Clearing The Bases

We can’t have a surprise column without a disappointment column now can we?  Earlier this week we talked about our Top 9 pleasant surprises, and now we will visit the opposite end of the spectrum.  Maybe I’m a negative kind of person, but it seemed that there were quite a few players/teams I could put [...]

The Kid from the Old School

Whether or not the Philadelphia Phillies rebound from their slow start to the 2012 season, remains to be seen. But if we are watching the changing of the guard in the NL East, then the May 6 evening that Cole Hamels plunked Bryce Harper, claiming it was “Old School,” will certainly be seen as a [...]

La conexión de Harvey Haddix y Graciliano Parra. Dos no-hitters truncados. (Harvey Haddix and Graciliano Parra’s connection. Two truncated no-hitters)

De acuerdo, la gesta de Haddix duró 12 episodios a ritmo de juego perfecto. Graciliano sólo tenía un juego sin hits ni carreras luego de 9 entradas. Sin embargo la tensión que ambos vivieron en el décimo tercer y el décimo inning respectivamente registró los escalofríos de cada uno de los presentes en el County [...]

An Interview with ESPN’s Baseball Insider Jerry Crasnick

ESPN has grown from a cable sports news channel to a media conglomerate over the past few decades. They have been able to accomplish this by providing comprehensive analysis in the world of sport through all forms of media- print, online, television, radio, and anything else I may be forgetting. As one of the major [...]

Clearing The Bases

Clearing The Bases                                                                                                                          May 22, 2012 by George Kurtz In my mind, Memorial Day marks the end of the first third of the season.  We have had time to adjust our rosters somewhat, but if things still aren’t going your way and you’re still at the bottom of the standings, than it’s time to make [...]

Crosstown Crosshairs

  May 20, 2012 Sox, Cubs,  NATO   The whole world is watching.  And now it knows how bad the Cubs really are. And how good the White Sox could be. If they keep playing the Cubs. On a hot spring weekend in Chicago when world leaders and angry protesters came to town for the [...]

“A Unique Look At Big League Baseball” A Must Have For Seamheads

The following was originally posted in early January but Joe’s book is so good, I decided to post it again. For most normal people, New Year’s Eve is all about bidding the old year adieu and ringing in the new one with friends, family, Dick Clark, Times Square, Jenny McCarthy kissing a dude she’d just [...]

A Tale of Two Teenagers

Another teenage phenomenon has made his way through Hagerstown, only this year he was wearing visiting gray and his stay lasted for only four games. Dylan Bundy, the Baltimore Orioles 2011 first-round draft pick who is rated by many scouts as the best high school pitching prospect in the last 25 years, threw five shutout [...]

Jim Neidlinger: No Regrets

The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers have had a string of legendary pitchers during their existence, earning accolades, World Series victories, and Hall of Fame enshrinements. Many young hurlers have imagined themselves being part of that group upon signing with the Dodgers’ organization, but few have accomplished such lofty goals. During the summer of 1990, Jim Neidlinger [...]

Interview with Richard Giannotti of the Independent Leagues

It used to be that the United States was home to dozens of professional baseball leagues. As Major League Baseball grew and honed its empire, that number reduced dramatically. Proving how much Americans love the national pastime there are still some independent professional leagues that have persisted and continue to pump out a competitive and [...]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1908 & 1909 Negro Leagues

The 1908 season saw the emergence of a national scene in black professional baseball.  Two important eastern teams, the Philadelphia Giants and the Cuban Giants of New York, made trips to the Midwest, their most notable opponent being Rube Foster‘s new powerhouse, the Chicago Leland Giants.  The Cuban Stars of Havana spent significant time in [...]

Triple-A Veteran Ed Nottle’s Willingness to Move In ’93 Was an Early Sign Independent League Baseball Would Work

The 20th season of modern day Independent Baseball gets going full steam tonight (Thursday) when the Frontier League, American Association and Can-Am League join the Atlantic League, which has a three-week head start. Miles Wolff and Ed Nottle, two of the prominent names in the business which currently has 50 teams and annually entertains from [...]

Clearing The Bases

With all of the injuries throughout Major League Baseball and the natural progression of fantasy teams claiming players off the waiver wire, the pickings have become pretty slim in deeper leagues.  With that in mind we are going to talk about minor league players that could help your team in the coming weeks or months.  [...]

Mets To Host 2013 All-Star Game

Mets to host 2013 All-Star Game (via AFP) Major League Baseball’s 84th All-Star Game will be hosted in 2013 by the New York Mets at their three-year-old ballpark, $600 million Citi Field, commissioner Bud Selig announced on Wednesday. The Mets previously hosted the mid-season event once before, in 1964 at Shea Stadium in the year [...]

Toronto’s Lawrie Gets Four-Game Suspension

Toronto’s Lawrie gets four-game suspension (via AFP) Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie was suspended for four games by Major League Baseball on Wednesday for a tirade against umpire Bill Miller in a home loss to Tampa Bay one night earlier. Lawrie was also fined an undisclosed sum for his emotional eruption, which came [...]

The 1982 California Angels

Two consecutive years of disappointment prompted the Angels ownership to react with a sense of urgency in the 1982 off-season. They made a big splash in the free agent pool, and several key trades positioned the franchise within reach of their first World Series appearance. Jackson and DeCinces Gene Autry outbid George Steinbrenner for Reggie [...]

Touring the Bases With Bob Wolff

Bob Wolff is one of the most famous television and radio announcers of the second half of the Twentieth Century. He has been inducted to both the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown and the Basketball Hall of Fame as well. His call of Don Larsen’s World Series Perfect Game in 1956 for Mutual Radio [...]

The Juju Rules: A Review

The dictionary defines juju as “an object venerated superstitiously” and “the magical power attributed to such an object.” Despite the lack of scientific evidence, scores of baseball fans swear that they have successfully used juju to impact the performance of players and teams; from their favorite to their most hated. One of the foremost adherents [...]

McNamee Testifies He Gave Clemens Steroids

McNamee testifies he gave Clemens steroids (via AFP) Brian McNamee told jurors on Monday that he injected Roger Clemens with steroids in 1998 at the famed pitcher’s request in key testimony at the perjury trial of the former Major league Baseball star. McNamee, the former trainer for Clemens, was the major prosecution witness as he [...]

NY Times Unloads Last of Red Sox Stake

NY Times unloads last of Red Sox stake (via AFP) The New York Times Co., has sold its remaining stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team for $63 million as the struggling media group moves to focus on its core operations. A regulatory filing Friday said the New York Times Company sold its remaining [...]

Clearing The Bases

Major League Baseball teams for the most part use the first third of the season (April, May) to evaluate their team, the middle third (June, July) to make acquisitions to help the team, and the last third (August, September) to fight for a playoff run.  Now trading won’t really pick up for another month or [...]

The Glory Days: Dramatic Homers Usher in the 1960s

A pair of monumental home runs ushered in the 1960s, and both blasts have been talked and written about ever since. Bill Mazeroski’s seventh-game homer was the first to end a World Series, giving the Pittsburgh Pirates victory over the New York Yankees. Various polls of fans and writers have ranked it the most dramatic [...]

Independent Baseball Season Fires Up Next Week With Three More Leagues Starting Play

Joe Calfapietra is one of the real veterans among the 32 Independent Baseball managers preparing teams to open the season in one week (May 17) when the Can-Am League, American Association and Frontier League hear the “Play Ball” cry. The 42-year-old New Jersey Jackals skipper has had time to develop a plan for building a [...]

Clearing The Bases

As Fantasy owners we have been complaining all season about one of three things.  Players who are off to slow starts (Albert Pujols, Jose Bautista), injuries (Jacoby Ellsbury, Chris Carpenter, Carl Crawford), and the weekly merry-go-round that has been the closer situation throughout baseball (half the league).  This week however, we are starting to get [...]

Josh Beckett Working Hard to Assume Role of Scapegoat

Even the most optimistic Boston Red Sox fans would be hard-pressed to classify the team’ last 60 or so games as a slump because a slump implies an anticipated return to an expected level. Since blowing a seemingly insurmountable lead for the wildcard in the final month of the 2011 season, the team has looked [...]

iOOTP12 for Apple

iOOTP12 for Apple (sorry, Android fans, you’ve got at least another year to wait before partaking) is the Kate Upton to OOTP13′s Sofia Vergara: whereas the latter has endless curves, you sure as hell won’t mind spending hours with the slimmer, compact version. Kate (uh, I mean, iOOTP12) is well worth the price of admission, [...]

Why Davey Johnson Is So Unhappy

One thing about Bryce Harper’s steal of home a few days ago, it brought a smile to the face of his manager Davey Johnson. Johnson has otherwise found too little to smile about during the first month of the 2012 season, despite the overall good performance of his team. Davey was a hitter. That is [...]

Touring the Bases With Buddy Biancalana

Buddy Biancalana was a first round draft pick of the Kansas City Royals in 1978 who went on to have a major league career as a middle infielder. Used primarily as a utility player, Buddy had his greatest success was in the 1985 World Series when he played in all seven games and hit .278, [...]

Clearing The Bases

On April 10 I wrote at column detailing the closer situation for each team because there had been a few injuries during spring training that took a couple of closers out for the season.  Well a month later half of baseball no longer has the same pitcher closing for them that they planned on to [...]

There Are Things That “Go Bad”

A few days ago, almost the entire Media declared a “national holiday with extension to the Caribbean” because a game is decided by Alex Rodriguez. But, when Albert Pujol hits his first home run of this campaign, after 111 times at bat without producing one, the scandal must have been heard on the moon. As much [...]

Someone Please Tell Cole Hamels Older Isn’t Necessarily Better

With one pitch and a few poorly chosen words, Cole Hamels proved two things on Sunday; older is not necessarily better, and there are no intelligence requirements to make $15 million a year. As reported in a story by ESPN, Hamels hit Washington Nationals super rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch and then proudly told [...]

Harper Means Hustle and the Giant Combo Size

Bryce Harper is only a few days into his major league career. It is like a movie and the credits are still playing over the first few frames as we are introduced to the action. And maybe it is too early for the critics to assess what they are seeing, but there can be little [...]

The Glory Days: Kaline the Selfless Star

Al Kaline never sought the spotlight. It found him at Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, the All-Star Game and the World Series, places the light shines brightest. Otherwise, he was Everyday Al. He could have been carrying a black lunch pail, the way he went about his job. So workmanlike, so steady. Kaline was a steady [...]

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 [...]

Driving Mr. Yogi

In the recently released book, Driving Mr. Yogi by Harvey Araton, the front seat is occupied ably by Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry, but the back seat is filled with the Pantheon of modern day Yankee heroes. Characteristically, George Steibrenner spills over into the front and tries to take the wheel. But Yogi Berra is too much [...]

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