Early Offseason Predictions

Winter may be rapidly approaching, but that is not stopping the MLB from creating exciting news nearly every day. Every team in the league is looking to make a key free agent signing or trade that will propel them to greatness next season. These will be the five biggest moves made this offseason. Braves Trade […]

The Sunday Notes: Remembering Tommy Hanson

The first week of the 2015 baseball offseason has not brought the best of news home. In finding ten stories of interest to share with you each week, the goal is to find stories that will make you smile, pass along a tale you might not know or remember someone’s childhood idol. This week, we […]

Medlen’s Misfortune is Everyone’s Misfortune

As the 2012 season drew to a conclusion, Stephen Strasburg’s absence from the rotation of the Washington Nationals was one of the more hotly debated issues. Often those heaping abuse on the Nationals decision to bench their prized right-hander contrasted their decision with that of the Atlanta Braves where Kris Medlen was still taking the […]

Oh Atlanta: Little Feat’s Celebration And The Baseball Beat

1974. It was a rich year for Atlanta’s cultural scene and its place in the national spotlight. In January, the same month Bob Dylan played two nights at the Omni, Maynard Jackson, was sworn in as the city’s Mayor. Jackson, a singular and formidable politician, was the first black man elected to the top office […]

Chris Colabello: Time Can’t Stop Rookie From Reaching Major Leagues with Minnesota Twins

Dreams can be hard to achieve, but fortunately there is no expiration date on their fulfillment. Professional baseball player Chris Colabello learned that this year, as years of hard work finally paid off and landed him in the major leagues. Colabello, a big right-handed first baseman/outfielder, played his college ball for Division II Assumption in […]

The Hall Of Very Good™ Adds Two Members

On Monday, July 29, The Hall of Very Good™ opened its proverbial doors to two new members…two-time National League MVP, Atlanta Braves legend Dale Murphy and former Pittsburgh Pirates World Series hero Steve Blass. “Thank you for the honor of being selected to The Hall of Very Good!” Murphy said.  “It’s great going into this […]

Second Half Help

They aren’t all prospects but they all could help you in one way or another. Here is one player from each team worth picking up for the 2nd half of the season. Note: All players are 30% owned or less in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball Arizona Diamondbacks - 3B Matt Davidson – The Futures Game MVP […]

The Baseball Historian’s Notes for July 15, 2013: Is it Time to Change the All Star Game?

Despite making his major league debut on June 3rd and only playing in 37 games, 23-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers rookie sensation Yasiel Puig received a huge surge of support to make this year’s National League All Star team. The outfielder has done his best Roy Hobbs impression by hitting a blistering .392 with eight home […]

James Brown and Phil Niekro: Not Knuckling Under

On The Good Foot …  Phil Niekro was feeling good. It was Sunday, July 9, 1978 and in two days he’d be in San Diego, pitching for the National League All-Stars. Three days earlier he had pitched a strong eight and a third innings against the defending National League Champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Niekro […]

Halfway Home and Competitive Balance is Winning With Pitching

The first half of the 2013 season is in the record books and surprises abound. Chris Davis is quietly on a pace to hit 62 home runs when most were predicting an end to the offensive surge of prior years. The Boston Red Sox team that unraveled under Bobby Valentine has vaulted to the lead in […]

NJBM Kids’ Hot Korner: Phil Niekro

Hey baseball fans! I just put up my latest post in the Kids’ Hot Korner section of New Jersey Baseball Magazine. This one is about Phil Niekro, the Hall of Fame pitcher with the famous knuckleball pitch. If you want to read more about Phil, just click here. Check back in a couple of days for more of […]

Clearing The Bases

Arizona Diamondbacks: Starting pitcher Randall Delgado, you know, one of the key pieces in the OF Justin Upton trade, is off to a rough at AAA and may not be the first call up once the Dbacks need help in the rotation, that may go to Tyler Skaggs. Good thing that Upton fellow isn’t off […]

Clearing The Bases

Arizona Diamondbacks: Pretty tough week for the DBacks as they lose 2B Aaron Hill until June with a broken hand. Hill suffered the injury when he was hit by an Edwin Jackson pitch. Tried to play with it over the weekend but just couldn’t do it. Outfielder Jason Kubel was also placed on the DL […]

Giving Away Outs to the Braves

It wasn’t the newly arrived Upton brothers that crushed the spirits of 120,000 fans that flocked to Nationals Park this weekend. No, it was a team effort. The Atlanta Braves beat the Nationals in every aspect of the game. They outscored Washington 18-5 for the three game series. After Friday night it never really seemed […]

Teammates Sharing Birthdays

If you are like me, then you are a child of the 90’s and you rooted for America’s Team, the Atlanta Braves. And you probably know that today, April 14th, is Greg Maddux, David Justice, and Steve Avery’s birthday. Alright, you don’t need to be a child of the 90’s OR have rooted for the […]

Clearing The Bases

Arizona Diamondbacks: Centerfielder A.J. Pollock had a big game Wednesday, hitting two HRs and driving in four runs. Pollock may not have even begun the season with the team except for the injuries suffered by Adam Eaton an Cody Ross, problem is when those two return from the DL there may be no room for […]

Clearing The Bases

Arizona Diamondbacks: Funny how things work out. During the off-season the DBacks were making deals because they thought they had a stockpile of outfielders, but after trading Justin Upton and Chris Young, and with the elbow injury suffered by Adam Eaton , that depth has been severely depleted…..Speaking of Upton, he just hit his second […]

Clearing The Bases

Well all of the fantasy rankings have been completed, it’s time to talk about real life baseball. There will be very little fantasy talk in this column as I will be making predictions on how the divisions will end. Predictions are never all that easy and in some cases completely useless once the season begins […]

Chipper Is an Old Braves Chap

Hey baseball fans!Today, you are about to hear about one of the greatest players in Braves history. He recently retired and is one of the greatest switch-hitting power hitters of all time. I think you can all guess who I’m talking about: Chipper Jones! Jones played his entire 19-year career with the Atlanta Braves from 1993-2012 […]

Early Thoughts On the 2012 National League Rookie of the Year Race

Last week I outlined how the American League Rookie of the Year race is shaping up and now it’s the National League’s turn. While the NL has also introduced a strong crop of rookies this year, the level of production has not been quite as high as their AL counterparts. Bryce Harper has gotten the […]

Clearing The Bases

I was supposed to write this column last week, but ended up spending way to much time on another project, so I apologize, but here we are with news and notes from the National League.   New York Mets:  Well, 1B Ike Davis may have awoken from his season long slump.  His average is close […]

Clearing The Bases

On April 10 I wrote at column detailing the closer situation for each team because there had been a few injuries during spring training that took a couple of closers out for the season.  Well a month later half of baseball no longer has the same pitcher closing for them that they planned on to […]

Clearing The Bases

We always say at draft time don’t overpay for saves, and that piece of advice seems to be especially important this season.  Closers normally take a beating as it is the one spot on a baseball team that is sure to have the biggest turnover year after year.  Not every relief pitcher is capable of […]

This Ain’t Your Uncle’s Slide Show

When I was a boy, the latest in home entertainment technology was not a 60″, HD, surround-sound television, but the Kodak Carousel slide projector.  This bit of click-clacking wizardry was hardly entertaining, however, because invariably, Uncle Bob and Aunt Sally would invite you and your family over to view the slides from their latest vacation […]

Off the Beaten Basepaths: Spring Training 2012

It wasn’t easy going to Florida for a Spring Training sojourn because it was up to us to have as much fun as possible on behalf of all our friends who couldn’t go. Our motto was We’re having fun because you can’t.  It took us 15 days and we drove almost 2,900 miles down, around, […]

A Book as “Terrific” as Its Subject

Like the “The Little Engine that Could,” Tom Seaver began a steep climb saying “I think I can. I think I can.” Seaver’s mom, Betty, grafted the story into her son’s DNA by reading it to him as a child. Seaver always thought he could do whatever he set out to do, and usually he […]

BBA Selects Kimbrel, Valverde For Goose Gossage Award‏

In earlier voting this postseason by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, Atlanta Braves closer Craig Kimbrel won the Willie Mays Award for top rookie handily while the American League race for that award was much tighter.  With the Goose Gossage Award, handed out to the best reliever, Kimbrel got to see how the other half lives, […]

Kimbrel, Hosmer, Hellickson Selected Top Rookies By BBA‏

Craig Kimbrel of the Atlanta Braves easily won the Baseball Bloggers Alliance‘s Willie Mays Award for top rookie in the National League.  The American League award, though, was a much different story. Kansas City first baseman Eric Hosmer and Tampa Bay pitcher Jeremy Hellickson both received 67 points in American League voting, creating the first […]

What Sunk the Braves

Good teams don’t fold for no apparent reason. Though buried by the publicity piled onto the Boston Red Sox, who also slipped out of the playoff picture in September, the Atlanta Braves should have seen their slide coming. Plagued all season by an inability to score runs, the Braves plodded through the 2011 season by […]

The Top 10 Reasons For The Red Sox EPIC September Collapse

In spite of blowing last night’s contest, closer Jonathan Papelbon is not on my list of the Top 10 Reasons the club fell apart in September… this debacle was about more than one game. Pundits across the baseball universe are characterizing the twin September collapses by the Red Sox and Atlanta Braves as the worst […]

Something Stirring Beneath the Surface

The younger set cannot remember one of the iconic pictures of my youth: Nikita Kruschev, Russian Premier and head of the original Axis of Evil in Moscow, angrily banging his shoe on the desk at the United Nations, screaming to the US envoy to the UN, “We Will Bury You!” It was the headline in […]

Two and Half Hours with Chip Caray

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Atlanta Braves play-by-play announcer Chip Caray to talk about his career, his life experiences and how he goes about making the excitement of Atlanta Braves baseball come alive for millions of fans across the country.  Over a 7 day period I had the privilege of interviewing […]

Clearing The Bases

Last week we discussed the most disappointing players at each position, this week we’ll go with the most surprising, players who are playing well and above what we thought they might in spring training.  Some of the players listed are no longer playing at that position but that is where they qualified at coming into […]

Clearing The Bases

The baseball season is more than 1/3 completed, the weather is warming up, and pennant races are starting to shape up.  We are in mid-June; no longer can any player state that they are in a slump. Slumps don’t last two plus months.  With that in mind we are going to take a look at […]

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL AND MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION REACH AGREEMENT REGARDING PAYMENTS FOR PRE-1980 PLAYERS

My friend Doug Gladstone, author of A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB and The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve, has been championing the cause of MLB players who retired between 1947 and 1980 and who didn’t qualify for a pension if they had less than four years of service time.  It looks […]

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