Brooks, Still the Magician

This is a weird day for me, and probably many other similar-aged people, boys especially, who grew up in Baltimore in the 1960s and 70s. My childhood hero, Brooks Robinson, turns 80 today. 80! I knew that one day Brooks would no longer be playing third base for the Baltimore Orioles because I knew that […]

The Big Rude

Hey baseball fans! The team that represented the American League in my favorite World Series (1993: Toronto Blue Jays vs. Philadelphia Phillies) was filled to the brim with All Stars like Joe Carter and Jack Morris and Hall of Famers like Rickey Henderson and Paul Molitor. However, perhaps the most important player on the team that season was the AL batting champion […]

My Top Five Most Underrated Hall of Famers in Baseball History

Hey baseball fans! With 205 baseball players in the Hall of Fame, not all of them are recognizable to baseball fans. Whether it’s because of the team they played for, the era in which they competed or another reason, some of the best baseball players of all time are not very prominent. With that being […]

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 […]

James Brown and Phil Niekro: Not Knuckling Under

On The Good Foot …  Phil Niekro was feeling good. It was Sunday, July 9, 1978 and in two days he’d be in San Diego, pitching for the National League All-Stars. Three days earlier he had pitched a strong eight and a third innings against the defending National League Champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Niekro […]

My Live Interview with Hall of Fame President, Jeff Idelson

Hey baseball fans! As some of you may remember, back in December, I had the great honor to interview Jeff Idelson, the actual President of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The interview was done over the phone and Jeff couldn’t have been any nicer. Here’s a link to that interview, in case you want to check […]

The Glory Days: More 1960s Stars Depart

There were other players who retired in the 1960s after having helped the Dodgers and Yankees make regular treks to the World Series in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. The best-known players from that group were Dodgers Carl Furillo, Johnny Podres, Jim “Junior” Gilliam and Clem Labine, and Yankees Bobby Richardson, Gil McDougald, […]

Off the Beaten Basepaths #3: The Eastern Shore

Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the Delmarva Peninsula has a rich baseball history. Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx and Frank “Home Run” Baker were born there as were many other Major League ballplayers. An excellent musuem, the Eastern Shore Baseball Hall of Fame, is located in Salisbury. But there’s no sense reading about it, when you […]

Some Thoughts on Secondary Aspects of the Hall of Fame Voting Results

The 2012 Baseball Hall of Fame vote was recently announced, and only one player was elected, Barry Larkin. Fellow Seamheads author Andrew Martin wrote a good post dissecting this year’s vote. I’m not going to do the same, especially since I largely agree with his views: Larkin is marginal but I support his election; Bagwell and […]

Negro Leagues Database Update: 1923 Negro National League

We’re pleased to announce the addition of the 1923 Negro National League, compiled by Patrick Rock, to the Negro Leagues Database.  Patrick’s work was the first statistical compilation of a Negro league season to reach the levels of thoroughness and completeness that we’re aspiring to here, and has been a key inspiration for my own […]

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 […]

Fireworks in the Steel City

With the Pittsburgh Pirates resurgence this summer, I’m reminded of one of the most abysmal pitching performances I’ve ever come across in all my years as a baseball fan. Unfortunately, it happened to my grandfather, Nelson Greene, in the only game he ever pitched in the Steel City. It’s difficult to imagine any modern day […]

Spahn-Marichal Marathon: Best-Pitched Game?

Long before pitch counts, five-man rotations, and an array of relief pitchers became the backbone of baseball philosophy, two future Hall of Famers locked horns in a 16-inning marathon that both completed. According to author Jim Kaplan, who chronicled that July 2, 1963 match in a book called The Greatest Game Ever Pitched, it will […]

The Duke’s-Eye View

This has been a tough winter for baseball Hall of Famers. Sparky Anderson died in November, the seemingly indestructible Bob Feller left us in December, and now Duke Snider is gone. I never got to meet Snider, which I’m told was my loss. But he was the protagonist in one of my favorite Hall of […]

Is Mark Belanger a Hall of Famer?

If we grant admission to players such as DHs and relievers who were one-dimensional, then we should think seriously about admitting players who played Hall of Fame caliber defense, but were weak with the stick. And that brings me to former Oriole shortstop Mark Belanger.

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 […]

The Ultimate Seven-Game Fall Classic: Game Four

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 […]

The Class of 2010 – the New Hall of Famers

At the beginning of the 2010 baseball season, there were eight active major league players who had already earned obvious Hall of Fame numbers during their careers.  Here are those players: Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Ken Griffey, Jr., Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, Jim Thome, Jason Giambi and Mariano Rivera. By the end of the 2010 […]

Just How Good is Jim Thome?

Jim Thome recently passed Mark McGwire for the #9 spot on the all-time home run list with 584 round trippers.  So, an obvious question arises: Just how good is Jim Thome?  Or, better yet, does his career really reflect Hall of Fame numbers? The answer is Yes.  At the end of the 2009 season, Jim […]

Hall of Fame’s Best Outsiders

the best team composed of non-Hall of Fame players who have been eligible for at least one HOF vote

Hawk, The White Rat & God

Sunday’s inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame are a varied group, with nicknames running the spectrum in terms of flattery. With Andre Dawson (aka “Hawk”) being the only player elected on the writers’ ballot, the Veterans Committee saved the day by voting in “The White Rat,” Whitey Herzog, and the umpire otherwise known […]

All in the Cards

Ozzie Smith, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson. Three names Cardinals fans and baseball enthusiasts know well. But those are just three of the Redbirds 42 Hall of Famers. What about Rabbit Maranville, Chick Hafey or Pud Galvin? Authors Greg Marecek and Myron Holtzman engage readers with story after story in “The Cardinals of Cooperstown.” Pick up […]

The Curse of the Virtual Bambino

Even in the world of virtual reality, Babe Ruth is king. It seems that I’m always working on serious research for my next book or article, spending almost all of my free time on it, that I almost forgot what it was like to have fun. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the research/writing process […]

The 21st Century Hall of Famers

Here is an interesting question.  How many of the “great baseball players” of modern times have fans of the game been able to see during the 21st century (since 2001)?  Let’s first take a look at this question for position players and then for pitchers. The Position Players At the end of the 2009 season, […]

Babe Ruth Homered in $800 Million Baseball Game

On August 26, 1943, 48-year-old Babe Ruth hit a home run off 43-year-old Walter Johnson into the right field stands at the Polo Grounds. The blast – one of the last by the Babe – was witnessed by 35,000 fans and helped raise $800 million in War Bonds. Organized by the long-since defunct New York […]

Psst… Wanna know a secret?

“Wanna know a secret? A lot of your heroes weren’t the men you thought they were. The reality of the game they played differs from your ideal picture too. OK, I guess that’s not really a surprise. But more often than not, histories paint romantic pictures of yesterday’s stars. Perhaps some childhood mischief or an […]

Lyman Bostock: What Might Have Been

What coulda been–a man taken from us WAY too soon…. It’s been 35 years since the very memorable 1975 baseball season–one that saw future Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Tom Seaver win Cy Young Awards, Frank Robinson become MLB’s first black manager, and another “no-no” thrown by Nolan Ryan. It also featured the Tigers […]

Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame Announces Nominations for 2010 Induction Class

Foley’s NY Pub & Restaurant Recognizes Players, Executives, Journalists and Entertainers of Irish Descent New York, NY (March 15, 2010) –  Foley’s NY Pub & Restaurant (18 W. 33rd St.) today announced the nominations for 2010 induction into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame (IABHOF).  Voters include past inductees into the IABHOF and a […]

Hall of Famers at War – Warren Spahn

Warren Spahn, the winningest left-handed pitcher in major league history, received a battlefield commission in 1945. Warren Spahn was born in Buffalo, New York on April 23, 1921. He played first base for the Buffalo City Athletic Club and pitched for South Park High School in Buffalo where he led the team to a series […]