Cooperstown 25 Years Later

Summer and baseball go together like Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel and incoherent sentences—you just can’t imagine one without the other. This formula lends itself for even the average baseball fan opportunities to create memories with family and friends by taking in a game at any level, whether professional or little league, or making a pilgrimage […]

The Summer Book You Have Been Waiting For: “Philadelphia’s Top 50 Baseball Players”

Baseball fans and fathers rejoice! The perfect summer baseball book for the Philly sports fan has arrived in time for trips to the Jersey Shore and Father’s Day gift requests.  Rich Westcott’s “Philadelphia’s Top 50 Baseball Players” complements every person’s interest level who appreciates the city’s baseball history. In order to make the cut for […]

The Top 5 All Star Game Programs To Collect

When you have any type of hobby there are different levels and degrees that you can carry your interests to.  Sports always offer a wide variety in general, from casual follower to the beloved degenerate gambler who would put money on anything, to the collector of artifacts and memorabilia.  Of the four major sports, baseball […]

Phiguring Out The Phillies

Memorial Day is the “unofficial-official” start of summer for many. It is also the time when even the most casual of baseball fans start to peruse the standings and pay attention to the everyday reality show grind known as baseball’s dog days of summer. If you happen to live in the Delaware Valley chances are […]

Me, My Dad & the ’92 Blue Jays

Anyone who has even remotely come in contact with the game of baseball has heard the old adage of how fans of the game use it to mark the times in their lives almost like mile markers on the road.  It is an understandable claim, as this sport itself has been around for almost as […]

Integration And What If Bill Veeck Did Buy the Phillies In 1943?

One of the things I enjoy most about baseball is reading about the history of the game ranging from entire books revolving around a single memorable moment, to those about a well-known or infamous era of the game. With baseball’s extensive history you can easily find yourself getting caught in a specific genre where you […]

The Final Eulogy on the 2011 Phillies

I do not know where to begin, mainly because I cannot believe that it has come to an end.  A week ago I put up a post saying how Phillies’ fans needed to get behind the Yankees to make the World Series in order to seal a remarkable and, by most franchise standards, historic season.  […]

Time for Phillies Fans to Root for the Yankees

Was there ever any doubt? The Phillies just wrapped up a 162-game warm-up schedule and now their real season begins. Starting in April and running through the end of September it was merely an exercise in the inevitable. First place? Better be. Never a doubt. Their biggest competition was themselves. How many games over .500 […]

Taking in Fenway via the Cape Cod League All-Star Game

After almost 38 years I finally made my way to Fenway Park, and as you can guess it was well worth the wait. I am going to save you the boredom and monotony of praising this shrine to baseball, as it has already been done by members of the literary community who have communicated its […]

White Sox May Need a Lesson in Their Own History

I was visiting Chicago recently on a trip from baseball’s “land of milk and honey,” also known as Philadelphia, and had the opportunity to take in a ballgame and cross another stadium visit off my list.. Chicago, baseball, Cubs, Wrigley is how the order of it all plays out in my mind when I think […]

Choosing the Prospects You Want To See In 2011

A few days after MLB’s Opening Day pageantry is when my interest in baseball starts in earnest, and that is Minor League Baseball’s Opening Day.  I will be the first to admit that I am in the vast minority (maybe the only one?) of baseball fans who gets fired up about the start of the […]

Maple Street Press Phillies Annual 2011 – The Phillies Fan’s Equivalent to Spring Training

Once the Super Bowl ends there are certain signs that I look for that tell me that baseball is close to starting again. The obvious first one is the date pitchers and catchers report, which appropriately fell on Valentine’s Day this year. The next is when the first game of spring is played in either […]

Seeing Red: When to Catch the Phillies in 2011

I cannot wait for Valentine’s Day.  There I said it.  As a matter of fact I will tell this to anyone who will listen to me.  Sometimes I will find myself just staring at the calendar with January at the top and tease myself and flip the page over to February.  I will then scan […]

The Best Kept Secret in Philadelphia A’s History

For most Phillies fans this is the toughest October that they have had to endure over the past three years. Though being christened “the team to beat” from the start of the playoffs, someone forgot to pass that memo on to the San Francisco Giants who refused to be steamrolled by the Phillies’ highly regarded […]

The Philly Phan’s Guide to the Playoffs

October baseball is now a rite of passage in Philadelphia. No longer are Phillies fans left to wonder about “next year” or suppose “what if” or try to convince themselves that they had better appreciate fall baseball because they may not see it again for awhile. No, not for the foreseeable future in this town. […]

My Minor Thoughts on the 2010 Season

Labor Day is usually seen as the last marker before the final push for a spot in the MLB post-season.  Interest for fans hoping for a miracle or those just praying to hang on to that final spot gets turned up a notch.  For a small niche of baseball fans though, Labor Day also marks […]

All-Star Game Showcases Eastern League’s Best and Harrisburg’s New Digs

The last time that I was in Harrisburg, home of the Eastern League AA Senators, was in 2004 to watch them play the Reading Phillies. Two things from that game still stand out to me; watching a kid by the name of Ryan Howard crush the ball all over the field and, to be frank […]

NL East Serves Notice to Phillies

The Phillies open a series against the Atlanta Braves this Memorial Day only a half game up on them in leading the division. Not surprising is that the Nationals are in last place with the Marlins; what is, though, is that they are both only four games out of first place. Almost 50 games into […]

Citizens Bank Puke

After the game on April 14th I double checked the Phillies’ promotional schedule and it was not listed as “Drunk Loser Night” despite what I had seen. It has been about a week and a half since Philadelphia has been held up once again as a shining example of how a few knuckleheads can make […]

Stark Shows that it is “Worth the Wait”

I have been an admirer of ESPN’s Jayson Stark since I was knee high to a batting tee and he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer. The way he combines his baseball insight, humor and “Useless Information” pieces is a perfect mixture if you want to maximize your baseball knowledge yet keep the tone light. Stark […]

How to Get Your Phillies Phix

Hardcore Phillies Phan? Looking to take your Phandom to a new level? Want to be the Phillies Guru at work? If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions then the Maple Street Press 2010 Phillies Annual is a must have. The kind people at MSP provided me with a complimentary copy of their publication […]

Four Calls for the 2010 Season That You Heard Here First

Over the next five weeks or so the average baseball fan is going to come across numerous predictions via TV, sports talk radio, newspapers, magazines and the web. Let’s face it, the majority of experts are going to play it safe and you are going to hear and read the same things ad nauseam – […]

2010 Phillies – One of the Greatest Teams We Will Never See?

Spring training is almost here and living right outside of Philadelphia I can tell you that most Phillies fans are up in arms about dealing away Cliff Lee to the Seattle Mariners. It is not that there is unhappiness with Roy Halladay, it is just that the fans wanted Halladay AND Lee. Does it sound […]

Pssst Tony – We Knew All Along

The last thing that needs to be written is another post burying Mark McGwire, who has finally placed the steroids noose around his neck and stepped off of the ledge that his hollow records have built, merely confirming what any reasonable person has known for years. I am rather surprised, though, that Tony LaRussa has […]

Rookie of the Year – The MLB Network Finishes Its First Season

“And on the seventh day He rested and watched the MLB Network.”

Yes, Virginia, Baseball is Like Christmas

I’m not sure when it happened but somewhere along the line the believing part of Christmas that comes with being a kid passed me by.

Bring Back the Nickname

Who was the best center fielder in New York in the 50’s? Willie, Mickey or Ed? How about the time George promised the sick boy he would hit a home run for him? Then George went out and did it. Winning the Denton Young Award all of a sudden doesn’t sound as glamorous. I would […]

When a World Series Becomes a Defining Moment For a City

Through much of my childhood, and probably further in to my adult life than I would like to admit, I followed pro wrestling. One of my favorite wrestlers was the bad guy and heavy weight champ Ric Flair. Flair would hold up his championship belt and yell, “To be the man, you have to beat […]

Making the Perfect World Series Match

Now that the playoff field has been set, and the bright lights of October have been switched on, I was mulling over the possible World Series match ups I wanted to see the most and what I think would be the most entertaining.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year….

To those who have heard those words it represents the holiday season lasting for about a six week stretch from Thanksgiving through New Years. For the die hard sports fan those words mark the stretch of time from mid-September through October when you have the baseball schedule taking on new meaning with the minor league […]

Portland, Maine – More Than Just Lighthouses and Lobsters

When someone mentions the state of Maine what is the first thing that you think about? Moose. Lobsters. Lighthouses. How about baseball?

Eastern League All-Star Game, Kyle Drabek and a Trip to Vegas – Just Another Week for a Minor League Baseball Junkie

All things being equal I would rather go to a Minor League game than a Major League one. Maybe it’s seeing the big name players before they get spoiled by life in the majors, knowing that there is a chance to see just about anything at a game because not every player is top notch, […]

Worth the Trip: Philadelphia and the Ballparks Around It

Philadelphia and the surrounding area offer some great places to catch a ballgame.

Who Will Save the Game Next?

This October will mark the 90th anniversary of when baseball first lost its innocence as a result of the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series.