Feliz Cumpleaños a Gaylord Perry

Hey baseball fans! As some of you know, I share a birthday with no Hall of Famers. The only person who is close to becoming one is Alan Trammell. However, the people celebrating a birthday tomorrow do have a Hall of Fame birthday buddy: Gaylord Perry! Perry played with the Giants, Indians, Rangers, Padres, Yankees, Braves, Mariners, […]

My Top Five Hall of Fame Hitters without a Ring

Hey baseball fans! It’s always a player’s dream to win a World Series. However, a lot of ballplayers never get a ring. Even some Hall of Famers have never won a World Series. With that, I give you my top five Hall of Fame hitters who never won a World Series ring and deserved one. Number Five: Carlton Fisk […]

DEFINING GREATNESS: A Hall of Fame Handbook

One third of the players in the Hall of Fame do not have the credentials to be there.  Or, to be more precise, 35% of the 20th century major league Hall of Famers do not have the performance records (on the field in the regular season) to merit a place in Cooperstown. After the BBWAA […]

The Pitchers: The 4 Levels of Greatness – Part 2

The CAWS Career Gauge has identified only fifty-one (51) 20th century major league pitchers who have obvious Hall of Fame numbers. In Part 1, I introduced the thirty-nine (39) 20th century pitchers in Levels 1 and 2.  These were the pitchers identified by the CAWS Gauge as having posted HOF numbers during their playing careers […]

The Pitchers: The 4 Levels of Greatness – Part 1

In a previous series of articles, I presented the 5 Levels of Greatness for the 20th century position players who posted Hall of Fame numbers during their careers – according to the CAWS Career Gauge.  We saw that there are one hundred sixteen (116) such players. In this series of articles, I will present the […]

The Hall of Famers: The 5 Levels of Greatness – Part 4

In this article (the last in this series), I will present the Level 5 players who posted Hall of Fame numbers during the 20th century.  In Levels 1 through 4, there were eighty-eight (88) position players who had a CAWS career score of at least 280.  In Level 5, we have the other twenty-eight (28) […]

The Hall of Famers: The 5 Levels of Greatness – Part 1

Consider the following statement: One third of the players in Baseball’s Hall of Fame do not have the credentials to be there. Or, to be more precise, 35% of the 20th century major league Hall of Famers do not belong in Cooperstown according to their performance records (on the field in the regular season). This […]

“Nobody’s Perfect”

Just one step away. One break. We all know the feeling. What separates us is what we do when the moment comes and what we have learned to prepare us. That’s what this week’s read, “Nobody’s Perfect,” is about. The “almost-perfect game” is merely part of the story. Read Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce’s story […]

Stan Musial Day

Today, we set aside deadlines and contracts and negotiations.  Today, we set aside forecasting and expectations.  We set all of that aside, at least for a short time, because today is a day for greatness. As all Cardinal fans know, Stan Musial, the greatest Cardinal of them all, is in Washington today to receive the Presidential […]

Washington Is a Baseball Town (Again)

At the top of the seventh inning the crowd began the chant, “Let’s Go Stras-burg” to the same cadence that fans in DC have grown tired of listening to from Philly, Dodger, Red Sox and just about anywhere fans.  But this chant was all DC and it grew and built.  “Let’s Go Stras-burg” the entire […]

Alabama, the Cradle of Baseball Greatness

A little while ago I started to realize that Alabama has produced some of the greatest players in baseball history. I remembered reading Bill James making a point somewhere in his Historical Baseball Abstract from the ’80s about sports players tending to come from poor areas. I thought about Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, and […]