There Goes My Childhood

Derek Jeter played in his final game Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park. Realistically, this weekend’s series in Boston acted more as a denouement following the climax of Jeter’s farewell tour last Thursday night in the Bronx. For those of you who have had no access to any form of media over the last five days, […]

Kid Blogger Interviews Jim Leyritz Live at the HOF

Hey baseball fans! As I mentioned in a past blog post, over the next couple of weeks I will be posting the video interviews taped by the Hall of Fame’s Multi-Media Manager, Roger Lansing, of me interviewing various Hall of Famers and other retired players when I was at the Hall of Fame Classic. Today I […]

Seamheads Podcasting Crew Fantasy League

Perhaps there should be age-appropriate fantasy baseball leagues, the real world equivalent of over-fifty baseball leagues. Some of the Seamheads writers play in those leagues I know–not to name names. Bill Gilbert and I ventured forth this season as the wise sages of the Seamheads Podcasting Crew fantasy league. We are likely a few years […]

Derek Jeter Moves Up All-Time Hits List

Derek Jeter moves up all-time hits list (via AFP) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter tied George Brett for 14th on Major League Baseball’s all-time hits list with two singles in New York’s 9-2 victory over Oakland. Jeter on Saturday tied Hall of Famer Brett at 3,154 hits with a bunt single in the fifth […]

Clearing The Bases

Tonight we will continue with another Top 9 list with a look at a few players that have gotten off to a hot start that can’t possibly keep up this pace all season long.  For fantasy purposes these are players that you probably selected in the later rounds of your draft and that are paying […]

Clearing The Bases

What is our next top 9 list you ask?  Well it will be about some of the best players taken in the first couple rounds of most fantasy drafts that have gotten off to slow starts in one way or another and what should be done with them.  General rule of thumb is that most […]

Roy Smalley, Jr.—A Baseball Classic

This past week baseball lost Roy Smalley, Jr., another member of the World War II generation that has been rapidly slipping away in recent years. He was a player, a manager, an armed services veteran, and the father of Roy Smalley III, also a major leaguer. He was part of a vanishing generation that played […]

Fun With Retrosheet: Players With The Highest Percentage of Post-Season Homers

A quick one today: here are the players who have hit the highest percentage of their home runs during the post-season: Player First Last REG POST PCT Mickey Lolich 1963 1979 0 1 1.0000 Don Gullett 1970 1978 0 1 1.0000 Joe Blanton 2004 2011 0 1 1.0000 Paul Goldschmidt 2011 2011 8 2 .2000 […]

Consummate Captain

If Sandy Koufax is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, why not Don Mattingly? OK, OK, maybe that’s like comparing apples to oranges. How about Kirby Puckett vs. Don Mattingly? Take a look at this and more in “Donnie Baseball” by longtime journalist Mike Shalin. Read this book because: 1. Nobody worked harder than Mattingly. […]

When Will Girardi Learn?

The Athletics and the Yankees endured quite an intense battle Tuesday night. The Yankees, after trailing 6-0 going into the eighth inning, scored five runs and ultimately lost by just one run. The game ended with the bases loaded and a fly ball just four or five feet shy of a walk-off grand slam. The […]

Los Piratas estan dando la campanada (The Pirates are giving the bell)

Llegamos a la primera mitad de la temporada 2011. se hace una pausa para realizar el juego de las estrellas. Vamos a realizar lo que a mi juicio y entendimiento ha sido lo mas resaltante de esta primera mitad en las grandes Ligas. En primer lugar , la gran sorpresa de los Indios de Cleveland, […]

What’s Next For Derek Jeter?

Even before Yankees shortstop and captain Derek Jeter belted his 3,000th career hit, fans and media wondered aloud what would happen to him once he reached the coveted mark.  It’s not that we all expect him to turn into a pumpkin or anything, but the question remains: will the Yankees be willing to keep running […]

Fenway Park’s 100th Anniversary: There’s Nothing Like Being at the Game

I’ve never considered myself religious by any means. Yet, I’m a believer that everyone has some place where they just feel at home, or safe. A sanctuary, of sorts. To some of the more religious types, a church. Baseball stadiums are my church. There is just something about passing through the gates and walking into […]

Showalter Ups the Ante in the AL East

In a recent interview on the Seamheads Podcast Network’s Outa the Parkway, Tim Donner of Radio America talked about Buck Showalter’s intensity, how he wore out his welcome quickly in the three previous managerial gigs that define his career.  Showalter’s fire and competitiveness are on display once again in an article on ESPN and in […]

AL East Positional Analysis And Ranking: Shortstops

I am in the midst of a series examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of the teams in the AL East, on a position-by-position basis. The players at each position are being ranked in relation to their peers within the division, with each team being assigned points based on where their player ranks in comparison […]

New Years, Hak-Ju Lee, & Resolutions

I like to kick off each season with a “Bucket List.” This list gets posted in my home office for the entirety of the season – sometimes I’ll even add to it as the season goes and as I find new adventures to fulfill. With the new year just beginning and watching everyone try to adhere to […]

Winter Recess

“In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan; Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone.” – Christina Rossetti Doubleday Field, Cooperstown The winter meetings have come and gone. Theo Epstein (currently known in New England as Santa Claus) and the Boston Red Sox have succeeded brilliantly in signing both Adrian Gonzalez and Carl […]

“It’s Not Personal, Sonny. It’s Strictly Business”

Much has been written about the Derek Jeter situation. I was talking to my brother-in-law last week about it, and I brought up some relevant and relatively obscure illustrative points. One, that I love, is Tom Seaver’s incredulity at ownership’s shock that players, the most competitive people on Earth, were equally fierce at the bargaining […]

Pride v. Power

Since 1901, only nine shortstops, age 37 or above, hit over .270 in a season. Derek Jeter will qualify to be the 10th player in that category next season, and the Yankees are well aware of that. Sure, if you are going to bet on someone entering that group – that happens to include six Hall […]

Cleaning up the Desktop

A rundown of some of the recent goings-on in baseball as soon as they calculate my VoRP. It’s been over a month since I last filed a piece for Seamheads.  To answer the question on the minds of all my loyal fans—yes, the three of you—I haven’t posted on Seamheads.com, because I have been serving […]

Yankees & Jeter: Where Business Meets Baseball

Pretend for a moment that you are the general manager of a Major League Baseball team. You have a bunch of money coming off the books this offseason, and your job is simple: Get your team to the World Series. As you enter the offseason, you have your priorities. In your particular situation, you need […]

Inspiration in Baseball

Ben Ulene started the Double Play Foundation in December of 2009 when he was going through his closet and noticed how many old baseball jerseys he had accrued over his adolescence and that he no longer had use for. “I thought that there had to be some way that these uniforms could be used again, as each one had been used for only one 3-month season and then put away, ” Ben told me. It was at that moment that he decided to pass-on his once prized possessions to others who may not be as fortunate as himself. He named his cause, The Double Play Foundation (DPF) and told me it was because “just like in a double play where one batted ball is used to get two outs, one baseball uniform is being used twice, doing double duty.”

Is The Bronx Zoo Returning?

If you followed the Yankees in the latter half of the 20th century, you know why the team earned the title “The Bronx Zoo.” From fights between Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson, to routine managerial firings, to passenger seat managing from George Steinbrenner, the Yankees were an absolute mess. As 2010 comes to a close […]

Yankees Can Look Forward to a Busy Offseason

With the Yankees’ quest for a repeat championship crushed by a hungry and talented Rangers team, the Bronx Bombers face a long offseason of uncertainty. It’s amazing how many leaks can spring up in what was supposed to be a $213 million juggernaut. Unable to fend off the low-budget Rays for the division title, the […]

They Are Two Stepping in Texas

There is dancing in Texas tonight.  The Texas Rangers played the best two teams in the American League and beat them both in convincing fashion to win the first American League Championship for the franchise after fifty years of frustration.  The anticipation of history in the making gave drama to a game that was decided […]

2010 Off-Season Will Be Historically Tough For Yankees

Two seasons ago, the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first––and last––time this decade. They went into the off-season with a sense of urgency––a sense that holds none of the connoted nerves for Yankees fans, considering they always have the financial power to get the job done. And they did. The Yankees signed three of […]

Say Yes To Instant Replay

If there were ever a climax for the instant replay debate in baseball, it came on the night of September 15, 2010, when Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter pulled a “Tom Cruise” when batting in the top of the seventh inning. With one out, and the Yankees down a run, Jeter squared to bunt on the […]

Derek Jeter: The Curious Downfall

When you glance at Derek Jeter’s .261 batting average in 2010, the first thing you ask yourself is: do I need glasses. Why? Because, barring an extremely unprecedented surge, Jeter is on pace to hit below .300 since 2002. More concerning, it will be his lowest batting average since 1995, his first season, when he […]

Pete Rose: Justice Delivered, But Only Temporarily And Only In Theory

Twenty five years ago today one of the most hallowed records in baseball history was broken when Pete Rose singled to left field against San Diego Padres pitcher Eric Show (who’s tumultuous life and death were chronicled by ESPN’s Outside the Lines) for career hit number 4,192, passing the legendary Ty Cobb. Fireworks instantly went off […]

Another Independent Player Gets to Major Leagues

      It was not such usual candidates as Michael Ryan or Scott Richmond or John Lindsey or Randy Williams, but Independent Baseball has had one interesting promotion in the first couple of days since major league teams started taking advantage of the opportunity to expand rosters in September.  This ranks right up the excitement level […]

The Yankees’ future is grid-locked

Remember a couple of months ago when Stephen Strasburg was ready to advance to the majors? The anticipation was as high as ever before: Nationals Stadium was sold out within hours of the announced date of his debut. It seemed as though the world of the Washington Nationals was waiting for the future to thrust […]

B(oston) Is For Bandwagon

While attending a Red Sox/Mariners game recently I saw a shirt that said, B is for Bandwagon. After laughing, I couldn’t disagree with that statement as probably 50 percent of the fans at a game 3000 miles away from Fenway Park were there for the Red Sox. And I was one of those fans. But […]

2010 midseason awards

MVP: Robinson Cano It’s hard to deny Cano’s talent the most valuable player award for the first half. Despite his numbers — his batting average is fifth in all of baseball — Cano has been the center piece of a Yankee team that holds the best record in baseball. With Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and […]

Just How Good is Derek Jeter?

Here is the short answer.  At the end of the 2009 season, Derek Jeter moved into 6th place among the best shortstops of the modern era (since 1920).  For more details, keep reading. Bill James’ Win Shares system is the most comprehensive tool available to understand how good a season a player had.  It includes […]

The Waiting is the Hardest Part…

Tom Petty was right, the waiting is the hardest part.  The Tigers home opener is exactly 20 days away and I can’t wait any longer.  My ball park bag is packed, my score books are ready, my pencils are sharpened, binoculars are focused, opening day attire picked out, day off of work approved, tickets in the mail, but alas, […]

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