Native American Son : The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe

Finally Jim Thorpe has the authoritative, comprehensive biography he deserves. Winner of the Larry Ritter Award, it is a nifty and compelling read. Kate Buford spent years retracing the life of the sad, peripatetic man, one of the world’s all time great athletes. The reader follows Thorpe from his birth and childhood in Oklahoma in […]

“Havana Heat” by Darryl Brock

Fans of Darryl Brock will find much to admire in his novel Havana Heat. It is very reminiscent in feel and tone to his classic If I Never Get Back and its sequel Two In the Field. There is no time traveling in this novel but it is a  travel back in time. The hero […]

A Very Strange Proposed Rule Change That Had Some Very Big Name Support

Baseball rule changes are nothing new. Every few seasons brings about at least one major or minor change to the rules. Sometimes the rules come about because of health and safety concerns such as the 1917 rule to outlaw the spitter and other freak deliveries or the 1908 rule which made catchers shin guards legal. […]

Nineteenth Century Score Keeping : Unlearning My Past

This winter I joined a Nineteenth Century base ball league team as scorekeeper. As I was not sure I would recover from the injuries I suffered as a result of a bicycle accident in time to be a player, I took a sideline role.

The Chicago Feds Spring Training Adventure

Predictions From the Past

Few things in baseball are as timeless as predictions. Each winter the news racks fill up with various magazines full of predictions for the upcoming season. The Hot Stove League is often times as interesting as the season itself. Fans of every stripe peruse such magazines to get some “dope” about the upcoming season. Before […]

The Best “Bad” Owner There Ever Was

Charles Webb Murphy was the kind of “bad” owner any team would love to have.

Recreating the Holy Grail of the Deadball Era’s Lost Films

Earlier this year Kino released “Reel Baseball” a collection of deadball  era films. It is a remarkable collection of shorts and features that were made in the early days of film.  However, much more was filmed in the early days of cinema than made it into that collection.  What is probably the single most interesting […]