Bruin Bites: MJD Update, Cole Debut, Bocanegra to Hall of Fame

It's Monday morning, and the UCLA baseball team is on the way to Omaha following a two-win series sweep of the Cal State Fullerton Titans, who could not stop the Bruins, despite playing on their home turf. With Savage's crew advancing to the College World Series, our baseball team remains our only hope to land #109 this academic year. Otherwise, it'll be yet another year of no national titles under Chianti Dan's failed reign. So with that said, here's your Bruin Bites for this Monday morning:

• Starting with football (of course), it appears from the Florida Times-Union that former UCLA running back Maurice Jones-Drew has been training away from Jacksonville as the investigation of the altercation at a St. Augustine bar continues on from the local police to the local prosecutor's office. According to the paper, MJD "remains accused of sucker-punching security guard Kasim Howard, but no charges have been filed." Stay tuned.
• In case you didn't know, Jim Mora is pretty popular on campus. Somewhere, teenage boys are wondering how they can pull this off.
• Turning to the European brand of football, former UCLA star and U.S. men's national team captain Carlos Bocanegra is set to be inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame on October 11, along with never-stopped-running all-effort former baseball player Eric Byrnes, former gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj, wrestler Fred Bohna, former softball outfielder Yvonne Gutierrez, fellow former Bruin soccer player Nandi Pryce, and hoopsters Maylana Martin Douglas and Don Johnson. The Daily News had a good profile of Bocanegra and his youth soccer training academy program, and his upcoming CB3 Celebrity Golf Classic that will be used as a fundraiser for his academy program.
• Finally, in case you missed it, former UCLA pitcher and 2011 #1 overall draft pick Gerrit Cole is slated to make his Major League debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates tomorrow against the hated San Francisco Giants, where he'll square off against Tim Lincecum.
• And, if you can't get enough of Cole, the Pirates' hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a profile of the young gun this morning, interviewing Dean Treanor, manager of the Pirates' AAA affiliate, the Indianapolis Indians. It's a good read, and hopefully Cole will walk away from his first game in the Show with a solid W.

Alright folks, those are your various bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse. Fire away in the comment thread with your thoughts, additions, and various opinions on all things UCLA.

GO BRUINS