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 […]

The Terrific One

Hey baseball fans! Considering I just watched Anchorman 2 on the big screen, here is a little something about a famous Met who was born in the same state that Ron Burgundy reported the news (California). Ladies and gentleman, the Fresno, California native, Tom Seaver! George Thomas Seaver played with the Mets, Reds, White Sox, and […]

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 […]

Remembering Pittsburgh from the “We Are Family” Era

Back when Fisher Bodies were made of steel that was cooked in blast furnaces in Pittsburgh, there was a great baseball team that played along the Allegheny River called the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite the fact that cars are made of plastic now and the city of Pittsburgh is a high-tech center supported by three top-of-the-line […]

The Day of the (Starting) Pitcher

So we’re one day into the new baseball season, and most of what we’ve seen is great starting pitching. Even though the Mets moved in the outfield fences at Citi Field, the Mets and Braves managed to scratch out one puny run between them. Kyle Lohse didn’t allow a hit to the Marlins until the […]

All Phillies…All the Time — The Catchers

Herewith is the first installment of the All-Time Greatest Phillies Team. Before undertaking this endeavor, some ground rules… This is one version of the “Greatest Phillies of All Time.” The key word is “great,” and it will be used in the larger meaning of the word, that is, beyond pure statistics. This is sort of […]

St. Louis vs. Cincinnati

How exactly did we get here?  How did we come from St. Louis and Cincinnati having just a passing thought in each other’s minds to a knockdown, dragout rivalry between the two squads and the two fan bases?  And, honestly, why is there such a rivalry, Johnny Cueto notwithstanding? The history of Cardinals and Reds […]

Babe, Joe and Marilyn Monroe

There was something about his swing that caught Babe’s eye long before the country had a chance to admire it – long before songs would be written about him. It was 1933 and Babe Dahlgren was in his second full season as the first baseman for the San Francisco Mission Reds of the Pacific Coast […]

Happy Aroldis Chapman Day

Since this past weekend, I started a post that is currently approaching 8,000 words.  I’m not quite sure what to do about it because it takes a rare breed to want to read that much about what I was thinking on Friday night. In the meantime, per friendly reader Osh’s request, let’s take a moment […]

Sigh-Inducing

Just when you start to believe in this team, to think that they’ve finally found that gas pedal on the team car, they stomp on the brakes.  A four game winning streak to get into first place?  Let’s follow that up with three losses against sub-.500 teams!  I feel like I’m a driving instructor. Of course, […]

A Cautionary Note

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a bit, but before I could write about it Brian Burwell, for once, beat me to it.  There’s been a lot of optimism out of the sweep of Cincinnati, as well there should be.  However, I’m not sure we can say this team has turned the corner and the […]

Gaining On The Off Day

The Cardinals hit the Big Apple yesterday.  They saw the sites (Ryan Franklin went to the Statue of Liberty with his family, according to the official Cardinal Twitter feed), made some appearances (more on Albert Pujols in a bit) and picked up a half-game on the Reds when Milwaukee beat them 3-2.  In other words, just […]

Right On The Nose

My sainted father used to say that a pitcher should have the right to smack his fielders on the nose when they make errors that cost him runs or victories. I couldn’t argue then, and still can’t. Of course, it should work the other way, too. A team should be entitled to pummel any starting […]

The All-Time Cincinnati Reds (a draft book chapter)

Who would be selected for a mythical All-Time Reds dream team roster? And how have others answered this fun question throughout the years?

A Cardinal Weekend

The Cardinals had a good weekend against the Brewers, though it could have been better.  Their slipup last night on ESPN’s game of the week dropped them back into a tie for first.  I go over this series and the Reds series in my weekly column, but let’s take a look at them here as […]

That Night, They Were Men

Recently I was showing the photo album of my bar mitzvah to some long-lost cousins who only vaguely remembered attending it. Even with the help of the photos, I don’t remember all that much about it myself. I do know that it was the last time I ever spoke–much less chanted–in Hebrew. I ate, danced, […]

2010 NL Central Preview

The NL Central may not be the strongest division in baseball but the top four teams in for 2010 have all improved over what they were in 2009, at least on paper. There is some depth to this division that didn’t exist before and that should make for an exciting Summer.

Subtle Shifts

While no major news came out of Jupiter yesterday, there were a couple of things that could have an impact on the season to come. First, the Cards returned Ben Jukich to the Reds.  For a Rule V guy, he didn’t get a lot of looks in camp, only getting two innings in one game. […]

The Game That Brought Me Home

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 […]