A New York View of the 1913 Merkle Play

For those who read the accounts of Fred Merkle’s handling the ball hit to him in the third inning of the final game of the 1913 World Series—from the Philadelphia sport writers’ view—I have some follow up that presents the play from the New York writers’ view. One major difference is the Philadelphia writers all […]

What To Do About Jerry Meals

I feel compelled to write a few thoughts about the controversial call made by 14 year umpire Jerry Meals in the 19th inning of the Braves and Pirates 19 inning game that concluded early in the morning on July 27th. Baseball has had an ongoing debate about the use of instant replay and the reliability […]

The Ultimate Seven-Game Fall Classic: Game Seven

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 Rapid Emergence of Stephen Strasburg in 2007

Last year, after I looked up some stories about Dwight Gooden as a teenage phenom, I started wondering about Stephen Strasburg’s early pitching performance. Was he touted as a future star in high school before graduating in 2006? The answer’s no. The San Diego Union-Tribune hardly mentioned Strasburg when he was at West Hills High […]

Pitchin’ On The Dock Of The Bay

You knew, just looking at the matchups, two things about this weekend’s series.  One, it was going to be darn tough for the Cardinals to keep their streak of not losing a series alive.  The second was that if anyone scored, it was going to be a fairly impressive accomplishment. Sometimes when you think you […]