Category: Baseball Musings
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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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Tipping Points
There’s been much hoo-hah (that is a technical term, you know) in the media these days about the tipping of pitches. In particular, of course, it’s in response to Selena Roberts’ book on A-Rod, in which she posits a league-wide conspiracy among A-Rod and his sycophants and cronies on other teams, who would tip pitches…
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April 28, 2009: Truth in Advertising
So I was poking around on my Facebook account today, and an ad along the righthand side of the page caught my eye, as the graphic accompanying it was, shall we say, GRAPHIC! In fact, it really looked like Roger Clemens and Derek Jeter in a really compromising, or at least suggestive, position. This was…
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April 25, 2009: Slug fest
We were really looking forward to a tight pitching duel at Fenway today, as AJ Burnett and Josh Beckett faced off. As I write this, Jonathan Papelbon just walked Derek Jeter in the top of the ninth, in which Boston has a 16-11 lead. There have been 28 hits in the game so far, and…
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April 18, 2009: Shakespeare & Baseball
A friend forwarded me the link to this YouTube video from 1958. Comedians Wayne & Shuster combine references to the great baseball figures of the time (Leo Durocher, Pee Wee Reese, Yogi Berra, etc…) with all the recognizable Shakespeare references they could possibly pack in to one ten minute skit. I’m sharing it with you…
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April 15, 2009: Moving the Fences In
So today was the day that MLB honored Jackie Robinson, an annual event on April 15th that has been growing bigger every year since the retirement of Robinson’s #42 throughout all of baseball (except for those players who were still wearing it, like Mariano Rivera). Today every player in the majors (and even the umpires)…
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April 13, 2009: Bash Brother, Interview with Dale Tafoya
Dale Tafoya is the author of “Bash Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed” — which I reviewed here on “Why I Like Baseball” back on December 14th, 2008. The book reminds readers of a lot of very significant facts about the early days of the Steroid Era which are being quickly forgotten in the onrush of debate…
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The Strawberry Rocker Soap Opera
(Originally posted on February 25, 2000 and a fascinating look at the news of the day… Reposted on new URL on December 21, 2008.) The news is fairly well-plastered these days with two types of negative articles about baseball. Those about Darryl Strawberry’s relapse into cocaine use, and those on John Rocker’s December Sports Illustrated…
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Waiting For Spring Training…
(Originally posted on February 20, 2000. Reposted to new site on December 19, 2008.) I’ve said before how I “can’t wait” for the season to start. (Or even for Spring training to start!) Going to see games at Spring Training is something that, when I was a kid, I never thought I would get to…