Three-Headed Cy Young Race

The race for AL Cy Young is down to three pitchers. Detroit Tiger Max Scherzer, Texas Ranger Yu Darvish and Seattle Mariner Felix Hernandez all have their cases for the top pitching award but only one can take home the hardware. Scherzer boasts a 19-1 record, a surefire winner in 1992. Darvish is the only […]

Fox’s 3 Consecutive Walk-Offs May Be a First, But Albers’ Brilliant Debut Shares Top Billing

It does not happen this way often when two ultra-heroic events divide attention about deadline time.  When it does, one deals. Jake Fox made the first bid for attention when the Somerset, NJ (Atlantic League) designated hitter collected walk-off hits in three consecutive games.  We do not know if it has ever been done before, […]

Cardiac Kids Take Chicago

Three tense and tightly contested games yielded two road wins for the 2012 Washington Nationals in Chicago thanks to surprising late inning magic. Call them the “Comeback Kids,” the “Cardiac Kids,” whatever you will, but the Nationals scored nine times in the last two innings during the three-game set in the Windy City.  The late […]

OOTP 13: Perhaps The Best Sports Simulation Game Ever

To paraphrase the words of the portly Simpsons character Comic Book Man, Out of the Park 13 is perhaps the “Best Game Ever” when it comes to sports simulations. Proclaiming OOTP13 as such doesn’t give the game enough justice. As awe-inspiring as last year’s edition was, producer Markus Heinson and his band of creative baseball […]

Deviating from the Past

Every baseball ranking—even those based on statistics—is biased in some way. It’s what makes practically every list debatable. For instance, take a list as fundamental as “hit leaders.” As a counting stat, a player’s hit total is impacted by his place in the batting order as well as his lineup’s offensive strength, two factors that […]

The Ultimate Seven-Game Fall Classic: Game Six

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 […]

For a Few Dollars More

Cliff Lee is the best hired gun since Clint Eastwood starting taking himself too seriously. The Texas Rangers, born the expansion Washington Senators in 1961, went almost fifty years without winning a post-season series. Then like poor campesinos faced with hired guns from the hacienda, they brought in Cliff Lee. Cue the music as Cliff […]

The Tragic Death of “Big Ed” Morris

If ever a last-place team could have a “stopper” in its pitching staff, then “Big Ed” Morris would qualify. Morris, who earned his nickname by being 6-foot-2 and roughly 185 pounds, was 19-15 with a 3.53 ERA in 1928 for the cellar-dwelling Boston Red Sox (57-96). He appeared in 47 games with 29 starts. Of […]

Atlantic And Golden Leagues Played Sizeable Roles In Jose Lima’s Life

The tributes have been pouring in regarding the tragic loss of life by Jose Lima, who was only 37. I was on my way to the Ballpark at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, CT Sunday when I heard the news on the radio. It seemed like everyone I encountered at the York-Bridgeport Atlantic League game had […]

Remembering “The Bird”

The year was 1976; “Frampton Comes Alive” was gaining in music popularity, a former football player was still patrolling the White House, and yours truly had just received a driver’s license. Baseball season started with my next-door-neighbor, Al–a HUGE Detroit fan–telling me about this eccentric, young kid who had made the Tigers’ pitching staff. “They […]

Whatever happened to finish what you start?

For some reason, I can’t get Joe Girardi’s comments about possibly pulling C.C. Sabathia in the late innings of his start against Tampa Bay on Saturday, April 10 with a no-hitter intact because of his rising pitch count out of my head.  I understand that high pitch counts, especially early on in the season, can […]

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 […]

This Week in Baseball: 1928

This is part of a weekly series in which I describe what was happening in Major League Baseball each week of a randomly chosen year. This week’s article chronicles the goings on during the week of April 8-14, 1928.