2012 MLB Season Now In the Books: Time To Hand Out Some Awards

The STAY AT FIRST Award:  Jose Tabata of the Pirates.  He tried to steal 20 bases this season and was thrown out TWELVE times—a success rate of just 40%.  When this guy reached first base, coach Luis Silverio should have provided Tabata cement shoes in order for him to run NOWHERE. The PETE ROSE/GEORGE BRETT […]

Any Way You Look At It, Mike Trout Is The 2012 AL MVP

WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing; at least within the confines of this article. While they aren’t the end-all, be-all, I am a major proponent of advanced baseball stats because I believe they greatly enhance the understanding of many components of the game. Not everyone agrees, and traditionalists prefer more time-honored metrics like batting average, […]

Another Yankee Miracle in the Works‏

STAR STUDDED LINE UP AT “HURRICANE SANDY” BENEFIT CONCERT AT TILLES CENTER ON NOVEMBER 29TH AT 7:30 PM WITH JOSE FELICIANO AND LONG LIST OF TALENT November 10, 2012 (Brookville, NY). Music Power NY will host a benefit concert November 29th at 7:30 PM at the Tilles Center at LIU-Post in Brookville. The money raised will be used to directly […]

Baseball Folly Struck Out

They stopped playing baseball games for awhile last night, and I’m not very happy about that even though I was rooting for the team that won. Now we’re plunged The Void and, in this part of the country, facing the latest storm of the century. The wind is picking up outside my window, and my […]

Higher Education: The Chicago Cubs College of Coaches

An old proverb states that two heads are better than one. During the early part of the nineteen sixties, Cubs’ owner, Philip Wrigley took it a little further. He felt that eight heads were better than one. Wrigley decided to employ eight rotating managers. There would be four on the major league staff and four […]

The 1890 St. Louis Browns: Growth Through Chaos

After their streak of four straight American Association (AA) pennants was terminated by Brooklyn in 1889, the Browns found themselves having to completely regroup for the 1890 season. While the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players (Brotherhood) was composed of National League (NL) players, when it organized the Players’ National League, most of the Browns’ […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1902-1906 Negro Leagues

The newest update to the Negro Leagues DB adds no fewer than five deadball seasons—1902 through 1906—plus a number of additional games for later seasons, and lots of new and corrected biographical information. We loosely use the term “season” here, as the farther back you go in history, the fewer and fewer games African American […]

Dick Bosman Talks Strasburg Innings Limit and More

As the roving minor league pitching instructor for the Tampa Bay Rays, former Senators pitcher Dick Bosman has helped groom some of the best pitching talent in the majors. I asked Dick to comment on the Washington Nationals handling of Stephen Strasburg this season on our podcast show Friday night. The response was one of the most […]

19 to 21…Miggy’s Triple Crown

It’s been an interesting year for players named “Cabrera.” First, the Melkman looked to be on his way to the National League MVP award plus a batting crown. Then, a little matter of PEDs cropped up, and Melky took a seat on the sidelines for the Giants’ last 45 games or so. However, the issue […]

Is Nick Swisher Hair Today and Gone Tomorrow?

It hasn’t been an especially good 2012 post-season for Nick Swisher. Mired in a miserable 4 for 26 slump, Swisher through seven post season games is hitting an anemic .154, with only one double and one run batted in. Over his entire post-season career, he has an embarrassing stat line of 1 for 34 with […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1924 ECL & NNL

This week we’ve added the 1924 Negro leagues, both the Negro National League and Eastern Colored League.  This year marked the end of the war between the leagues and saw the champions meet in the first Colored World Series, one of the classic postseason series of all time. The ECL expanded to eight teams, adding […]

The 1890 Athletics: The Worst Team in Major League Baseball History

The worst team in Major League Baseball history. It didn’t start off that way, of course. But a series of twists and turns brought the Athletics to that point. Ordinarily, losing three regulars and your pitching ace, and replacing them with career minor leaguers and faded veterans isn’t a recipe for success. But 1890 was […]

Brewers Lose a Manager 100 Years Ago

Managers have been fired in baseball since the beginning, so that the Brewers would let a manager go in 1912 is not a big story. But very seldom was the situation aired out in the press as this story was. As the Milwaukee Brewer manager story of late 1912 involves a future Hall of Fame […]

Yes, Keith, There Is a Place for a Street Fighting Man

Philadelphia sports fans have a special place in the heart of Washington, DC sports fans. The verbal and very physical abuse the former have heaped upon the latter at hockey games in the City of Brotherly Love have been documented in the press and need no further mention. But that is hockey, a blood lust […]

How Yunel Escobar Showed Baseball is Failing to Represent Itself as America’s Pastime

It was announced this week that another major league player had been caught and subsequently reprimanded for offensive language/behavior. The player in this most recent incident was Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Yunel Escobar, who wrote a Spanish gay slur on his eye black, which he wore during a game. Major League Baseball reacted quickly, investigating […]

MLB Gets the Elevator, Washington Baseball Fans Get the Shaft–Again

The playoff season looms in a scant two weeks and ESPN, Sports Illustrated and the rest of the sports media are abuzz with September pennant race fever. That very special form of madness has lain dormant all these many years in Washington, DC. but it is spreading quickly. Yet in this city where October surprises […]

The 1985 California Angels

The Angels attempted to regroup after two consecutive seasons in which they failed to live up to their potential. Gene Mauch replaced John McNamara, reprising his role as manager after a two-year hiatus. California promoted Mike Port to the dual role of Executive Vice President and General Manager in September 1984. Port allowed ten players […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1913-14 AND 1914-15 Cuban National League

The addition of the 1913/14 and 1914/15 Cuban National (Winter) Leagues now gives us a complete run of the Cuban Winter Leagues from 1902/03 thru 1914/15. This was a time period when many of the top Negro League players played in Cuba during the winter. During this same time, several Cuban teams would play against […]

Strasburg Saga: Open Letter to Nats GM

Dear Mike Rizzo, I am so disgusted with the handling of Operation Shutdown.  As a baseball fan, Stephen Strasburg is one of the great reasons to watch the game.  His overpowering fastball, devastating slider, change-up, and wicked curveball make him a marvel to witness. The Nationals will not win the World Series without their ace right-hander. […]

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1907 National Association of Colored Professional Clubs of the United States and Cuba

Contrary to popular belief, blackball teams playing in a ‘real’ league did not begin in 1920.  In 1886, there was an attempt to start a 10 team “Southern Colored Base Ballist” league.  In 1887, the National Colored Baseball League managed to play 13 league games before folding.  The 1906 “ILIP League” (International League of Independent […]

The Wally Moses All-Stars: Part I

In 1937, 26-year-old Philadelphia Athletics right fielder Wally Moses enjoyed a career year, hitting .320 with 25 homers, 86 RBIs, 113 runs, 208 hits, 48 doubles and 13 triples.  It wasn’t necessarily a surprise considering he’d batted .345 the year before and racked up 202 hits and 98 runs in 146 games.  But the home […]

Touring The Bases With…Jim Rooker

Southpaw pitcher Jim Rooker made his major league debut on June 30, 1968 with the eventual world champion Detroit Tigers and spent 13 years in the bigs with the Tigers, Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirate before making his final appearance on May 2, 1980.   A year earlier, Rooker was a member of the […]

The 1971 World Series, Game 5: “I don’t need signs to catch your junk.”

In his book STEVE BLASS: A Pirate for Life , the former Pirates’ pitcher writes: “The reality of a pitcher’s relationship with his catcher is that when he’s on a roll, he is almost his own decision maker. By throwing a pitch that the catcher calls for, you endorse their sign. But if you don’t […]

The Oregon Stadium Campaign: The Johnny Pesky Interview

Editor’s Note: The following is an interview conducted by my buddy Maury Brown, a fellow baseball fanatic and Oregonian and Baseball Prospectus columnist, in 2006. Is there such a thing as royalty in baseball? Probably not (although you could probably make a case for someone in cricket, but I digress). Are there some players that […]

Adam LaRoche, Washington National’s 2012 MVP?

For the four games against the Marlins, Adam LaRoche was 7-for-15 with three home runs and 7 RBI, an amazing offensive display. It has always been said of LaRoche that he is a strong second half player, but no one could have understood just what others were talking about until this past month. He is […]

The Infamous Trade Of ’72

The image of our sports heroes have become tarnished ever since Bouton’s infamous baseball diary, “Ball Four.” As Art Spander stated in his April 1973 column for The Sporting News, “Baseball is deceptively simple, a man throwing a ball, another trying to catch it.” Before Bouton’s book, the players we knew only went to church, […]

1933 Washington Senators, Baseball’s Most “Interesting” Team

Through games played Saturday July 28, the Washington Nationals were 20 games over .500. The last time a D.C.-based team reached those lofty heights was in 1933 when the then-Senators won the American League title. Baseball historians will never include that year’s Senators team with the best of all time. But I’ll make the case […]

Walter Johnson’s 1924 Innings Limit

The 2012 Washington Nationals have moved beyond any centennial comparisons to Clark Griffith’s inaugural year at the helm in DC. Yes, having Davey Johnson come aboard in Washington is a nice parallel, but that 1912 Nationals team trailed the Boston Red Sox–led by Smoky Joe Wood and Tris Speaker–the entire season. They remained in second […]

New Fangled Aeroplanes And Vaudville: Things Were Different 100 Years Ago

On the second of June 1912, an event took place that we today would find commonplace, but it was no doubt rather unusual 100 years ago. But to let us know the nature of the man involved in the story, we will need a few extra lines. Both the incident and the man are clearly […]

The Best Trade

Most discussions of baseball player trades seem to focus on lopsided deals, e.g., Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio. However, an old saying has it that the best trades (other than the ones you don’t make) are those that help both teams. With that in mind, I decided to attempt to find the most even trade […]

The Top 5 All Star Game Programs To Collect

When you have any type of hobby there are different levels and degrees that you can carry your interests to.  Sports always offer a wide variety in general, from casual follower to the beloved degenerate gambler who would put money on anything, to the collector of artifacts and memorabilia.  Of the four major sports, baseball […]

“The DH…and how it’ll never last!”

This year is the 39th anniversary of the American League’s adoption of the “designated hitter.”  Because of that, I wish that I still had my sophomore English report  that I in wrote 1972.  If my memory serves me, at the conclusion I predicted that “The designated hitter will never last!” For those who know me […]

Bill Dahlen Named Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend

For Immediate Release Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Nineteenth Century Committee Bill Dahlen named Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend MINNEAPOLIS, MN, June 30, 2012 — Bill Dahlen has been selected the Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend for 2012 by the Nineteenth Century Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). The announcement was […]

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 […]

Jury Finds Clemens Not Guilty On All Charges

Jury finds Clemens not guilty on all charges (via AFP) Former Major League Baseball star Roger Clemens was acquitted on Monday on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstructing Congress for denying he took performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens was found not guilty by a federal jury on three charges of making a false statement under […]

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