Gold Glove, Golden Memories: So long, Brooks

I have dreaded this day since I was old enough to truly appreciate the perspective that mortality brings. I just heard that Brooks Robinson has died. It must be true because something is gone inside of me. Maybe the last vestiges of childhood innocence that have hung around for these 66 years. Maybe the ultimate […]

Cheap and Ugly in the Capitol

  Upon Googling: “Cheapest Baseball Owners,” the first article led with the following description: “cheap, greedy, tight-fisted, miserly, penurious. A discussion of the penny-pinching figures who historically have ruled the game of baseball includes Charlie Comiskey—of Black Sox fame, Harry Frazee—who sold off Babe Ruth, and Calvin Griffith, who infamously told a crowd in the […]

Making the Game Fun Again

As the season loomed large in the late winter months, a friend who had prepared a paper on the impending changes in the rules of the game asked me to look it over. It was the first time I had truly registered the pitch clock and the other revision to the rules that had heretofore […]

Stories Over Stats

While on our way to breakfast Saturday morning, the subject of former Oriole, now newest member of the Houston Astros, Trey Mancini, came up. All of Orioledom was sad to see Trey go, but happy that his first three hits for Houston were all home runs, including a grand slam. You don’t even have to […]

Aaron Judge in a Nationals Uniform?

No, I did not predict Josh Bell going to San Diego, but who did? In my defense, just about everything else about the generational trade of Juan Soto yesterday, went down remarkably close to my crystal ball projections on July 22.  One has to give DC General Manager Mike Rizzo credit for getting C.J. Abrams […]

Dear MLB: Your Problem is Relevancy, Not Boredom (although that’s easily fixed, too.)

Dear Major League Baseball, Much has been written recently about your “boredom problem.” Longer games with less action have resulted in declining attendance and declining television ratings, but the solution to your on-field problem is so simple that a Little Leaguer could tell you what it is, whereas a board room full of consultants obviously […]

NORMALIZING NEGRO LEAGUE STATISTICS

Most baseball fans are familiar with the concept of ‘normalizing’ statistics. For MLB statistics, the most basic adjustment is to normalize for park effects. The simplest park normalization calculation takes the impact of a team’s park on runs scored then divides that number, either positive or negative, in half, and then that calculation is applied […]

Major League Equivalencies for The Negro Leagues

Major League Equivalents (MLEs) are a series of calculations designed to take non-major league baseball performance and estimate what that performance’s results would look like statistically in the context of the Major Leagues. Bill James gets credit for popularizing MLEs, as he outlined his method for minor league batters in the 1985 Baseball Abstract. James […]

Negro League Great, Spottswood Poles, Honored by his Birthplace

The city of Winchester, Virginia honored early 20th century Negro Leaguer, and native son, Spottswood Poles, with a plaque earlier this summer.

Trevor Bauer, Sam McDowell, and A Rod’s Birthday Cake

So, in a fit of anger or frustration or both, Trevor Bauer heaved the baseball over the center field fence. So, what? Sure Bauer should have just handed the ball to his manager, Terry Francona, but it’s not as if he refused to give it to him, and gave him the finger instead. When someone […]

Ryan Westmoreland: Former Boston Red Sox Top Prospect Talks Playing Career and New Focus

For serious fans of the Boston Red Sox, Harry Agganis and Tony Conigliaro are familiar names. Both were top young players who saw their promising careers curtailed by tragedy and unforeseen circumstance (Conigliaro was severely injured by a beanball and Agganis died as the result of a pulmonary embolism). Another top prospect for the team was outfielder Ryan Westmoreland, who […]

From the Archives: Touring the Bases with…Jim Bouton

“You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” Former major league pitcher Jim Bouton ended his controversial book Ball Four with those lines in 1969 and the nation has been in his grip […]

Brooks, Still the Magician

This is a weird day for me, and probably many other similar-aged people, boys especially, who grew up in Baltimore in the 1960s and 70s. My childhood hero, Brooks Robinson, turns 80 today. 80! I knew that one day Brooks would no longer be playing third base for the Baltimore Orioles because I knew that […]

Rating the 2017 Hall of Fame Candidates Based on Win Shares

One of the first items of business in baseball each year is the announcement of players elected to the Hall of Fame. This leads to lots of speculation and a little analysis prior to the announcement which is scheduled for January 18, 2017. Many systems exist for evaluating player performance. One such system, the Win […]

Ballplayers of World War II Did Their Part

Today marks the 75th Anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor which changed every aspect of American life, including baseball and many of its players. Future Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Hank Greenburg enlisted on December 9, 1941. Greenburg had been drafted, served in the Army, and had just been discharged earlier in the […]

What Might Have Been: The Short, Brilliant Career of Charlie Ferguson

The Spring 2016 Baseball Research Journal featured an excellent article by Jerrold Casway entitled, “Bacteria Beat the Phillies which covered the careers and early deaths of Charlie Ferguson and Jimmy Fogarty due to typhoid fever and tuberculosis, respectively. Ferguson especially piqued my interest since he was born, lived, and is buried in Charlottesville, Virginia, just […]

Off the Beaten Basepaths #9: The College World Series

Lazzari’s Vault: Remembering “Rapid Robert”

The numbers are staggering: 266 victories, over 3,800 innings pitched, 279 complete games, twelve one-hitters—all while missing nearly four seasons due to military service. Oh, he was also a World War II hero (gun captain on the USS Alabama), World Series champion, and an eventual baseball Hall of Famer. When I first heard about the […]

Major Minnesotans: Tim McIntosh

Tim McIntosh was born on March 21st, 1965. The 1983 graduate of Hopkins High School played three seasons at the University of Minnesota before being selected in the 3rd round of the ‘86 draft by the Milwaukee Brewers. McIntosh played in five games with the Brewers in 1990, making his Major League debut on September […]

Major Minnesotans: Brad Hand

Miami Marlins pitcher, Brad Hand, was born on March 20th, 1990. The Marlins drafted Hand in 2008 in the 2nd round (52nd overall) out of Chaska High School. In his senior season at Chaska, the lefty went 8-2 with 2 saves, allowing only 6 earned runs in 68 innings for an 0.61 ERA. At the […]

Major Minnesotans: Hy Vandenberg

March 17th is the birthday of Washburn High School (Mpls) alumnus and Major League pitcher, Harold “Hy” Vandenberg, born in 1906. He made his Major League debut with the Boston Red Sox in 1935 at age 29, though he wouldn’t win his first game until 1940 with the New York Giants, and his 2nd not […]

An Open Letter to Jose Bautista

Dear Jose Bautista, Congratulations. No one has ever sullied a glorious moment faster than you did yesterday. You hurled that bat in the clincher over Texas as if someone had smeared it with pig waste, and then stared at Sam Dyson as if he was the one who did it. Oh, that was a monumental […]

Touring The Bases With…Mark Armour and Dan Levitt

Mark L. Armour is the author of Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball, the editor of The Great Eight: The 1975 Cincinnati Reds, and a coeditor of Pitching, Defense, and Three-Run Homers: The 1970 Baltimore Orioles, all available from the University of Nebraska Press. Winner of the 2015 Bob Davids Award from the Society of […]

Off the Beaten Basepaths #8: League Stadium in Huntingburg, Indiana

One of the most enjoyable stops on a recent baseball sojourn to the Midwest was visiting League Stadium in Huntingburg, Indiana, home of the Dubois County Bombers of the Ohio Valley League, which is a summer collegiate circuit. League Stadium was also home to the movie version of the Rockford Peaches when Columbia Pictures filmed […]

Hardball Retrospective – 1907 Season Replay

In “Hardball Retrospective: Evaluating Scouting and Development Outcomes for the Modern-Era Franchises”, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original team. Therefore, Sherry Magee is listed on the Phillies roster for the duration of his career while the Pirates claim Ginger Beaumont and the Reds declare Orval Overall. I calculated […]

Hardball Retrospective – 1906 Season Replay

In “Hardball Retrospective: Evaluating Scouting and Development Outcomes for the Modern-Era Franchises”, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original team. Therefore, Freddy Parent is listed on the Cardinals roster for the duration of his career while the Superbas claim Jimmy Sheckard and the Beaneaters declare Vic Willis. I calculated […]

Suns’ First Pitch Thrown By Suns’ First Pitcher

The Hagerstown Suns of the South Atlantic League asked the retiring sheriff of nearby Franklin County, Pennsylvania to throw out the first pitch for the club’s 35th home opener on April 15th, which may not seem extraordinary in any way, except this local lawman threw the actual first pitch in Suns’ history. Dane Anthony, still […]

The Most Important Pitching Study Ever Done: An Overview

For many years, I’ve been toiling on the statistical fringes of the eternal baseball question: what is the best way to handle pitching? My aim has been to put together a baseball equivalent of a “grand unified theory” which would account for the key changes in the way pitching staffs have been deployed over the […]

Where Have You Gone Jay Johnstone?

I don’t care where Joe DiMaggio has gone; I’m turning my lonely eyes to Jay Johnstone. Baseball has always had loads of talented center fielders, but where, oh where, have all the colorful characters gone? You know: the guys who say crazy things and give the Commissioner a hot foot? Please don’t talk to me […]

Giants in Position for Wild-Card Slot Despite Significant Slide

As of Monday afternoon, August 18, the San Francisco Giants hold the second National League wild-card slot, leading the next-closest teams by 1.5 games. What I find most interesting is that the Giants are still on pace to make the playoffs, despite potentially one of the sharpest within-season declines after a strong start, in the […]

What’s Behind the Texas Rangers’ Pre All-Star Break Collapse?

Since 2010, the Texas Rangers have never been far from the playoffs – until now. The Rangers made the World Series in 2010 and 2011, reached the one-game Wild Card round in 2012, and then lost a one-game tie-breaker playoff in 2013 to get into the Wild Card round. Barring a miracle comeback this season, […]

Frontier Story With a Curve

In the spring of 1944 Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall discovered that of the 280 or so major league players in the armed forces, most had never left their domestic bases, and many had not even completed basic training, a fact I learned when researching Boots Poffenberger: Hurler, Hero, Hell-Raiser. Boots, who had […]

An Interview With 1960s Yankees Minor Leaguer Ike Futch

Ike Futch, who played second base, mostly, for a variety of Yankee minor league teams from 1959 through 1964, recently wrote this about Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra in a comment responding to a post I’d written about the two Yankee greats: “I had the privilege to be on the same field with this fine […]

Touring The Bases With…Barry Lyons

A Mississippi native who starred at Delta State University, Barry Lyons was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 25th round of the 1981 amateur draft, then by the New York Mets in the 15th round of the 1982 amateur draft.  He signed with the Mets and began his professional career in Single A where […]

Off the Beaten Basepaths #7: Trappe, MD, Home Run Baker’s Home!

With school out, many people in Baltimore and Washington will be traveling to Atlantic Ocean resorts. If you’re one of those folks AND you’re a baseball fan, do yourself a favor and take a very short detour through Trappe, Maryland, the life-long home of Frank “Home Run” Baker.

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