Joe Santoro
Sports Fodder:
All of the attention from the crowd of 53,207 Monday night at Dodger Stadium was, understandably, focused on Shohei Ohtani. The three-time Most Valuable Player, after all, was making his first appearance as a pitcher in almost two years.
Unknown likely to all of the Los Angeles Dodger and San Diego Padre fans on Monday was that Ohtani wasn't the only dual-threat player at Dodger Stadium making his 2025 debut. Trenton Brooks, a pitching and hitting star for the Nevada Wolf Pack from 2014-16, was in the Padres' lineup for the first time this season as the designated hitter.
Brooks was the Wolf Pack's version of Ohtani before most major league baseball fans had ever heard of Ohtani, who didn't make his major league debut until 2017 with the Los Angeles Angels. Brooks, who played for coaches Jay Johnson (2014, 2015) and T.J. Bruce (2016) at Nevada, had a record of 13-7 in 44 games (26 starts) for Nevada with 119 strikeouts in 142 innings. He also hit .322 over 612 at-bats with 44 doubles, six triples, 10 homers and 129 RBI, prompting the Cleveland Guardians (then called the Indians) to draft him in the 17th round in 2016. Brooks got a bonus of $100,000 to sign with Cleveland and has spent the better part of the past nine seasons in the minor leagues. Ohtani signed with the Angels in December 2017 and with the Dodgers in December 2023 for $700 million.
Brooks, who has only pitched one inning in the minors since turning professional, saw his dual-threat career come to an end after leaving Nevada. Ohtani has become the biggest dual-threat star in baseball since Babe Ruth.
Monday night, though, didn't go all that well for both Ohtani and Brooks. The Dodgers' pitcher and designated hitter allowed two hits and a run while throwing a wild pitch and 16 of his 28 pitches for a strike in just one inning. He did, however, have two hits as the DH and drove in two runs in the Dodgers' 6-3 victory.
Brooks, who made his major league debut with the San Francisco Giants in 2024, going 3-for-25, struck out in both of his at-bats, though he didn't face Ohtani. Brooks, who will turn 30 on July 3, will likely be sent back down to Triple-A when the Padres' Jackson Merrill returns from the seven-day injured list while the 30-year-old Ohtani will continue to build up his innings over the next three-plus months with a goal of finishing his 2025 season pitching and hitting in the World Series.
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Buster Posey has never wasted much time making an impact for the San Francisco Giants.
Posey was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2009, a seven-time All Star and three-time World Series champion while hitting .302 with 158 homers and 729 at-bats in the major leagues through 2021. The Giants then put him in charge of the organization this past off-season and just three months into his first season as President of Baseball Operations he has made the organization legitimate World Series contenders.
Posey pulled the trigger on a shocking Fathers Day trade, stealing Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox. Devers gives the Giants the powerful bat in the middle of their lineup they have been seeking in recent years. The Giants, before Posey was in control, went after and failed to sign big-money free agent bats such as Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper over the last decade.
Winning, success and excitement, though, has always been a part of Posey's Giants career. The Devers deal could end up being one of the biggest heists in recent major league history and maybe the biggest for the Giants since they got Hunter Pence from the Philadelphia Phillies in 2012 for Tommy Joseph, Seth Rosin and Nate Schierholtz. Before that, it was the Giants usually getting fleeced. Remember getting a washed-up Sam McDowell for Gaylord Perry and trading George Foster for Frank Duffy and Vern Geishert in 1971? How about dealing Orlando Cepeda to get Ray Sadecki in 1966?
Posey basically stole Devers from the Red Sox for a bottom-of-the-rotation starter (Kyle Harrison), a free-agent bust (Jordan Hicks) and two prospects (Jose Bello, James Tibbs). Devers is still in his prime (28 years old), is a three-time All Star and has hit 215 homers and driven in 696 runs on a .279 career average in just 1,053 games.
Yes, he comes with some off-field baggage. He's been upset with the Red Sox all year since they gave his third base job to Alex Bregman and then had the nerve to ask him to pay first base. Devers' diva tendencies may follow him to the Bay Area, but he is one of the top 20 bats in all of baseball and is under contract through 2033. It's extremely difficult to find (or afford) a guy who can hit 30 homers and drive in 100 runs on an OPS near .900 year in and year out, as the Giants know all too well.
Devers' presence in the lineup makes the Giants a favorite to at least grab one of the three National League wild card spots. Without him they would have likely fallen short of the playoffs for the eighth time in the last nine years.
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Nevada Wolf Pack head coach Jeff Choate's biggest off-season signing might turn out to be former Utah State running back Herschel Turner.
Turner was good enough to rush for 405 yards and four touchdowns on 79 carries for Utah State last year as a freshman. He gained a ridiculous 3,042 yards and scored 42 touchdowns as a senior at Mount Diablo High School (roughly 1,500 students) in Concord, Calif., as a senior.
The 5-foot-9 Turner has a chance to become the Wolf Pack's first 1,000-yard running back since James Butler (1,336 yards) in 2016.
Turner played his freshman season behind Rahsul Faison on the Utah State depth chart. Faison, too, abandoned the Aggies via the transfer portal after the season as New Mexico coach Bronco Mendenhall took over the program. Faison ran for 1,109 yards and eight scores for Utah State and is now with South Carolina. Another Utah State running back (Robert Briggs) moved on to Southern Mississippi.
Turner is in Nevada to help replace Savion Red (687 yards last year) who left the team to sign with Sacramento State after the 2024 season. Red and the Hornets will be at Mackay Stadium Sept. 6 to take on the Pack.
Turner wasn't given all that many opportunities at Utah State but when the Aggies did bother to give him the ball he did well. He had 38 yards on just eight carries against USC, 32 on just six carries against Temple, 54 on only four attempts against New Mexico, 85 on 16 rushes against Washington State and 52 on a dozen attempts against San Diego State.
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If Wolf Pack men's basketball fans want a glimpse of what-might-have-been for the 2025-26 season, they might want to check out some Atlantic Coast Conference basketball.
Two former standout Wolf Pack players will be making their ACC debuts this season. Nick Davidson, who averaged 15.8 points and 6.5 rebounds for Nevada, is now with Clemson, while Darrion Williams, who was the Mountain West Freshman of the Year with Nevada in 2022-23, is now with North Carolina State.
The 6-6 Williams played with the Pack for just one season before moving to Texas Tech. He averaged 13.1 and 12.9 points in his two seasons at Texas Tech while also pulling down 7.5 and 5.5 rebounds. Williams, who averaged 21 points a game over four games in the NCAA Tournament last year, declared for the NBA draft after the season before withdrawing from the draft and then jumping into the portal to sign with North Carolina State.
North Carolina State — the second team Williams will play for in his career called the Wolf Pack (it's one word at North Carolina State) — was 12-19, 5-15 last year.
The 6-9 Davidson spent the past three seasons at Nevada. He was a freshman in 2022-23 and played off the bench while Williams was a starter. Davidson averaged 11.7 points and 6.0 rebounds in his three seasons with the Pack. Clemson was 27-7, 18-2 last year and was upset by McNeese State in its first NCAA Tournament game.
North Carolina and Clemson will meet just once (at Clemson) in the ACC's 18-game regular season in 2025-26. ACC teams will play two league teams both home and away while playing 14 others just once (seven at home, seven on the road).
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Former Wolf Pack assistant football coach Jim House was recently named by 7220sports.com as one of the Top 50 players in the history of Wyoming Cowboys football.
House, who coached for the Wolf Pack from 1990-2001 and again from 2007-09 under head coaches Chris Ault, Jeff Horton, Jeff Tisdel and Chris Tormey, was an outstanding linebacker at Wyoming from 1966-68. He was ranked the No. 30 player in Wyoming history by 7220sports.com, which covers Cowboys football.
House had eight tackles against LSU in the 1967 Sugar Bowl and was part of one of the best defenses in the nation at Wyoming, which allowed just 39 rushing yards a game in 1966, 42 yards a game in 1967 and 78 a game in 1968. The Cowboys never allowed more than 20 points in any game throughout the 1967 and 1968 seasons.
One of his Wyoming teammates was future Miami Dolphins running back Jim Kiick.
House had 18 tackles against rival Colorado State in 1967 and was named Defensive Player of the Week by Sports Illustrated.
House also was an assistant throughout his four-decade coaching career at Wyoming, San Jose State, San Diego State, Montana State and Sacramento State.