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 […]

Tracking Triple Milestones – 2012

With the season nearing the halfway point, it’s a good time to check  on hitters that are on target for the triple milestones of a .300 batting average, 30 home runs and 100 RBIs and which pitchers are on a pace for 20 wins, 200 strikeouts and an ERA under 3.00. Since pitchers have recorded […]

Hombres de Negro, 1969, los Milagrosos Mets y aquel Magallanes. (Men in Black, 1969, the Miracle Mets and those Magallanes Navigators)

En la entrada del cine insistí varias veces para que viéramosLa Isla Misteriosa.Miguelín se quedó mirando los lagartos y abejas gigantes. Sus ojos exploraban el cartelón adyacente y repitió todas las veces, que prefería Hombresde Negro 3. Desde el miércoles me había dicho “Quiero ver esa película contigo papá” y me abrazó. En la puerta nos dieron los […]

No-Hitters on the Road

Like every Mets fan my age, I’ve only been waiting since 1962 for their first no-hitter. Well, that might not be accurate. In those early years there were few illusions about the potential of any Mets pitcher to pitch a no-hitter. We weren’t like the fans of the expansion Montreal Expos in 1969, who got […]

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 […]

Some Thoughts on Secondary Aspects of the Hall of Fame Voting Results

The 2012 Baseball Hall of Fame vote was recently announced, and only one player was elected, Barry Larkin. Fellow Seamheads author Andrew Martin wrote a good post dissecting this year’s vote. I’m not going to do the same, especially since I largely agree with his views: Larkin is marginal but I support his election; Bagwell and […]

Celebrating Mets History Anyway

Last week was a tough one for Mets fans as Jose Reyes has done what most New Yorkers can’t manage until they’re twice his age–he took the money and fled to Florida. The team might be in for the Second Dark Ages the next few years, reminiscent of the forgettable seasons between the departure of […]

Deviating from the Past

Every baseball ranking—even those based on statistics—is biased in some way. It’s what makes practically every list debatable. For instance, take a list as fundamental as “hit leaders.” As a counting stat, a player’s hit total is impacted by his place in the batting order as well as his lineup’s offensive strength, two factors that […]

Six Decades of Baseball

__________ Six decades is a long time.    That’s a lot of baseball memories. Bill Lewers issues an important caveat at the beginning of his 378-page narrative:  he’s an ordinary fan.    For much of his life, he has watched baseball from the upper deck where he often sits alone (or so it seems), collecting memories […]

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 […]

Just How Good was Bert Blyleven?

Bert Blyleven is in the Hall of Fame at last!!  It took fourteen years on the ballot to do it but the writers finally saw the light.  This was a true victory for sabermetrics – as recognized in the following clip from the Associated Press. “The great curveballer won 287 games, threw 60 shutouts and […]

“It’s Not Personal, Sonny. It’s Strictly Business”

Much has been written about the Derek Jeter situation. I was talking to my brother-in-law last week about it, and I brought up some relevant and relatively obscure illustrative points. One, that I love, is Tom Seaver’s incredulity at ownership’s shock that players, the most competitive people on Earth, were equally fierce at the bargaining […]

The Day the World Met the Ryan Express

Nolan Ryan was far from the perfect pitcher. He walked the most batters in baseball history (2,795), 52% more than the next highest total belonging to Steve Carlton (1,833). He lost the most games of any pitcher (292) except for Cy Young (316) and Pud Galvin (310), two players who peaked in the 1800s. He […]

Hawk, The White Rat & God

Sunday’s inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame are a varied group, with nicknames running the spectrum in terms of flattery. With Andre Dawson (aka “Hawk”) being the only player elected on the writers’ ballot, the Veterans Committee saved the day by voting in “The White Rat,” Whitey Herzog, and the umpire otherwise known […]

Back to the Future: The SPORT Magazine 1969 Major League All-Stars

While going through my old magazines (again) I saw an article from the July 1964 issue of SPORT titled “A Look Into the Future: The 1969 All-Star Team” written by John Devaney.  Devaney polled more than 50 big league managers, coaches, veteran players, writers and sportscasters to find the players whom they believed would be […]

Mighty Casey Has Struck Out (Again)

Less than two weeks ago, on Monday, July 12th, Matt Holliday, he of the $120 million, seven-year contract, participated in the Home Run Derby exhibition as part of the annual All-Star Game festivities at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California. That same evening, some 1600 miles away from Anaheim, in Sutter, Illinois, 64-year-old Jimmy Qualls came […]

Touring The Bases With…Randy Jones

Former major league hurler Randy Jones spent only 10 years in the bigs and lost more games than he won, going 100-123 for the San Diego Padres and New York Mets, but for two magical seasons, he was among the best pitchers in the game.  After leading the National League in losses with 22 in […]

Baseball’s Craftsmen

George F. Will’s “Men at Work” is a classic. Twenty years after the book stood at No. 1 on the NYT Bestseller list for 19 straight weeks, it’s back as a re-release. This week, for those of us who were too young to appreciate it the first time around, let me shed light on what […]

Write-In Campaign Adds Pressure on Selig?

Latino advocacy organization Presente.org is ramping up the pressure on Bud Selig with a write-in campaign to take the All-Star Game out of Phoenix in response to the Arizona Hispanic profiling bill.  After huge protest marches several weeks ago, the write in campaign provides a time-honored, American tradition to keep the pressure on Commissioner Selig. […]

Lyman Bostock: What Might Have Been

What coulda been–a man taken from us WAY too soon…. It’s been 35 years since the very memorable 1975 baseball season–one that saw future Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Tom Seaver win Cy Young Awards, Frank Robinson become MLB’s first black manager, and another “no-no” thrown by Nolan Ryan. It also featured the Tigers […]

300-Win Club is Closed for Good

Put it in ink: the 300-game winner has gone the way of the buffalo nickel and Sunday doubleheader. The late-winter retirements of Randy Johnson and Tom Glavine mean that none of the 300-win pitchers are still active, although 10 are still alive: Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux,  Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Nolan Ryan, Tom […]