Why I Like Baseball

AN ONLINE JOURNAL OF BASEBALL ENTHUSIASM, by CECILIA TAN

  • October 7 2007: Playoff Party

    When the Yankees win at Yankee Stadium in October, it’s the best party in the world. I know it is only the first round of playoffs, and I know they still face elimination tomorrow, but the smiles, cheers, and good times rolled tonight…

  • September 24, 2007: Love Rules

    “It was a day of love at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. It began with an outpouring of love for someone recently departed from the family, Phil Rizzuto. While many members of the Rizzuto family watched from seats of honor near home plate, the scoreboard played a highlight montage from Phil’s career as player and as…

  • September 22, 2007: Long Night

    “I have a credo, which is that any game in which your team gets the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning is a good game. By extension any game in which your team gets the winning run to the plate is pretty darn good also, and getting that man to cross the…

  • September 21, 2007: Seasonal Color

    In this age of digital photography, I really should have been documenting this better. But at the time, I really did not know that it would have Pennant Race Implications. I’m talking about my hair…

  • August 26, 2007: Family Feud (Interview with Dom DiMaggio)

    “I woke up this morning from a dream that Dominic DiMaggio had passed away. I’m certain this is my brain still working through the loss of The Scooter in recent weeks. I never had a chance to interview Phil Rizzuto, but I did interview Dom DiMaggio not that long ago. So I thought I’d share…

  • July 2, 2007: Mechanical Failure (My throwing arm)

    “The other day in a game against the Yankees, Shannon Stewart of the Oakland A’s made a weak throw from left field, allowing a run to score and a runner on second base to move to third. The game’s broadcasters mentioned that Stewart’s shoulder is injured, and has been “for years.” How, one might think,…

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.

Author Cecilia Tan with Babe Ruth

Cecilia Tan

Writer