Spring Into Winter

The problem with starting the baseball season in March is that we haven’t had enough time to digest spring training.  Or at least, to write about it. I spent the final weekend of spring play in Arizona and caught games at Camelback Ranch – the home of the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers […]

Can you buy wins in baseball?

New York Rangers – New York Islanders = $32,265,000 Los Angeles Lakers – Sacramento Kings = $47,539,063 New York Yankees – Pittsburg Pirates = $171,390,389 Above are three simple equations showing the range of team salaries in the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball respectively. Clearly, Major League Baseball takes […]

2011 Pre-Season Preview: NL Central – Chicago Cubs

Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro Chicago Cubs (2010 record: 75-87) Notable additions: RHP Matt Garza, 1B Carlos Peña, RHP Kerry Wood Notable subtractions: 1B Xavier Nady The Cubs suffered through a disappointing 75-87 campaign and a fourth-place finish in the NL Central last season. They looked on as the other clubs in the division improved this […]

If Only All 48 Indy Players Could Catch This Break

    Robert Coello has only been pitching for four years after starting his professional career as a respected catching prospect, but the 6-foot-5, 250-pound right-hander no doubt is the envy of many of the other products of the Independent Baseball leagues who have their nameplates posted on a dressing cubicle in a major league clubhouse […]

Fun Fantasy Baseball Marriages

LPGA golfer Leslie Spalding marries former pitcher Scott McGregor, divorces, marries former Mets outfielder Mookie Wilson–divorces again–then marries former Expos outfielder Ron Calloway. Sporting goods manufacturers would delight greatly in her full name of Leslie Spalding McGregor Wilson Calloway……….LPGA golfer Sally Little marries former Georgia Tech basketball player Jarrett Jack–divorces him–then marries former major leaguer […]

Fantasy Baseball Outlook: Top Five (Starting) Pitching Prospects For 2011

Tampa Bay’s Jeremy Hellickson is targeted for stardom. By the end of 2012 he will slide into the #2 spot in the rotation to create a dynamic duo, along with David Price. In articles such as this, many websites give readers a list of the best overall prospects at a given position, but the intention […]

2011 MLB Power Rankings, The Ides of January Edition (Part II, #11-#20)

  With most of the top free agents now signed and teams starting to take shape as we approach spring training, I thought I would share my pre-pre-season perspective on the relative strengths (and weaknesses) of all 30 major league teams. I have broken the article down into three installments, and will publish one of […]

Ron Santo, el legendario antesalista de los Cachorros de Chicago, falleció el 02 de diciembre de 2010. (Ron Santo the legendary third baseman of the Chicago Cubs passed away this December 2nd, 2010.

Aquella noche de julio de 1968, mis hermanos mezclaban el béisbol con las páginas de sus cuadernos de matemáticas de bachillerato. Hablaban de un juego de estrellas. Su discusión más enconada tenía que ver con dos tipos que jugaban en un lugar que ellos llamaban “la esquina caliente”. Felipe se refería a Brooks Robinson como si lo conociera desde mucho tiempo. “Brooks Robinson es capaz de agarrar un toque de bola con los ojos cerrados y sacar por un paso al corredor más rápido”. Jesús Mario metía las manos en los bolsillos del pantalón de caqui. “Ron Santo hace todas las jugadas, lo he visto hasta hacerle asistencia a Don Kessinger”

Thinking About Jamie Moyer at 48

Jamie Moyer is old enough to have helped prompt the Chicago Cubs to trade Dennis Eckersley to the Oakland A’s in the spring of 1987, when Moyer was a rising prospect displacing Eckersley as a starter, and to have been traded along with Rafael Palmeiro to the Texas Rangers for Mitch Williams before the 1989 […]

The Ultimate Seven-Game Fall Classic: Game Four

In part one of my Ultimate Seven-Game Fall Classic series, I featured Game One of the 1988 World Series between the Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Dodgers, won by the latter on Kirk Gibson’s walk-off two-run homer off Dennis Eckersley, ironic because it was Eck who coined the phrase “walk-off piece.”  Part two featured an […]

Rattled in the Clinches: Manager Pie Traynor and the Epic Collapse of the 1938 Pirates

On the evening of September 29, 1938, inside the funereal visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley Field, a despondent Pie Traynor leaned back, fired up a cigarette, and prepared to lie through his teeth. His Pittsburgh Pirates had just lost three crushing games to the Chicago Cubs thanks to Gabby Hartnett’s famous “Homer in the Gloamin’” and […]

Baseball Beliefs

This past month I’ve taken a lot of time away from the computer and television and spent it outside, mostly at ball games trying to enjoy the real elements of baseball. Coming back to internet and technology was bound to happen and in fact got hard to avoid. But, while it was away I enjoyed […]

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 […]

Buying A Manager

“I came here with $100,000 to get a new manager and two new players for the Chicago club.” said Chicago Cubs President Charles H. Weeghman as he arrived in New York City for the annual National League baseball meetings of 1916. “I have in mind for a leader two men who have attained national prominence […]

Kevin Millar Is Returning to His Roots To Play a Week for the St. Paul Saints

Kevin Millar’s playing days are not over. “I am going to play a week with the St. Paul Saints,” the best player ever to start his professional career in Independent Baseball told a national audience on SiriusXM Radio one morning this week. The hosts on The Power Alley wanted to know if Millar was retired […]

Straight To The Show

After pitching out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning of his major league debut, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Mike Leake settled down and pitched seven innings, allowing only one run against the Chicago Cubs. Leake’s debut was a unique one; not only was it his major league debut, but the game doubled as his […]

After Years of Fighting Injuries, Randy Williams Is Having an Unblemished Spring

If Randy Williams turns out to be so fortunate as to spend all of 2010 with the Chicago White Sox, it will be his first such major league campaign, and he will turn 35 before fall. Williams certainly is off to a great start in following up on the second half of last season when […]

Touring the Bases With…Carmen Fanzone

A former versatile infielder turned accomplished musician who once played the “Star Spangled Banner” before a game at Wrigley Field, Fanzone–a flugelhorn player–was originally signed by the Red Sox and spent five years in the majors from 1970-1975, four of them with the Chicago Cubs.  Click here to watch a video of a conversation I had […]

They Were Once Known As…

Over the course of baseball history, many teams have made changes to their nicknames and plenty have stuck. The New York Highlanders officially switched over to the Yankees in 1913 and haven’t looked back. Neither have the Chicago Cubs, who were known as the Colts (1890-97) and Orphans (1898-1902) before changing to their current moniker. […]

Milo: I’ll stay active through 2012

Milo Hamilton, whose big-league broadcast career started with the 1953 St. Louis Browns, plans to stay on the air for three more seasons. The venerable voice of the Houston Astros wants the chance to broadcast from the newest ballparks, including Yankee Stadium this June and Minnesota’s Target Field — depending on future interleague games that […]

Book Review: “The Baseball Talmud”

Howard Megdal’s The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-By-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players was a joy to read, even for an Agnostic like me.

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