Hall of Famers at War – Warren Spahn

Warren Spahn, the winningest left-handed pitcher in major league history, received a battlefield commission in 1945. Warren Spahn was born in Buffalo, New York on April 23, 1921. He played first base for the Buffalo City Athletic Club and pitched for South Park High School in Buffalo where he led the team to a series […]

Baseball Union succeeds where John McCain fails

Since Congress won’t protect you—or major league baseball players—from dangerous supplements, the Major League Baseball Players Union has just sent out a list of 104 supplements its players should avoid. The union terms the supplements “dangerous/contaminated,” in a clear an attempt help its players steer clear of substances that would falsely test positive for performance enhancing […]

Book Review: Joe Cronin, A Life In Baseball

One of the perks of being a baseball bloggers is, at times, you get a chance to get a free baseball book on the off-chance that you’ll write about it to an audience that may care what you have to say.  I’ve had four or five of these opportunities come directly to me, but this […]

Weber and Young Arms of Crow, Scheppers and Parise Making Their Mark in Spring Training

It would be much like splitting hairs if we tried to give a definitive answer as to who among the former Independent players hopeful of becoming a first time major leaguer is having the best spring training up to this point.  Jon Weber,  Aaron Crow and Tanner Scheppers certainly have offered up their work.  Pete […]

Wounded Birds

While there was plenty of news from the game yesterday, the biggest discussion point probably happened before the first pitch was ever thrown. Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday were both scratched from yesterday’s game against the Nationals.  Pujols’s back still isn’t quite right and Holliday has a strained rib cage muscle.  A team that looks […]

Naming Wrongs

Shortly after I started working at the Hall of Fame library, I discovered a wonderful book published in the 1990s by Peter Filichia, titled Professional Baseball Franchises. It lists every minor-league team from the 1880s forward, including nicknames, league affiliations, classifications, renamings, and years of existence. It is indispensable for locating where people played, which […]

Dan’s Diary from Disneyball

While liquid sunshine continues to wreak havoc with spring training schedules, there’s no better alternative than writing about baseball. These are the latest tidbits from the camps around the Grapefruit League: Andruw Jones, signed for only $500,000 by the Chicago White Sox, might turn out to be the best free-agent acquisition of the winter. Once […]

Letters From Quebec: Remembering Willie Davis…

“There was only one Jackie Robinson and he was fantastic,” Willie Davis said about the Dodger immortal who broke baseball’s colour barrier, first with the old Montreal Royals and then with Brooklyn Dodgers.  Then he added, “There’s only one Willie Davis, and I’m fantastic too.” Willie Davis, to Montreal Gazette journalist Tim Burke, June 12, […]

John McCain Flip Flops With Your Safety

John McCain, who spent millions of taxpayer money chasing after baseball players he believed were taking steroids, has once again buckled under pressure from the real distributors of steroids and other illegal substances—the nation’s supplement makers. McCain, the self appointed champion of cleaning up sports, introduced a bill just last month that would have required […]

The Enigmatic Willie Davis

Signed as an 18-year-old in 1958, Willie Davis was a ballplayer of many talents and many quirks. A multiple threat in high school, Willie was a basketball star, as well as a right hand hitting lefty pitcher and first baseman with blazing speed. After a makeover courtesy of Dodger scout Kenny Myers, Davis became a […]

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 […]

News and Notes from the Grapefruit League

Like the Army, baseball is filled with Hurry Up & Wait situations. That’s especially true for writers, who arrive hours before gametime in an often-frustrating effort to pin down players or managers for interviews. There’s competition for each player, with the biggest stars commanding the most attention from media types, and a pecking order that […]

Back Against It

The biggest news from Cardinals camp yesterday didn’t come out of the matchup between the Cards and the Red Sox, between Chris Carpenter and Josh Beckett.  The news of the day was made before the game even started and hopefully hasn’t put the team’s back to the wall. Albert Pujols didn’t make the trip yesterday […]

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 […]

Milo: I’ll stay active through 2012

Milo Hamilton, whose big-league broadcast career started with the 1953 St. Louis Browns, plans to stay on the air for three more seasons. The venerable voice of the Houston Astros wants the chance to broadcast from the newest ballparks, including Yankee Stadium this June and Minnesota’s Target Field — depending on future interleague games that […]

Splitting the Weekend

Two games, one win. The Cards finally broke the seal on the win column this weekend.  After falling Saturday in extra innings to Florida, they were able to get a win against the Marlins on Sunday.  Kyle McClellan had a very solid start, but had to since his main competition, Rich Hill, was just about […]

Weighing Bryce Harper

Bryce Harper had no where to go but down after being hyped as Lebron James last June.  Questions arose after uneven moments in his play last summer, then again at the start of the college season.  Nationals GM, Mike Rizzo, who will pick first in the amateur draft in three months, must decide whether the […]

Roger Clemens Unplugged: The Rocket Breaks His Silence

“Jon, it’s Roger Clemens. Did I get you at a bad time?” It’s a phone call I’d been expecting for a couple of days—and a conversation I’d been trying to have for about a year—but yes, it was a bad time. Clemens had reached me as I was returning home on the Long Island Railroad. […]

Roger Talks, and the Seamheads.com Team Responds

After new Seamheads.com writer Jon Pessah sat down and talked with Roger Clemens last month, he polled his fellow Seamheads for their take on the Rocket and his place in baseball. Here’s the transcript of the conversation that followed. “I used to be the biggest Roger Clemens fan alive. Then he left the Sox and I […]

More Interesting Research Finds

One of the pleasures of doing research for a book or article is the discovery of interesting facts that have nothing to do with what’s being researched, but demand attention.  Here are more interesting and odd research finds that I’ve discovered over the years. Famous Last Words October 19, 1912: When Philadelphia Athletics magnate Connie […]

Rambling on About My Glory Days – Spring Training: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

“Jack, you are like a son to me, but we have to send you down.” If I heard those words from manager Tommy Lasorda once, it seemed like I heard them a thousand times. I wanted to respond with, “Could you consider me a distant cousin or something instead, and keep me on the team?” […]

The Owner Was a Spy

One of the bigger Renaissance men in baseball was Mike Burke.  And when I say Renaissance man, I don’t mean that he went to fairs, got stoned and LARPed on weekends.  He didn’t need to do that.  He was a veteran of the OSS and the CIA.  Before that, he was a football star at […]

Still Just Spring Training

At least there was a reason. Brad Penny was one of the most intriguing names brought into St. Louis during the offseason.  A lot of us were interested to see what this guy, who had been a very successful pitcher in the past, could do with Dave Duncan’s tutelage.  So seeing the results yesterday would […]

Padres to Honor Nay Hernandez

Baseball historian Bill Swank is a guy who doesn’t give up easily. In fact, he’s the kind of person who never lets go once he’s got his claws into something. In this case, its Bill’s long fought dream to have Manuel P. “Nay” Hernandez recognized by the San Diego Padres baseball club. I’m guessing the […]

One Season Hitting Wonder, But Major League Lumber Man: Otto Schomberg

Otto H. Schomberg was born in Milwaukee on November 15, 1864. His father, Henry, (listed as Schoemberg in the 1865 City of Milwaukee Directory) was a cooper, working and living at 710 West Lloyd Street.1 Otto Schomberg first appeared in a City of Milwaukee Directory in 1880 as a laborer, living at 721 7th Street […]

Stumbling Out of the Gate

Well, that wasn’t the way Cardinal fans wanted to see things get started. OK, let’s put in the usual disclaimers.  It was a spring training game.  Most of the regulars weren’t in there, and you can’t take a lot away from one game, especially the first of the year.  So I’m not drawing any conclusions […]

Two-Thirds of Players Who Start in Independent Play And Reach the Majors Are Pitchers

Among all players who would like to be the next success story by playing their first professional game in an Independent league and later making it to the major leagues, pitchers Aaron Crow, Pete Parise and Tanner Scheppers have to be the three leading candidates. It is pretty basic reasoning since they are in big-league […]

My Time With Ben Chapman

Unlike my esteemed colleagues on this website, I am not a baseball historian. I am not a professional baseball writer. Nor have I ever played the game professionally. So as you read this article, please keep that in mind. What I am however, is a life-long fan of the game of baseball. I played it […]

Let’s Play Some Ball

I check the weather forecast and it’s supposed to be in the sixties this weekend.  I can see the sun coming up earlier and earlier and staying up later and later.  Those might be signs, but the real indicator that spring is returning comes today, as the Cardinals take on another MLB team.  Baseball games […]

Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly as Prospects

One of the major themes of spring training, of course, is the emergence of new stars: in some cases, they’re prospects who’ve been waiting impatiently for a chance to establish themselves in the majors. A while ago I looked up reports on Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly as they were exhibiting that mood of impatience. […]

Seamheads.com Beefs Up Its Roster For 2010

Recently I put out a call for new writers and was floored by the response.  In just a week, we’ve added 36 new writers, a lot of whom are professionals or have had the pleasure of covering baseball during their lives, including Sean Lahman, Gabriel Schechter, and former ESPN senior writer Jon Pessah, who helped […]

Managing Service Time Vital For Indians And Other Teams

With the Indians making the announcement last week that with the signing of Russell Branyan he would become the everyday first baseman, it came as a surprise to many. As a result, it has sent a shockwave which is going to be felt by either first baseman/outfielder Matt LaPorta or outfielder Michael Brantley where one […]

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