Projecting X: How To Forecast Baseball Player Performance

Learn the secrets to projecting baseball player performance and dominate your fantasy draft!In Projecting X: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, FanGraphs expert Mike Podhorzer takes you on a journey through the process of projecting baseball player performance. As he walks you through an assortment of both basic and advanced metrics, citing various pieces of […]

Touring the Bases With Bob Wolff

Bob Wolff is one of the most famous television and radio announcers of the second half of the Twentieth Century. He has been inducted to both the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown and the Basketball Hall of Fame as well. His call of Don Larsen’s World Series Perfect Game in 1956 for Mutual Radio […]

Albert Pujols is a Bargain

In order to understand why the Los Angeles Angels are getting a bargain by signing Albert Pujols for $250 million over 10 years, it is important to stop thinking like a fan or a sabermetrician or even a general manager. In order to understand a contract like this, you have to think like an accountant. […]

Here Come the Miami White Sox

Mark Buehrle has long been the best pitcher in the National League and that distinction will likely grow more evident now that he’s actually going to be pitching in the National League. After 12 seasons, 161 victories, four All-Star games, three gold gloves, one no-hitter, a perfect game, a World Series victory and the coolest […]

Greensboro’s Cardinal Finally at Peace

GOSHEN COMMUNITY – Thomas Edison Alston is buried within sight of first base, resting peacefully after the tumultuous life of a baseball player who never quite lived up to his potential. At least, that’s how the story goes now. The story is a lot more complicated than that. Edison was the first African-American to play […]

Ryan Dent: The Building Block

The recent collapse of the Red Sox has brought into question the leadership of the team. Even though Terry Francona will not be returning as manager, it is clear that areas that the front office of Boston are secure in from year to year are drafting and developing their farm system. Each year they stock […]

Teddy Ballgame To Be Honored By USPS With Postage Stamp

Red Sox Hall-of-Fame OF Ted Williams was larger than life and possessed the stuff of legend. He was both a baseball hero and a war hero, serving as a naval aviator (USMC pilot) during WWII (1942-46) and the Korean War (1952-53). He was the last baseball player to hit .400 during the regular season while […]

Feature Film on Roberto Clemente in the Works

A little bit of baseball died on Dec. 31, 1972 when Roberto Clemente was killed trying to deliver food and supplies to the earthquake ravaged people of Nicaragua. Back in Clemente’s baseball hometown of Pittsburgh, a nine year-old boy cried for days over the death of his hero and vowed one day his hero’s story […]

The Illumination of Jose Bautista

I can’t say for certain what it was, but sometime in early September, 2009, something seemed to click for Jose Bautista that hadn’t before. Prior to that time Bautista was at best an average utility man who was rapidly approaching 30 years of age. Drafted in the 20th round of the 2000 draft, he also […]

The Day the World Met the Ryan Express

Nolan Ryan was far from the perfect pitcher. He walked the most batters in baseball history (2,795), 52% more than the next highest total belonging to Steve Carlton (1,833). He lost the most games of any pitcher (292) except for Cy Young (316) and Pud Galvin (310), two players who peaked in the 1800s. He […]

Lazzari’s Baseball Roundup 3

Great quote by WDRC-FM’s Mike Stevens last week following the Red Sox 14-5 loss to Tampa Bay–a game where Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up EIGHT earned runs in just over four innings: “Dice-K was serving up more meat than the Golden Arches.”……….TRIVIA QUESTION: The 1987 Baltimore Orioles–who finished sixth in the AL East under Cal Ripken, […]

Former Baseball Player Charlie Maxwell Honored in Paw Paw, Michigan on Monument and Ball Diamond

Paw Paw, Michigan celebrated Charlie Maxwell Days on August 7- 8, 2010. The two day event started Saturday in downtown Paw Paw at the Carnegie Center. From 10:00 to 3:00, family, friends and fans were able to attend the open house and view a slide show and memorabilia. Following this event there was an open […]

Sandy DeLeon Has Made Eight Stops in Atlantic League

      Call him the true baseball journeyman.  Maybe even a nomad.  Just call him.       Sandy DeLeon is not the best baseball player in the Atlantic League, and he recognizes it.  But this happy man from New York City by way of the Dominican Republic is ready any time the telephone rings.  He brings a […]

Mr. President: It’s Time to Let Bonds and Clemens Fade Away

Dear Barack, I know how big a sports fan you are, so I’m sure you saw yesterday’s court decision to throw out key evidence in the perjury case against Barry Bonds. Your prosecutors have not commented on whether they will continue to try the case or fold. So before they can decide to waste more […]

Ozzie’s Big Mouth

In my post yesterday regarding players drafted in this year’s MLB Draft who have some bloodline connection to a former or current player, manager, or front office executive (which, by the way, MLB.com has an extensive list up with all of the connections taken in this year’s draft and it’s a much more extensive list […]

Bryce Harper Is Lucky He Doesn’t Play Basketball

What’s the difference between Bryce Harper and Eric Bledsoe? Money. Lots of money. Harper is the 17-year-old phenom taken first in Monday night’s baseball draft.  A latter day Mickey Mantle, Harper skipped the last two years of high school, was home schooled, got his GED and spent the past year at a junior college where […]

Billy The Kid

People talk about coaching trees in other sports, but I don’t hear much about managerial trees.  Leonard Koppett and Bill James did touch on the subject in their seminal books on managers.  By the way, there is a new book on managers that just came out.  It’s by a longtime friend of mine named Chris […]

The Enigmatic Willie Davis

Signed as an 18-year-old in 1958, Willie Davis was a ballplayer of many talents and many quirks. A multiple threat in high school, Willie was a basketball star, as well as a right hand hitting lefty pitcher and first baseman with blazing speed. After a makeover courtesy of Dodger scout Kenny Myers, Davis became a […]

Remembering a Baseball Player So We Don’t Forget the Mistakes of Our Past

A good friend of mine lost a good friend yesterday. My friend is Claire Smith, and her friend was Alfred “Slick” Surratt. Slick was a player for the Kansas City Monarchs, a teammate of Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson in the Negro Baseball League. He died at 87. Claire was one of the first women […]

Nelson, How Could You Forget?

Back in the mid-70s, when I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old, I vividly recall asking my grandfather if he ever pitched to Babe Ruth. At the time, it seemed like a logical question; not knowing much about baseball history, nor about granddad’s career, I simply pulled from thin air the most famous old-time […]

Lena Blackburne’s Playing Days

I first remember hearing of Lena Blackburne several years ago, when Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs went over to New Jersey to gather some river mud with Jim Bintliff, the head of Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud. But his name only stuck in my mind last year, when I saw his name on a list of […]

Book Review: “Rumor in Town”

The story of Ellsworth “Babe” Dahlgren is about more than just the life of a ballplayer. It’s about redemption, loyalty, promises made and kept, and love; love between a grandfather and grandson, between a player and his boyhood idol, and between a man and the game he fell for at age six while sitting in […]