Chalmer “Bill” Cissell: The $123,000 Lemon

(Editor’s Note: The following first appeared on this site on October 27, 2009 and an abridged version appears in Baseball’s Untold History: The People) Twenty-four-year-old shortstop Chalmer “Bill” Cissell was so highly regarded by scout Danny Long in 1927 that he convinced White Sox owner Charles Comiskey to send what was estimated to be a […]

Lou Criger Monument Dedication.

Sunday June 3, 1912marked the 100-year anniversary of Lou Criger’s final baseball game played. It was the perfect day to honor him on a monument along with his family, admiring fans, and residents of his hometown of Elkhart, Indiana. Family members traveled to Riverview Park from Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina and various places in Indiana. […]

Reviewing The Baseball Hall of Shame: The Best of Blooperstown

Let’s face it; for many of us baseball fans the game is not always about who won or lost. It’s about the story and the journey of our favorite teams and players, which are comprised of plays; the unusual, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Perhaps more than any other sport baseball has a […]

Just Another Gated Community

We arrived back from Spring Training last night, three games in three delightful mad dash days that left us wishing there was time for one more. When I got home there was a wonderful surprise: a copy of the new biography of Bill Veeck by Paul Dickson. I went to sleep reading it. Yes I […]

Jim Abbott and the Question of One-Armed Power

A while ago, thinking about Jim Abbott and his missing right hand, I wondered how much power he could possibly have generated swinging the bat with one arm. I found this story from the USA Today of March 19, 1991, about Abbott hitting a triple in spring training: Ever since he began his career with […]

Fresh squeezes from the Grapefruit League

Making baseball predictions public is always a bad idea. Somebody always gets hot, or gets hurt, and players can stumble into hot streaks or slumps — some of them lasting a full season. Media types who predicted the Washington Nationals to revive in 2010 were greeted this spring with 11 consecutive exhibition game defeats. That’s […]

Musings from the Manager’s Office

Where to go on a rainy day in spring training? The manager of the Atlanta Braves, always a congenial host, held court with a half-dozen journalists before the rained-out exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at ESPN Wide World of Sports. Now that he’s a self-proclaimed lame duck, Bobby Cox has answered everything two, three, […]