A timeless tradition in which Titan legends and emerging stars share the field, the Cal State Fullerton Alumni game added another memorable chapter in the program\u2019s history on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taking place just a couple weeks before the regular season, this annual event saw generations of Titan Alumni make their way back to where it all started.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his fifth alumni game, Head Coach Jason Dietrich expressed his gratitude for all the past players who laid the foundation for this program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate them coming out, it\u2019s all about them,\u201d Dietrich said. \u201cThey\u2019re why we\u2019re here and they\u2019re why we have this great facility, everything is here because of the guys that came before them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The alumni squad had a plethora of talent, with multiple players making it to the draft, and others who were fortunate to enjoy a major league career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Current Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher and former Titan Tanner Bibee was in attendance, reconnecting with the alumni and even filling in as their third base coach. Former Titan catcher Dustin Garneau, who spent eight years in the majors, including a brief stint with the Los Angeles Angels, appeared in this game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was also joined by former Titan infielder Jared Clark, a member of the 2008 US National team that brought home the gold medal in the FISU World Championship and a 2009 draft pick by the Colorado Rockies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want them to just talk (to) the alum, and just hear all their stories and how hard they worked,\u201d\u00a0 Dietrich said. \u201cLet\u2019s play hard like they did, and just appreciate all the alumni that are here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the 2026 Titans squad showed no mercy to the alumni, crushing them 22-3, it was still a great experience for everyone involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 2025 graduate and former Titan outfielder Matthew Bardowell, who earned All-Big West Second team honors in the spring last season and spent time in the MLB Draft League over the summer, drove in all three of the alumni\u2019s runs with a three-run laser over the right-center-field wall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a blessing to be on the other side now,\u201d Bardowell said. \u201cBaseball felt a little foreign to me, hadn\u2019t seen a live pitch in about five or six months, but it\u2019s like riding a bike, just looking for a good pitch to hit and just keeping it simple as always.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Making a brief appearance at the hot corner was another 2025 graduate and former Titan infielder Maddox Latta, who garnered All-Big West First Team honors last spring. He spoke on the culture this program has fostered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a brotherhood over here,\u201d Latta said. \u201cEveryone is welcoming, you get to meet people and you get different connections.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Looking into the current squad, first-year transfer Britton Beeson put on a show, sending two tape-measure homers over the wall and collecting two separate RBI knocks. An Orange County native who had an illustrious first two collegiate seasons down the road at Fullerton College was able to build off the advice from the alumni as he moves forward into this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey tell you what it takes to win,\u201d Beeson said. \u201cIt\u2019s a standard and they expect a lot from you, so being able to hear that just fires us up for the season.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Titans begin their season in a four-game series split against Cal Baptist University through Feb. 13-16.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A timeless tradition in which Titan legends and emerging stars share the field, the Cal State Fullerton Alumni…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[24884,5,15540,71217,33008,71218,71219,777],"class_list":["post-538515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-alumni","tag-baseball","tag-big-west","tag-csuf","tag-dustin-garneau","tag-jared-clark","tag-matthew-bardowell","tag-tanner-bibee"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115959540210332272","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}