Where Is the Offense?
May 6, 2010 by Bill Gilbert · Leave a Comment
The Houston Astros have started slowly for several years (9-13 in April, 2009 and 13-16 in 2008). However, the month of April, 2010 (8-14) was even worse. After the Club started 0-8, there was a brief ray of hope when the team went 8-2 in the next 10 games including a 3 game sweep of […]
Meet the New Park Factors – Part II
April 13, 2010 by John Cappello · 1 Comment
[In Part I, we saw that traditional Park Factors do have a place in baseball—just not for measuring ballpark impact. In Part II here, we’ll mix some physics with home run trajectories to help us understand how a future system for rating ballparks might be designed. In Part III, we’ll see what this system might […]
Great What-If Matchups
March 16, 2010 by Gabriel Schechter · 1 Comment
One of most baseball historians’ favorite things to speculate about is how certain players would have done if their careers had happened in different times and places and against different opponents. How spectacular would Ozzie Smith have been on a dirt infield with a small glove instead of on Astroturf? Suppose Ted Williams had been […]
PCL Opening Day: 1953
March 12, 2010 by Brendan Macgranachan · 4 Comments
It was the opening of the baseball season in America. As major league teams wrapped up their respective spring trainings and prepared to throw their opening pitch of the 1953 season in a few weeks time, the Pacific Coast League was ready to start now. Warm west coast weather allowed the PCL season to start […]
The Game That Brought Me Home
March 10, 2010 by Gabriel Schechter · Leave a Comment
Last night, I watched the first inning of the greatest baseball game I never saw. That’s all, just the first inning. The rest of the game can wait, because it was the baseball equivalent of the proverbial 40-pound bag of Oreos. You wouldn’t want to devour it as soon as you open it, and you […]
When Charlie Keller Tried to Come Back
February 28, 2010 by Chip Greene · Leave a Comment
In the spring of 1947, the Yankees’ Charlie Keller was at his peak as a power hitter. Now 30 years old, he’d long ago mastered the kind of left-handed swing New York management had envisioned when they signed Keller off the University of Maryland campus; he was the consummate pull-hitter, routinely muscling the ball into […]
