NORMALIZING NEGRO LEAGUE STATISTICS

Most baseball fans are familiar with the concept of ‘normalizing’ statistics. For MLB statistics, the most basic adjustment is to normalize for park effects. The simplest park normalization calculation takes the impact of a team’s park on runs scored then divides that number, either positive or negative, in half, and then that calculation is applied […]

Jack Spradlin: Lefty Pitcher Recalls His Professional Baseball Journey

Jack Spradlin was a left-handed pitcher who played at just about every possible level of professional baseball except for the big leagues. By no means was that a failure, as he had a long and interesting career playing the game that he loves. On the radar of major league teams since high school, Spradlin was a […]

How Has Bryce Harper’s Contract Impacted Mookie Betts’ Quest for a New Deal?

The recent signing of free-agent outfielder Bryce Harper to a record-breaking 13-year, $330 million contract by the Philadelphia Phillies sent shock waves across baseball. Although the star slugger will continue making his home in the National League, the deal may have a surprising impact on the Boston Red Sox—specifically in their pursuit to retain their […]

Jalal Leach: A Giant Testament to Perseverance

When baseball players sign their first professional contract they have stars in their eyes and no doubts in their mind as they are certain they will play in the major leagues. Unfortunately, the majority of these young men see their careers end short of their goal. However, a small number make it, which is a […]

The Baseball Hall of Fame Case for Fred McGriff

Voting for the 2019 class of the National Baseball Hall of Fame is due shortly. As always, there will be much debate over who should and shouldn’t get in, and a wheelbarrow load of whys. Contributing to this muck and mire is the following discussion of a player who is sure to get some votes, […]

Lenny DiNardo: Memorable Boston Red Sox Pitcher Recalls His Career

Making it to the major leagues is tough enough on its own. Breaking through to baseball’s highest level and becoming part of a historically memorable team is even rarer. Left-handed pitcher Lenny DiNardo had a 94-game big league career, but he stretched it out over the course of six seasons. He also played a pivotal role on […]

Baseball Pioneers: True Stories of Guts and Glory as Told by Pioneering Men and Women of the Game- A Review

Baseball history hounds can never satiate their appetite for digging in deep and uncovering myriad layers of the game that fascinates them much like an Indiana Jones treasure hunt. The stories, the perspectives and the connections are endless… Endlessly fascinating. Another volume that has weighed in with some additional work is The Sweet Spot Presents […]

Former Pitcher Russ Ortiz Recalls His Baseball Career

Pitching is one of the most difficult endeavors in baseball. It was particularly daunting in the early 2000s, as offenses were operating at high-octane levels. That makes the career of Russ Ortiz all the more impressive, as the right-hander won 99 games in one six-year stretch on his way to a wildly successful 12-year major […]

Has Boston Red Sox Pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez Made the Leap?

The Boston Red Sox gambled they were making a shrewd move when they traded star reliever Andrew Miller to the Baltimore Orioles in 2014 for prospect left-handed pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez. Although he had flashes of promise over the ensuing three seasons, injuries and inconsistency made him into somewhat of an enigma. Now 25, the southpaw […]

Which Former Major League Players Have Become Stars in Korea?

Making it to the major leagues is a monumental task that is accomplished by a mere fraction of the players who are lucky enough to have professional careers. Getting there and staying there for any length of time is another matter altogether. For many, opportunity ends up being in other professional leagues. Many know about […]

Mickey Mantle’s Forgotten Twin Brothers

In baseball, it’s rare for a player to be deified to the level of former New York Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle, who could seemingly do it all on the field. However, few baseball fans are aware that he had two younger twin brothers, Roy and Ray, who also played professional ball, but never reached the same heights as the […]

Jackie Robinson: Revisiting an Interview With a Baseball and Civil Rights Legend

The age of the internet is a blessing in that it allows for the preservation of so many primary sources—the collection of video, audio and written materials from our past. This is particularly important to baseball history, where there is so much to keep track of. On April 14, 1957, legendary player and civil rights […]

Most Deserving All-Star Candidate From Each American League Team

Most Deserving All-Star Candidate From Each Team: AL Edition   Baltimore: Manny Machado While Mark Trumbo is enjoying a bounce back season and currently leading the American League in homers, Manny Machado has been one of the best players in the MLB this season. He’s hitting .325, good for fourth in the American League, and […]

Should MLB Adopt the 154-Game Schedule?

New Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred recently suggested he was open to the idea of reducing the regular season from 162 to 154 games. The 154 game schedule is not a new idea. The American and National League adopted the format before the 1904 season, ensuring the eight teams in each league played their […]

What Baseball Means To Me

It is springtime again in America. Yeah, tens of millions are digging out from mountains of snow to go to work, but the trucks carrying our summer obsession have safely reached their destinations in Florida and Arizona. Once unpacked, another baseball season will be upon us and it can never come too soon. For me, […]

Solving Major League Baseball’s Marketing Problem

The National Football League concluded another season with the most watched show in the history of American television, breaking a record held by last year’s Super Bowl and so on. Of course, 114 million pair of eyes on one whale of a football game means baseball is dying, right? Certainly, a sport dragging in $9 […]

2014 World Series Wrap-Up: The Baseball Historian Notes for the Week of November 2

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for winning the 2014 World Series! Although not all of the individual games were nail biters, Game 7 and the totality of the series made for great baseball. Giants’ pitcher Madison Bumgarner (Don’t call me Bumgardner) was this year’s player to use the Fall Classic as his personal coming-out […]

Prime Time

Hey baseball fans! I’m sure that most football fans are familiar with NFL Hall of Fame cornerback and punt returner Deion Sanders. But just like Bo Jackson, Sanders also played in the MLB! He wasn’t as good as Bo, but he still is one of the few prominent two-sport athletes. Neon Deion played for the […]

An Interview with White Sox Owner, Eddie Einhorn

Hey baseball fans! I recently had the honor of interviewing the Vice Chairman and an owner of the Chicago White Sox, Eddie Einhorn! Einhorn was a really cool guy to talk to and his answers were also very interesting to hear. However, let me tell you a little about Mr. Einhorn before I get to […]

A Frigid Nickname Doesn’t Necessarily Equal “Cool” Results

Hey baseball fans! Considering I am living in the middle of a snow-covered New Jersey, and today is a snow day, I want to talk about a very famous ballplayer in baseball history who had the nickname “Snow”. Fred “Snow” Snodgrass is not the best player of his time, but he is certainly remembered by all […]

Baseball with Matt’s First Ever Analysis of a Poem

Hey baseball fans! I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before on Baseball with Matt: I’m going to analyze a poem! But don’t worry; the poem is about baseball. This poem is probably my favorite, because it captures the description of a player’s entire personality and career in only a few lines. I […]

The Pine Tar Game

Hey baseball fans! A while back, I got the chance to interview Graig Nettles, a Yankee great and a member of the 300 home runs club. What I did not mention in that post was something he did that helped create one of the oddest, most interesting, and controversial moments not just in the history of […]

The Predecessors to Mariano Rivera

Hey baseball fans! Sadly (for Yankee fans) Mariano Rivera has finally called it quits after playing 19 seasons in the Bronx. In honor of him, I want to talk about other great relievers in Yankee history. Johnny Murphy Murphy was one of the first relievers in the live ball era and he did a pretty good job […]

The AL Counterpart to Ralph Kiner

Hey baseball fans and happy new year! When the name “Hank” is said in a conversation about baseball, many times the name is followed by the surname “Aaron.” However, there is another Hank who played baseball and is enshrined in Cooperstown. This Hank could be compared to Ralph Kiner: both players had pretty short Hall of […]

Cha-Cha Cha-Chas Into the Hall of Fame

Hey baseball fans! As some of you know, there are three Puerto Rican-born Hall of Famers in Cooperstown: Roberto Clemente, Roberto Alomar, and one other person. There are also three Hall of Fame position players who played for the 1962 San Francisco Giants pennant-winning squad: Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and one other person. The “one other person” on both […]

NJBM: Whitey Herzog

Hey baseball fans! I just put up my latest post in the Kids’ Hot Korner section of New Jersey Baseball Magazine. This one is about Whitey Herzog, one of the greatest managers in Missouri baseball history. If you want to read more about the man who invented Whiteyball, just click here. I hope you enjoy the post. […]

Matt’s Anti-Dream Team

Hey baseball fans! A while back, I wrote a post about my favorite players of all time at each position, my Dream Team. Recently, I’ve realized that a team is not a team without a rival. So, I’ve compiled a list of players that are rivals with one player specifically on my Dream Team at the […]

So You Think You Can Name World Series Winners

Hey baseball fans! I recently posted a video on YouTube. The video is of me trying to name all of the winners of every single World Series from 1903 (the first ever World Series). To see if I succeeded or not, click here. I hope you enjoy the video and check back in a few days […]

An Interview with Trevor Hoffman

Hey baseball fans! I have another interview for you today! It’s with the great former closer Trevor Hoffman! It was arranged and recorded by the really cool web site, Sqor.com. By the way, Sqor (www.sqor.com) is a new sports and social networking web site that brings athlete content to fans from over 1,200 professional and amateur athletes, […]

Matt Nadel’s 2013 MLB Awards Predictions

Hey baseball fans! As you all know, I’ve started doing some vlog posts where I make different predictions.  Well, since the MLB regular season is now over, I have to make my predictions on who will win all the major MLB awards.  So, without further ado, please click here for a link to my latest vlog post, where […]

NJBM Kids’ Hot Korner: Ozzie Smith

Hey baseball fans! I just put up my latest post in the Kids’ Hot Korner section of New Jersey Baseball Magazine. This one is about Ozzie Smith, one of the greatest defensive shortstops ever and a Hall of Famer. If you want to read more about Ozzie, just click here.   Thanks for reading the article. I hope you […]

The Winner of the 2013 World Series Will Be…….

Hey baseball fans! As you all know, I normally blog about baseball history, but back on September 9th, after getting a lot of questions from readers, I decided to put up a vlog post on who I thought would make the playoffs.  Well, since the playoff picture is now pretty much set, I have to […]

The Little Steam Engine with a Huge Legacy

Hey baseball fans! I’m sure you all know about who Cy Young is, the winningest pitcher in baseball history in a time when Major League Baseball was in its infancy. But there was a pitcher who might have been just as good and pitched even earlier than Cy did. He is in the Hall of Fame with […]

My Top Five Most Notorious Records in Baseball History

Hey baseball fans! There are some records in baseball history that everyone strives to break: Rickey Henderson‘s stolen bases and runs scored records, Nolan Ryan‘s strikeout record, or Cy Young‘s wins record. However, there are some records that no one would ever want to break. With that, I give you my top five most notorious records in baseball […]

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 […]

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