Beaver batters could not string anything together against his nasty left-handed wide curve-ball. Rico Tellache (the pride of Canby!) closed out the ninth inning after a superb inning from Hunter Breault in the eighth. The usual suspects, (Tanner Smith and Oregonian Kenyon Yovan) came through with big hits to drive in run totals that we've rarely seen in Corvallis. The only negative? Too bad there wasn't a crowd there to disappoint! Go to GoDucks.com for an update at 10:00 PM and all the official stats. My FishDuck Friends....this was a GREAT win from so many angles. The offense is already better than the prior coach, and the line-up has so many Oregonians, that it makes it so much more interesting for us. The way it breaks across the plate...whew!

I used to use a ton of UO students for the article blog, and in fact one year had the most UO Internships of any company registered with the Career Center at UO. Without going too much into it--let's just say that students have changed...a LOT in just five years concerning their attitudes, expectations and work habits. I have the occasional exception to that, (Alex Heining is our Editor-in-Chief and has been exceptional) but you have to go through too much of a haystack to find such a person--when it used to be the norm. So....their values are different than mine, and thus why I would not want a college student moderating my forum. I am very old-school, and let's just say that I have some legendary stories about students over the past nine years that back up my concerns. We do not have critical mass yet--not even close-to charge a subscription, and the other routes are more work than what the results would generate. I do have a running joke about the sites; they are not non-profit, but have always operated that way! My thanks.

There are some local radio guys bringing this up along with the scuttlebutt on Twitter; a number of big-name teams are out of their conference tourney and the NCAAs due to COVID transmission such as Duke, Virginia and Kansas. The thinking goes is that many think Oregon is now a No. 6 seed and you may not want to try to slide up. Keep your health and go home? I do see the other side of it; regardless of the NCAAs....you like to win the Conference tournament championship to stick-it to the other league members. And there is payback as USC did kick our butt recently, and the darn Buffalos have our number in their house--how about at Las Vegas? Also....they said that both OSU and Oregon have been tested and are fine for tonight's contest. I see value in both sides of this... What would Dillon say?

Oh baby....this is precisely what I hoped you would do Bruce and THANKS! It would be so cool to win one again... We have so much fun dumping on the Huskies in Football and Basketball--to see it in Track & Field as well is just too funny!

I would doubt that anyone would want to take over all the tech issues and the bills of the forum, but I thought I would reach out to everyone before I made any changes. Thanks Duckdude, as I appreciate your replies to posts.

The challenge is nobody being available to moderate posts during the weekday; I will not allow a free-for-all, which is what it would evolve into once people saw that there were no immediate consequences for impolite behavior, a bad word, or worse yet--a political comment. There could be an all-out political war that happened during the day before I see it in the evening. I need 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM covered during the week, as I will be responsible for the other 12 hours and for all of the weekend. (60 hours to my 108 hours, but the 60 are during the prime-time) Fixing the number of posts is something learned over time, and is not a biggie because people still like to read them, even if they don't respond. But enough people to rotate as moderators during the work-week? Without that the forum will have to be hidden from view, and we all lose in that scenario. You have been a GREAT member here Haywarduck--thank you.

I have dedicated three months of my life and a couple of thousand dollars to create this forum, but I am looking to put it into mothballs in the next few days. It is a neat creation and one that I would not want to destroy, but simply bring back at a later time when I can put more money into it. (Hence in mothballs and unavailable to us for posting) Below are some Facts: --I have to resume full-time work soon, and will not be around during the weekdays to monitor things. Somebody has to or bad things happen.... (Been-there-and-done-that) --If a ton of new stuff is not posted every day, then readers go away nearly overnight; we saw this earlier this week when I took a few days off from this forum. (So somebody has to be posting stuff throughout the day) --I had two moderators, but for various reasons it did not work out. I do not have the time to constantly be begging for new volunteers, training them and monitoring them. --We have a 12 hour window each day during the weekdays that I will not be around, and even if I divide that into four hour slots--there are not enough volunteers and they quit within three months as the last two did. --Putting this forum into mothballs would be terrible, as I love this community and want to discuss Our Beloved Ducks with you. But no volunteer wants to be posting stuff and hanging around the site reading/moderating posts for tons of hours per day during the week. I don't blame them, as I cannot either. And they will not do it long before they get tired of it. (The "COOL" factor dissipates soon) If you have ideas....post them here or email me charles@fishduck.com

David, this is a very thoughtful and insightful article that certainly altered my mind-set about the development of Herbert. My thanks!

The number of great Oregon Sports to watch and appreciate this weekend is amazing. We have the No. 23 Mens Basketball going for a Pac-12 Tournament title, the Baseball team ranked at No. 23 going up to Corvallis to face the No. 16 Beavers. In addition to this, No. 5 Softball taking on three games while the No. 1 Mens Indoor Track & Field team is going for National Championship! Wow! And boy....this has to be the biggest rivalry weekend ever? The Mens Basketball play Oregon State tonight at 5:30 PM on the Pac-12 Network, while the Softball team has Oregon State visiting on Saturday afternoon and the Baseball team has three games in Corvallis! FIVE GAMES against the Beavers? That is way-too-much orange for my tastes...

The average number of players in the transfer portal from each Power-5 school is..... an amazing 8.5 players per team and that astonished me. This was brought up at another site, (subscription) but the real stunner is how many does Our Beloved Ducks have in the portal? Ten.

Look Duck fans....we cannot complain, as we are getting a ton of national love and respect despite the Duck-Egg laid in the Fiesta Bowl. I would be fuming if the Huskies got coverage like this, so that means that their fans must be ... incredibly thrilled for us? ESPN tabs Oregon as a Favorite to be Next CFB Superpower by 247Sports How I weave my irrational hatred of the Huskies into this is a mystery, or maybe I am just a great Oregon fan?

That is amazing considering we don't have any real "bigs!" Look at the bright side....at least he was talking about the game and not asking whether you've been to Uzbekistan!

That is a free site and in another article--they consider the dilemma the Huskies are in with their basketball coach and the dumpster-fire mens program. "That means next season’s team projects to be both the least talented of Hop’s tenure and that to improve it he will have to recruit to a team facing the likely prospect of its 3rd straight bottom-2 finish in the conference. Buckle up." You could say that "I feel their pain" and am enjoying it a bit too much!

You are quite right, and at this forum--we would be asking the tough questions and doing Critical Analysis. (As we have done concerning our own offensive production)

Oh that gets me wiggling uncontrollably!

Wow Bruce....you are a fan of Track & Field! We are fortunate and appreciative of your updates! Great to hear we are on track with the first event.

Good article, and losing that receiver absolutely hurts the Huskies next year. Isn't that two receivers for the Huskies that caught touchdowns against Oregon the last time the two teams played that have transferred out? Huskies celebrating a score against Oregon ... Oh yeah...we won that game.

We have a link to a nice game recap right here, and it was a nice way to start the conference tournament. Will Richardson had a superb game shooting 6-9 for 17 points, nine assists and led the team in rebounds with seven. LJ Figueroa led all scorers with 21 points on a superb 9-16 shooting, and the nice surprise was Chandler Lawson's 10 points in 15 minutes of action. Thoughts about tomorrow? Conference Tournament Semi-finals are at 5:30 PST on the Pac-12 Network.

Another great candidate that would not be a surprise coming from me is Steve Greatwood, as we lead the conference in rushing for nine years with primarily 3-Star guys who were coached up. Our offense has not been as productive since he left, IMHO.

I know--your intentions are good and sincere and this subject had to be addressed eventually. I am sure there are others who feel that the State of Oregon is doing great in this crisis, and Lane County is operating in a prudent manner. So...like football topics--we will disagree and that is fine. I am just relaying my opinion and my experiences that have caused a ton of extra work for me. I do look forward to meeting you sometime Santa Rosa! (Actually I would love a post-game party someday at one of the local breweries)

My candidate for greatest assistant coach is not a popular one, but he needs to be judged on his work as an assistant and that would be Mark Helfrich. The game-plans he came up with and old plays pulled out of the playbook have not been rivaled since, IMHO. Our offense was the envy of the nation....

Oh baby....I have been trying to "Duck" this discussion for a long time, but here goes....and WE ALL must work at not getting political in this thread. Do keep in mind that I am not making a political commentary, but only my own assessment based upon what I've seen, read and experienced. In short, I believe the state of Oregon and Lane County Health Authority are incompetent on a number of different levels and we are seeing it in the distribution of the vaccines, and in how decisions are made concerning groups of people. Now with that said, Lane County is dropping to a level to where up to 150 people can assemble together, but that does not take place until Friday. Keep in mind that Oregon has been the 48th/49th state (among the best/slowest) in terms of the disease spreading for some time, yet massive measures have been in place for a long time. As of the other day...only a handful of people in Lane County were in Intensive Care with COVID, and only one was hooked up to a ventilator. To answer your question, I will relate my experiences as credentialed media who is trying to get photographers into UO Athletic events. In the past--no problem as I had two photographers on the field at Autzen for every home game, (One of my own, and another working for another media source, but shared his "sloppy-seconds" with me) and I assumed when COVID hit that everything would change. But not like this. I was not allowed to have a photographer on the field for games at Autzen, nor did the other sites and thus we had to use the "pool" photos of which were lame. But they were going to allow photographers up in the stands to take pictures, and I could live with that since my guys have telephoto lens and can still do well. Then UO AD reversed that position and stated that photographers could not even be up in the stands! When I asked for the science that shows COVID transmission taking place outside, (all the data shows transmission occurring inside) with people socially distanced, and wearing masks in the freezing cold....I was effectively told to pound-sand. Yet I could have two photographers shooting photos at the Washington State game! Are state guidelines on the same science that different? But the topper was how FishDuck was able to have two photographers in Reser Stadium for the Rivalry game. How is the COVID science different between Corvallis and Eugene? Recently we were told that the usual amount of photographers could not be on the field or in the stands at Baseball games, and the number allowed was quite small. What justification is there when everything is trending with the disease as it is? Crickets. So....different scientists have postulated that herd immunity will be reached by late April or late August, depending upon who you read. That would suggest that a full stadium could/should be possible; Alabama has announced that they will fill their 100,000 seat stadium this fall, and the NFL had over a million attendees to their games in total last fall. But the state of Oregon and Lane County may disregard pertinent data, as they have in this past year, thus my answer to you is that I am "less than 50/50" about fans being allowed in the stands. From a financial standpoint--they must get the fans back, but with the absurd way things with the Athletic Department have been handled....I am not optimistic. But I would buy a ticket anyway, as I have with my season tickets. My apologies.

If we play to the talent level on the team and with the coaches--yes, I believe we can win again. But the decisions made will determine how well the team plays, and this last year--your observation was quite true. Thus to me--it is all unknown. But I am spinning it in my mind that it is all "part of the drama and entertainment" of which is true.

This pitcher went to high school not far from where I live, and it was great to see him in his first start last weekend and being successful. Should Robert Ahlstrom be a starter over Nico Tellache of Canby versus Oregon State this weekend? Robert Ahlstrom Working way Back into Oregon Baseball Pitching Rotation by OregonLive

It is nice we have a small section in a national article, although it is devoted more to who they think can dethrone Our Beloved Ducks for the Pac-12 Title. I am not buying it--are you? Top College Football Storylines to Watch During 2021 Spring Practices by Bleacher Report