Baseball Notes for April 22, 2013

Other sports like football and basketball may have infringed on the popularity of baseball over the years, but make no mistake about it, the game is still America’s National Pastime. Baseball personifies Amercianism and is often seen as an example of what is right and good in the country. While that may be a Pollyanna […]

White Sox Opening Day: 39 Degrees and Billion-Dollar Burgers

The Chicago White Sox opened the 2013 season on Monday by beating the Kansas City Royals, 1-0, at U. S. Cellular Field in front of an announced crowd of 39,000 people. In other words, there were one thousand people in the ballpark for every degree in the air. The high temperature in Chicago for the […]

Can You Over-hype the Nationals?

Bryce Harper has put on 10 pounds to hike his playing weight for 2013 to 230.  I remember Jim Callis at Baseball America coming on our podcast a few years ago and quoting some scouts who believe Harper will one day have more of an Adam Dunn footprint than a Mickey Mantle one.  I don’t […]

Lou Criger Monument Dedication.

Sunday June 3, 1912marked the 100-year anniversary of Lou Criger’s final baseball game played. It was the perfect day to honor him on a monument along with his family, admiring fans, and residents of his hometown of Elkhart, Indiana. Family members traveled to Riverview Park from Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina and various places in Indiana. […]

Mets To Host 2013 All-Star Game

Mets to host 2013 All-Star Game (via AFP) Major League Baseball’s 84th All-Star Game will be hosted in 2013 by the New York Mets at their three-year-old ballpark, $600 million Citi Field, commissioner Bud Selig announced on Wednesday. The Mets previously hosted the mid-season event once before, in 1964 at Shea Stadium in the year […]

Someone Please Tell Cole Hamels Older Isn’t Necessarily Better

With one pitch and a few poorly chosen words, Cole Hamels proved two things on Sunday; older is not necessarily better, and there are no intelligence requirements to make $15 million a year. As reported in a story by ESPN, Hamels hit Washington Nationals super rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch and then proudly told […]

Mr. President, Baseball Lasts Til Almost November

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the Rose Garden soon for the customary victory lap stop-over at the White House. It will be a rare baseball event for President Obama, and that is a sad commentary for both the game and for a president whose political advisors are so clearly asleep at the switch. Presidents […]

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Good Fries

When the team you root for is left home during October the true frustration of a sub-par season begins to painfully nip at your toes and whisper profanities into your ear.  That’s because watching good teams fight for the crown in the playoffs makes one realize just how bad – and uncontending – your team […]

Fair Or Not, Terry Francona’s Departure From Boston Is Imminent And Necessary

According to published reports, the Red Sox and manager Terry Francona will agree to part company this morning after an eight-year marriage that brought the franchise a pair of World Series championships – its first titles since 1918. Tito won’t be fired… his contract expired on Wednesday night and it has been agreed by both […]

Touring the Bases with…Garrett Totty

Garrett Totty is the Head Batboy for the Texas League Tulsa Drillers.   Garrett also plays catcher on his high school baseball team at Morris (Oklahoma) High School, where this past season he was teammates with Yankee’s 18th round draft choice Hayden Sharp. Seamheads:    Being a batboy on a professional team is probably something that many young […]

More Than Just a Game

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”—William Shakespeare (Act II, Scene V of Twelfth Night) And some seize greatness at the most opportune time, like 10-year-old Alex Orr, who etched a memory on a small town in Southwest Washington state that won’t soon […]

Out of the Park Baseball 12 Available Now!

Now Batting: Out of the Park Baseball 12! Own the Greatest Baseball Sim We’ve Ever Shipped For Just $39.99! Swing, batta, batta! Sa-wing, batta! The baseball season is underway, and now you can launch your digital version of the annual pennant chase in Out of the Park Baseball 12, the most comprehensive version yet of […]

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 […]

From the Eastern League All-Star Game

Strasburg Was Here First Installment From the Eastern League All-Star Game “. . . They develop Argument in order to speak, they become unreal, unreal, life loses solidity, loses extent, baseball’s their game because baseball is not a game but an argument. . . .” George Oppen It’s ten minutes after Nate Spears flew out […]

Is it still the Mid-Summer Classic?

Baseball is the Great American Pastime. It is a game we grew up with and many of us love, especially those who are on this site. As I write this, it is the All-Star break and the game is tonight. Yet I can’t help but feel that the game I love has lost something with […]

Lefty Brewer: A D-Day Hero

On this day, 66 years ago, baseball lost a true D-Day hero. Lefty Brewer, owned by the Washington Senators, died fighting for his country more than 3,000 miles from home. Francis Field, home of the St. Augustine Saints of the Florida State League, was a magical place during the summer of 1938. As the smell […]

Senate Bill 1070 and Baseball’s Role in the Coming Storm

There’s a storm brewing in the southwest.  It doesn’t matter how strong the retractable roof that intermittently hangs over Chase Field might be, this tempest will flood baseball in Arizona.  This inclement weather threatens to do more than delay a first pitch or wash out a baseball game.  Instead, we’re talking about a new definition […]

Strasburg in Harrisburg: Start Four – An Ear to the Ground

His fourth start is on the road, in Reading. It’s a few miles too far for a comfortable day trip. This is just as well since the day of the scheduled start, Monday, April 26, a steady, soaking rain weighs the apple blossoms in my back yard and sends them snowing to the ground. These […]

Strasburg In Harrisburg: Education Day

It’s Education Day at Metro Bank Park, and 10:30 a.m. when home plate umpire Joel Hospodka points at Stephen Strasburg and calls for the first pitch. ‘Education Day’ is an attempt to put a noble mask on ‘get-out-of-town’ day: both the Senators and the Reading Phillies need to travel, and what better way to leave […]

Wanna have some fun? OOTP 11 Goes Deep

Hi, my name is Kevin and I’m an addict…and what I’m addicted to is Out of the Park Baseball 11 from OOTP Developments (www.ootpdevelopments.com). I realize now that admitting there is a problem is the first step toward solving the problem. It’s just that I don’t want to break my OOTP 11 addiction just yet […]

Live It, Love it

For a few weeks now, things have been a little different for me.  I’ve had a spring in my step, a twinkle in my eyes, and a smile curling from the corner of my lips.  The grass has been greener, the sun shining brighter, and the pollen count off the charts. I’m in love, you […]

Remembering Curt Gowdy

He was a born storyteller–the “guy next door” who happened to become the first legitimate superstar of sports television. When legendary broadcaster Curt Gowdy passed away a few years back, it truly signifid the end of an era; colleague Dick Enberg accurately referred to him as “the last of the dinosaurs”–-a man who will be remembered […]

The Game That Brought Me Home

Last night, I watched the first inning of the greatest baseball game I never saw. That’s all, just the first inning. The rest of the game can wait, because it was the baseball equivalent of the proverbial 40-pound bag of Oreos. You wouldn’t want to devour it as soon as you open it, and you […]

The Day “Sunny Jim” Made History

One of the great things about going to a baseball game is you’ll never know what you will see. Perhaps you might witness a no-hitter or a triple play. Or, as was the case for roughly 8,000 fans in Brooklyn on Sept. 16, 1924, a record which has yet to be broken. Certainly there were […]

Rambling on About My Glory Days – Immortality

You may recall my last post when I wrote about how I ended up attending Murray State University, tried out and made the baseball team. While there, I was part of a most remarkable experience. It all began with one of my teammate’s box score: 3 At Bats 0 Hits 0 Runs 0 RBI and […]