Scenes and Quotes From San Francisco and the Giants Clubhouse After Winning the 1962 Playoff

A while ago I hunted down the San Francisco Chronicle from the day after the Giants beat the Dodgers to win the 1962 N.L. pennant. It’s been overlooked by the World Series that followed, but the race was a thriller that nearly matched 1951’s, and was the start of the Giants-Dodgers rivalry in California. To […]

An Over-the-Shoulder Preview

If it had been the Giants and the Yankees, the World Series would have had old world flavor and been a big television draw.  The money lenders cannot win them all.  Still, it will be an old fashioned World Series, one in which the very strong pitching of both teams will do much to decide […]

Broken Promises

“I won’t lose again.” Adam Wainwright said those words two starts ago, upset with how he had been performing and looking at a four-game losing streak.  He was able to win last time out, continuing the vow, but last night, that promise was broken. The two-out problem bit the Cardinals again.  In the second, Wainwright had […]

Memories of the Shot Heard Round the World

I suspect everyone my age with an interest in baseball knows where they were when Bobby Thomson hit his historic home run in 1951.  I was in my 11th grade physics class at South High School in Denver.  I was an avid Brooklyn Dodger fan growing up and listened to part of the game on […]

Touring The Bases With…Brent Mayne

Catcher Brent Mayne was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the first round (#13 overall) of the 1989 amateur draft and made his major league debut only a year later, rapping an RBI single off Twins pitcher Scott Erickson in his first major league at-bat.  Mayne spent 15 seasons in the big leagues with […]

Cardinals Struggling In LA

You know, when the offense is clicking, you think things are just going to roll on forever.  However, even with an offense like the Cardinals’, when you take out a couple of pieces, the Jenga tower apparently falls down. Another game without David Freese or Colby Rasmus turns into a 1-0 loss.  Chris Carpenter deserved […]

That Night, They Were Men

Recently I was showing the photo album of my bar mitzvah to some long-lost cousins who only vaguely remembered attending it. Even with the help of the photos, I don’t remember all that much about it myself. I do know that it was the last time I ever spoke–much less chanted–in Hebrew. I ate, danced, […]

Word Gets Around

There’s a bruhaha brewing in Los Angeles, where GM Ned Colletti called center fielder Matt Kemp on the carpet this week and told the press it was because he wondered whether Kemp was resting on his laurels after signing a long-term, eight-figure contract, rather than giving 100% effort on the field. The esteemed ESPN.com columnist […]

Remembering Steve Howe

The accident scene was so eerily similar to his reckless existence. Steven Roy Howe lay dead on a California highway with his late-model vehicle resting on top of him; a witness told cops that Howe’s truck simply drifted off the roadway. When I first read of the death of this once-promising athlete from Michigan, I […]

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