Touring The Bases With…Gabe Kapler

Gabe Kapler was a 57th round draft pick by the Detroit Tigers in the 1995 amateur draft, then began a very successful minor league career that resulted in a late-season call-up in September 1998.  The righthanded slugger dominated the low minors at the ages of 20 and 21, hitting .300 with 45 doubles, 26 homers, […]

iOOTP12 for Apple

iOOTP12 for Apple (sorry, Android fans, you’ve got at least another year to wait before partaking) is the Kate Upton to OOTP13’s Sofia Vergara: whereas the latter has endless curves, you sure as hell won’t mind spending hours with the slimmer, compact version. Kate (uh, I mean, iOOTP12) is well worth the price of admission, […]

History in the Making, Or Just Another Ballgame?

Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg were taken in the amateur draft twelve months apart. Each was a Boras client deemed difficult to sign and likely to command a record signing bonus. Each was acclaimed as a unique talent well worth whatever it took. The fact that they came in succeeding years was deemed extremely rare. […]

Former Pitcher Larry Burchart Reminisces

The Los Angeles Dodgers really, really wanted collegiate star right-handed pitcher Larry Burchart. In 1967 they took him in the first round of the June phase of the amateur draft. Since he was enrolled at Oklahoma State, he did not sign. This did not deter the Dodgers, who took him again in the third round […]

Brad Peacock, Selig Man with Upside Heart

Brad Peacock was taken in the 41st round of the 2006 draft as a “draft and follow” pick by the Washington Nationals. For Washington the 2006 draft was a disaster. Conducted when the team was still under management by Bud Selig and MLB, Inc., it might serve as a tutorial on all of the things […]

Quiet and Steady as She Goes

The Nationals traded Nyjer Morgan for Cutter Dykstra and during the wee hours. The move was no surprise to anyone, but some had opined that the Nationals would take almost anything to get rid of the distractions surrounding Morgan. Dystra is not “almost anything,” but he knows a little bit about distractions. Anyone who has […]

A Composite Portrait of Barry Bonds Before He Reached the Majors

These items are pulled together from various articles in newspapers from 1974 to early 1986. They’re presented here to shed some light on Bonds’ early personality and the talent and power he displayed before reaching the majors, many years before the steroids talk began. In 1974, Barry Bonds’ father, Bobby, left the Giants for the […]

Catch a Falling Star

Lastings Milledge was non-tendered by Pittsburgh yesterday. It is just another benchmark in the descent of a once promising talent that was briefly with the Washington Nationals. Jim Bowden traded Ryan Church and Brian Schneider to the Mets for Lastings Milledge during the off-season before the start of 2008.  The rumblings of his unpopularity in […]

They Are Two Stepping in Texas

There is dancing in Texas tonight.  The Texas Rangers played the best two teams in the American League and beat them both in convincing fashion to win the first American League Championship for the franchise after fifty years of frustration.  The anticipation of history in the making gave drama to a game that was decided […]

Bottoming Out in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor

They should bottle Showalter’s elixir and sell it outside Camden Yarks.  The Baltimore Orioles are showing signs of life in response to their new manager’s tonic after flat-lining for more than half of the 2010 season. The Orioles’ record since Showalter stepped into the dugout is 17 – 10.  That is a .630 winning percentage […]

Touring The Bases With…Brent Mayne

Catcher Brent Mayne was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the first round (#13 overall) of the 1989 amateur draft and made his major league debut only a year later, rapping an RBI single off Twins pitcher Scott Erickson in his first major league at-bat.  Mayne spent 15 seasons in the big leagues with […]

Touring the Bases With…Milt Wilcox

Milt Wilcox, a righthanded hurler from Hawaii, was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the second round of the 1968 amateur draft, a draft that included Tim Foli, Thurman Munson, Bobby Valentine, Greg Luzinski, Gary Matthews, and Bill Buckner.  Coming straight out of high school, Wilcox began his career in the Rookie League before moving […]

Is There Really Gator Baseball?

Coming out of Nationals Park several weeks ago I spied someone decked out in University of Florida garb and I quickly offered up the “Gator Nation” salute–an obscene affair–then jumped up and asked whether he knew how our Gators were doing in the SEC championship game against South Carolina.  After a quick browse through the […]

Brownsten Setting His Sights

Memorial Day will find Cory Brownsten waiting on the NCAA. After finishing the season 38-18, Brownsten and his University of Pittsburgh Panther teammates fell short of earning an automatic berth to the Regionals of College World Series. The Panthers will have to wait and see if their resume is enough to earn an at-large bid […]

Touring the Bases With…Craig Breslow

Relief pitcher Craig Breslow has been referred to as “the smartest man in baseball” because of his degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry earned at Yale University, and his performance on the field has been equally impressive, boasting a 2.78 ERA in 172 career games.  Breslow was drafted out of Yale by the Milwaukee Brewers […]

Touring the Bases With…Roger LaFrancois

Boston Red Sox catcher Roger LaFrancois spent only eight games at the Major League level but made the most of it, batting .400 with a double, a run, and an RBI in 10 at-bats in 1982.  Drafted by Boston in the eighth round of the 1977 amateur draft, LaFrancois spent most of his nine professional […]

Taking Stock of the First Month of Play

With the first month of the season in the books it’s almost time for teams and players to panic. Batters such as David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Pierzynski have to wonder how long it will take them to get over the Mendoza line, while teams such as the Orioles have to wonder where it […]

Touring the Bases With…Darryl Hamilton

Darryl Hamilton was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 11th round of the 1986 amateur draft and spent seven seasons in Milwaukee before signing as a free agent with the Texas Rangers in 1996.  After only one season in Texas, Hamilton played for the San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies, and New York Mets, with […]

Goldstein Sounds Alarm in Harper’s House of Charm

Kevin Goldstein took aim at Bryce Harper’s imposing rep this week in an article at Baseball Prospectus.com about his “makeup.”   The amateur draft is counting down and Harper is more and more the only viable first choice. Will the alarm bells spook the Nationals?  Is character as defining a factor for the rebuilding Washington […]

A Passion For Pitching

As a teenager Doug White was an all-star—”an average player for my age but above average for the area where I played”—but he wanted to improve his game so he attended the Doyle Baseball School after his Freshman year of high school and, through a long-toss program he learned from the instructors, added more than […]

It Ain’t Easy Raising the Dead: The Labors of Pirates’ GM Neal Huntington

In the 1980s, Pirate general manager Syd Thrift, an old Southern gentleman with a dry wit, looked at the rebuilding task in front of him and moaned, “It ain’t easy raising the dead.” Relatively speaking, Thrift’s task was a breeze.  He took over a team that had a winning record two seasons earlier, and was […]

Lyman Bostock: What Might Have Been

What coulda been–a man taken from us WAY too soon…. It’s been 35 years since the very memorable 1975 baseball season–one that saw future Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Tom Seaver win Cy Young Awards, Frank Robinson become MLB’s first black manager, and another “no-no” thrown by Nolan Ryan. It also featured the Tigers […]

Weighing Bryce Harper

Bryce Harper had no where to go but down after being hyped as Lebron James last June.  Questions arose after uneven moments in his play last summer, then again at the start of the college season.  Nationals GM, Mike Rizzo, who will pick first in the amateur draft in three months, must decide whether the […]