BERKELEY – If hope truly does spring eternal at the outset of any baseball season, consider the circumstances under which the Cal baseball team began its 2017 campaign a lesson in optimism born from a fresh start.
A roster would have come in handy on the Golden Bears' first official day of practice as a three-week sprint to the start of a 54-game marathon kicked off Friday under bright Berkeley sunshine at Evans Diamond. An intrasquad scrimmage got head coach David Esquer's group rolling, and with a host of new faces in new places all around the diamond, the energy of a new season served as an undercurrent as work began to get ready for the Feb.