A couple of brief items for tonight:

Probably a week or two ago, I caught the opening few minutes of ABC-TV's "The View," during which it came up that one of the co-hosts, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, played softball for Boston College (BC) and was, in fact, a captain. During her college years, she was known by her maiden name, Filarski. I did a little research on Elisabeth's softball career, and besides the fact that she also was once a contestant on the CBS show "Survivor," here is what I came up with.

This 1998 BC season preview briefly cites Filarski, then a junior, as among the three likely starters in the outfield (implicitly, at least).

In the program history section of the 2006 BC media guide, Filarski is mentioned four times: for winning the team's leadership award in '98; for earning recognition as a Big East "Academic All-Star" in '96, '97, and '99; for being among the recipients of the Athletic Director's Award for Academic Achievement in '97, '98, and '99; and, within the Arts and Communication field, for being a finalist on Survivor.

As for Elisabeth's on-field performance, I honestly can't find much record of it. I clicked every link pertaining to the '97, '98, and '99 seasons on this softball archive page of the BC official athletics site, and never saw her name referenced for any game results. If I find anything more, I'll let everyone know.

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Alabama (16-0) has moved up in the national rankings, to No. 3 in the ESPN/USA Softball poll and No. 5 in the USA Today/NFCA poll (see links in the right-hand column). As discussants over on the Ultimate College Softball board have pointed out, however, the Crimson Tide has not played any of the other top teams nationally. In fact, if you look at Bama's schedule, the Tide will not play any nationally elite teams in the entire non-conference part of the schedule. It is only in SEC play (starting March 10) that the Tide will start facing some tough opposition.