My Top Five Favorite Cardinals Hall of Famers

Hey baseball fans! The 2013 World Series week has officially started! This year’s contenders are the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. Considering that I’ve already done a top five favorite Red Sox HoFers post, I decided that the time is right to post my top five Cards Hall of Famers of all […]

All-Around Athletes

Hey baseball fans! As I promised in my Booming Batters post, today I will be blogging about some of the greatest all-around athlete nicknames in baseball history. Hope you enjoy: Stan the Man - Stan Musial From 1942-1963 with the St. Louis Cardinals, Musial had one of the best careers of all time. With 475 homers,  3,630 hits, and […]

The Ultimate Baseball One-Hit Wonder

Hey baseball fans! Today, you will read about the best example of a one-hit wonder in baseball history. Enjoy. Jim Konstanty had a very good 1950 season. The reliever for the NL pennant-winning Phillies went 16-7, had an ERA of 2.66, and collected 22 saves, earning him NL MVP honors. Some of the other players in […]

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, […]

Adjusting for Military Service

Many fans have wondered over the years about those players who lost playing time to military service – and how that may have impacted their total careers. One interesting aspect of win shares and the CAWS Career Gauge is that it is fairly easy to reasonably adjust a player’s career numbers to reflect this lost […]

The Big Hitter Of The 50’s Decade, Musial

During the decade of the 1950s occurred what american baseball analysts named a “rise of the hitters”. Running the racial integration, joined organized baseball with all the figures of importance included the Caribbean, guaranteeing the presence in major league baseball of sluggers as Mays, Aaron, Banks, Minoso, Clemente or Frank Robinson who, along with Williams, […]

A Book as “Terrific” as Its Subject

Like the “The Little Engine that Could,” Tom Seaver began a steep climb saying “I think I can. I think I can.” Seaver’s mom, Betty, grafted the story into her son’s DNA by reading it to him as a child. Seaver always thought he could do whatever he set out to do, and usually he […]

2012 Milestones (And Beyond): Runs Scored

Ten days ago I wrote that we won’t be witnessing any real milestones in wins for a long time unless Jaimie Moyer makes a successful comeback, and even that’s no guarantee.  Using Bill James’ “Favorite Toy” at ESPN.go.com (called “Career Assessments” now), I deduced that CC Sabathia has a 45% chance of reaching the 300-win […]

Kemp Unanimous Pick For NL Stan Musial Award

Bautista holds off Ellsbury in American League There were some outstanding performances this year in Major League Baseball.  However, one clearly stood out from the pack. Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Matt Kemp was named the National League Stan Musial Award winner for 2011 in voting held by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.  Kemp received all 15 […]

Fun With Retrosheet: Come-From-Behind Batting Champions, An Update

John Pastier was wondering (among other things) about the record for the most days leading the league in batting average without winning the title. Here’s the list: Player Year LED DNL DNQ First Last Pete Reiser 1942 131 36 0 5-11 9-24 Lenny Dykstra 1990 125 37 10 5-11 9-14 Larry Walker 1997 124 57 […]

The All-Left Field Team

This post originally appeared on my personal blog, Left Field…hence, the concept of an All-Left Field Team.

Stan Musial Day

Today, we set aside deadlines and contracts and negotiations.  Today, we set aside forecasting and expectations.  We set all of that aside, at least for a short time, because today is a day for greatness. As all Cardinal fans know, Stan Musial, the greatest Cardinal of them all, is in Washington today to receive the Presidential […]

The Anatomy of a Hall of Famer

It’s been a month now since Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were introduced as the two newest members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I think both deserve it. I also think Blyleven should have been a Hall of Famer a long time ago, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s finally in and […]

Tim Raines – Some Stars Get No Respect

Tim Raines appeared on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot for the third time in 2010. In 2008, he got 24.3% of the votes, and in 2009, he got only 22.6% of the vote. In 2010, he increased to 30.4%. This would apparently indicate that he does not have a good chance of being elected […]

The Sweet Swing of a Slugger

Nowadays, it’s difficult to think of baseball players without talk of steroids, performance enhancers, or at least strength training. More than a century ago, however, raw skill and equipment formed a power-packed duo that dictated a player’s success. “Sweet Spot: 125 Years of Baseball and the Louisville Slugger” by David Magee and Philip Shirley is […]

Another One Bites The Dust

I didn’t know the late William Lee “Bill” Jennings. Never met him, never had a chat with him, never even knew of him until recently, in fact. What little I do know about Mr. Jennings, who died at the age of 85 on October 20, 2010, is attributable to his passing being prominently mentioned on […]

Josh Hamilton, Joey Votto Take Home Stan Musial Award

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance concluded their award season today by naming the best player in each league for 2010. When all the votes were tallied, two men were comfortably ahead. Texas outfielder Josh Hamilton, who hit 32 home runs and fashioned an OPS of 1.044 while leading the Rangers into the playoffs, won the award […]

El Juego de Estrellas que nunca olvidaré (The All Star game I’ll never forget).

Siempre recordaré la noche del 14 de julio de 1970. Papá me había enviado a la cama por enésima vez. Lo disputado del Juego de las Estrellas hizo que accediera a mis solicitudes para que me dejara otro rato más. Pero cuando el juego se empató en el noveno inning Papá me llevó personalmente al […]

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 […]

MLB perpetrates All-Star fiasco

“Vote early and vote often.” In the biggest electoral fraud since the 2000 presidential election, Major League Baseball and its 30 teams are telling fans to choose All-Star Game lineups by voting up to 25 times. They can do it on the internet or at the ballpark. It really doesn’t matter. The Yankees even show […]

Stan the Man from Donora

Some months ago, I examined a pair of Stan Musial biographies at a friend’s request. Not long  afterward, “Stan the Man“ hit the shelves. What makes Wayne Stewart’s book different? Stewart shares Musial’s hometown and writes much of the book from that perspective. How appropriate. Though Musial found stardom in a big way, he never […]

Instants Of Clueless Clarity

I had dinner last night with a couple of friends visiting from out of town, and told two of my favorite Hall of Fame library stories. They’re dandies, so I may as well tell the rest of the world. The stories have two things in common. Both involved telephone inquiries from people who were entirely […]

Deserved But Not Earned

I’m still bothered by a game I listened to on the radio when I was a kid. Thanks to http://www.retrosheet.org/, I know that I’ve been upset for nearly 48 years, so isn’t it about time I got this complaint off my chest? I was 11 years old the summer of 1962, and on June 5 […]

Meet the New Park Factors – Part I

“It’s a park that could make you a hero or a bum.” – Stan Musial on the Polo Grounds, 1957 Stan Musial was truly one of the most consistently great hitters baseball has ever seen. With a lifetime average of .331, his slumps were like comets—showing up every few years, then disappearing in a flash. […]

Touring the Bases With…Frank Sullivan

One of the tallest pitchers in baseball at 6’7″, Frank Sullivan enjoyed immediate success upon earning a full-time spot with the Boston Red Sox in 1954, winning 15 games in his rookie season.  He tied for the league lead in wins with 18 in 1955 and paced the junior circuit in starts, innings, and batters […]

Fun at the Old Ballpark

The Cardinals seem to have righted the ship and are moving in a positive direction, winning both games of the weekend.  Before we talk about that, though, let’s discuss the topic making the rounds: Buster Olney’s report of a Albert Pujols/Ryan Howard trade. First off, the Olney report is probably accurate, because when you read […]