Why I Like Baseball

AN ONLINE JOURNAL OF BASEBALL ENTHUSIASM, by CECILIA TAN

  • 24 Hour Game Diary Pt 2

    October 16, 2003 9:10 am Arizona time (Pacific) Just got back from breakfast with my roomie, Theresa MacGregor. We’re here at the Amerisuites by the Tucson airport, along with a couple dozen other women baseball players. If you’re just tuning in, we’re here as part of a fundraiser/awareness-raiser called “24 Hours for Africa.” It’s like…

  • 24 Hour Game Diary 1

    October 15, 2003 5:20 pm (not sure what time zone) I am flying on a plane as I write this, on my way to Tucson for the “24 Hours for Africa” women’s baseball marathon. I shouldn’t even be typing this because my elbow hurts, typing aggravates it, and I should be saving my arm for…

  • May 7 2003 : Out Standing In The Field (Player Diary)

    Here I am again, trying to play baseball. For those who are new to my endeavors, here’s a quick recap. March 23, 2000 — While surfing the Internet, I discover the existence of “organized” women’s baseball in the US. While there’s no “major league” per se, there are several organizing bodies, including the AAU and…

  • Bambino Road: Day Eight

    Day Eight (and a bit of Nine): March 13, 2003 The final historical ballpark on my itinerary was Orlando’s Tinker Field. Once upon a time Tinker Field was a standalone facility, but now it is part of a multi-venue complex in Orlando that includes the Florida Citrus Bowl and a music hall. While researching the…

  • Bambino Road: Day Seven

    Day Seven: March 11, 2003 I’ve been wanting to visit the Ted Williams Museum for years. In 2000, when I came to Spring Training for the first time, I had heard about the museum, but didn’t quite figure out where it was. On that trip, we didn’t have time, having packed our trip with games…

  • Traveling the Bambino Road: Day Six

    Day Six: March 11, 2003 There was only one stop on today’s itinerary: McKethan Stadium at the University of Florida in Gainesville. What is the Ruth/Yankees connection here? George Steinbrenner gave the money for the light towers at McKethan Stadium. Also, when Ruth was with the Red Sox, they played the Giants in an exhibition…

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