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Almost-September Scoreboard Watching
It has become fun to watch the standings lately. The Yankees have the best record in baseball at 82 wins, and it’s not lost on me that the last time the won the World Series, in 2000, they managed only 87 wins on the season. That was back when the Red Sox front office was…
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SABR in DC: Day Four
Day Four of the SABR Convention First up: Starbucks. Tea and coffee cake are necessary to get through the morning. Second: Baseball’s Global Trend in Emergence of China (Dominican) Player (Non-)Promotion in the Global Baseball Labor Market Alexander Cartwright — mythologized much? Awards Banquet Talk by an MLB Lawyer Negro League Players Panel The Rise…
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SABR in DC: Day Three
Day Three of the SABR convention in Washington, DC. I am so not used to getting up this early every day. I got in from dinner last night and could barely keep my eyes open while blogging. I conked out earlier than I have in years, two nights in a row. But I’m still sleepy.…
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SABR in DC: Day Two
Second day of the annual SABR convention! My day started very bright and early. Today’s items included: Women in Baseball Committee Meeting Annual Business Meeting Library of Congress Presentation 21* — on Tom Cheney, the pitcher who struck out 21 in one 16 inning game Walter Johnson vs. Babe Ruth On-Base Improvement by Veterans Christina…
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SABR in DC! Day One
First day of the SABR Convention! We are in Washington, DC this time. For those who want a micro-blog experience of the convention, check out http://twitter.com/ceciliatan (and search on twitter.com for #sabr for even more!) I will try to write up decent posts here as I did last year, too. You may recall that last…
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June 5, 2009: A little bit about books…
The queue of books awaiting my attention just got a little longer, so I thought before they get too old, I would at least run down the list of books on my desk I am really looking forward to reading. I picked up several Red Sox related titles at the BookExpoAmerica convention, which was held…
Why I Like Baseball
AN ONLINE JOURNAL OF BASEBALL ENTHUSIASM, by CECILIA TAN
Welcome to “Why I Like Baseball”
“Why I Like Baseball” is the one of the oldest baseball blogs on the Internet, dating back to before the word “blog” existed. (I think it’s slightly older than Jay Jaffe’s “Futility Infielder,” and was slightly preceded by Geoff Young’s “Ducksnorts.”) I first hand-coded the site in HTML 1.0 at some point in 1998-99. (Most of the pre-2000 content has been lost to bit rot.) I had been away from baseball for much of my adult life, but the McGwire-Sosa home run race caught my attention I was underemployed at the time, had just published my first book of short stories with a major publisher, and was taking freelance writing gigs as I could find them, but what I really wanted to write about was baseball. So I took it upon myself to create a website. Back then, the Internet was smaller and less populated, and I soon discovered my little passion project was being read by folks like the editors of ESPN: The Magazine, who published a surprise shout-out to me. My writings eventually led to me writing a book on the Yankees, editing the Yankees Annual, writing for Gotham Baseball, and at one point even creating online content directly for the Yankees themselves.
Cecilia Tan
Writer