Cliff Lee Builds Drama With Every Pitch

When Cliff Lee poured three fastballs past Brett Gardner to end the eighth inning, it marked 122 of the best post-season pitches since Roy Halladay threw his no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. Lee did not have to finish this most recent of his numerous post-season gems. The Rangers busted the game open in the ninth […]

The Yankees Answer the Bell in Game One

A look at the toughness of the Yankees just as soon as Smithers brings me my vest made from real gorilla chest.  After the jump.

For a Few Dollars More

Cliff Lee is the best hired gun since Clint Eastwood starting taking himself too seriously. The Texas Rangers, born the expansion Washington Senators in 1961, went almost fifty years without winning a post-season series. Then like poor campesinos faced with hired guns from the hacienda, they brought in Cliff Lee. Cue the music as Cliff […]

Sorry Albert, It’s Votto’s Time

Ranking the 2010 NL MVP Candidates [Author’s note: Irony can be pretty ironic, I suppose. It’s not the first time that an MVP favorite tanked in the post-season, but Joey Votto did just that, going 1-for-10 against the Phillies as his Cincinnati Reds went three and out. It’s worthy to mention that the ballots from […]

Subplots of the 2010 Postseason

Taking a look at two worrying subplots of the 2010 MLB Postseason after the jump…

The Philly Phan’s Guide to the Playoffs

October baseball is now a rite of passage in Philadelphia. No longer are Phillies fans left to wonder about “next year” or suppose “what if” or try to convince themselves that they had better appreciate fall baseball because they may not see it again for awhile. No, not for the foreseeable future in this town. […]

Touring The Bases With…Mike Vaccaro

Mike Vaccaro is the lead sports columnist for the New York Post and the author of  The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, The Giants, and the Cast of Players, Pugs, and Politicos Who Reinvented the World Series in 1912, 1941: The Greatest Year in Sports and Emperors and Idiots.  He has won more than […]

Pink Slips and Resumes Are Being Readied Around Baseball

Oh that clock is a ticking louder and louder as the end of the big league season approaches on Sunday, and with it some big league skippers (and staff) are probably going to have a few sleepless nights in front of them over the next few days.  That’s if they have not already come to […]

Ken Burns: Same As He Never Was

Life can throw you a big fat knuckle ball. Thirty-three years ago, while writing a feature article for an alternative weekly paper, I spent a fall afternoon with a small documentary film company in western Massachusetts called Florentine. The three Hampshire College graduates based in the nearby village of Florence—Buddy Squires, Roger Sherman and Ken […]

MLB Team Snapshots

The Beautiful Mind level insanity around the AL Previews formula I’ve been tinkering with and referred to in these two posts should (hopefully) be done today. In an effort to not let the homework slow down our production, we thought it would be fun to take another stroll around the Major Leagues and see what each […]

Joe Girardi: The Perfect Modern Manager?

In our culture, villains are meticulous and cunning. Heroes jump off buildings and yell “yippee-kay-yay, mother-@#$%er!”

Unleashing the Loudon Hounds

Newest Atlantic League team name reflects culture and history of Loudoun County, Virginia DULLES, Va., September 21, 2010 – VIP Baseball, the partnership bringing professional baseball to Loudoun County, VA, is proud to introduce your Loudoun Hounds, the newest member of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Hounds were introduced at a major press […]

“Helping Those Who Have A Greater Need Than Our Own”

What’s the measure of a person?  How do you gauge his or her character? It’s the sort of question that people have been debating for years. Indeed, no less than the founder of the American Newspaper Guild, the late Heywood Campbell Broun, once weighed in on the topic. “Sports do not build character,” he remarked. […]

Bigger Than the Game: Bo, Boz, The Punky QB and How the ’80s Created the Modern Athlete

In a span of 366 days, four players changed the landscape of sports as we know it. Without the use of a hot tub time machine, author Michael Weinreb takes us back to 1986 in Bigger Than the Game: Bo, Boz, The Punky QB and How the ’80s Created the Modern Athlete, a remarkable study […]

How Does It Feel?

“Numbers merely describe the surface of baseball . . . No incisive statistical pocketknife, wielded however skillfully, can dissect and reveal the heart of baseball to the serious souls who study the game.” David Baldwin, Snake Jazz For the past few months I’ve been studying baseball and reading its literature almost exclusively, at the expense […]

Who’s the Alpha?

The battle over who’s the alpha dog of the American League East has commenced, and the Tampa Bay Rays drew first blood.

Costas, Olbermann, Schilling, Firestone Head All-Star Cast of Replay League Participants

Recently Seamheads.com partnered with Strat-O-Matic to run season replays and serve as their official podcast, and when I learned that Strat was going to be celebrating its 50th anniversary early in 2011, I decided to pull out all the stops, figuring what better way to celebrate than to run a replay league with teams run […]

Pete Rose: Justice Delivered, But Only Temporarily And Only In Theory

Twenty five years ago today one of the most hallowed records in baseball history was broken when Pete Rose singled to left field against San Diego Padres pitcher Eric Show (who’s tumultuous life and death were chronicled by ESPN’s Outside the Lines) for career hit number 4,192, passing the legendary Ty Cobb. Fireworks instantly went off […]

Power Arms of the Future

The original habitat for this post can be found here. Remember last year, when we wrote a piece on BAseball Reality Tour called Power Arms of the Future?  We wanted to celebrate how impressed we were with performances from young pitchers like Mat Latos, Tommy Hanson, and Neftali Feliz. As something we hope will be […]

Babe, Joe and Marilyn Monroe

There was something about his swing that caught Babe’s eye long before the country had a chance to admire it – long before songs would be written about him. It was 1933 and Babe Dahlgren was in his second full season as the first baseman for the San Francisco Mission Reds of the Pacific Coast […]

The Test of Leadership

“Management is doing things right,” the late management guru Peter Drucker once said. “Leadership is doing the right things.” I was reminded of that sage phrase after being emailed recently by Wanda Burbach, the wife of former New York Yankee pitcher, Bill Burbach. Born in 1947, in Dickeyville., Wisconsin, Burbach played parts of three seasons […]

Late Summer Concerns of a Yankee Fan

This summer, I’ve finished up a master’s degree and changed my relationship status to “married.”  I haven’t had a ton of time to watch my beloved Yankees, but I have observed as they’ve compiled the best record in the majors, along with the best run-differential in the league.  They’re in first place in the AL […]

Aroldis Chapman’s Fantastic Pitch f/x

The last time I tried to copy and paste a graph from Texas Leaguers Pitch f/x database, the information didn’t translate.  Let’s see if this works. Here is supposed to be the side angle of Aroldis Chapman pitches from his Major League debut two nights ago.  Notice the excellent tumbling, downward action of his offerings. […]

Seamheads.com Partners With Strat-O-Matic

I’m proud and pleased to announce that we at Seamheads.com have partnered with the Strat-O-Matic Game Company to run season replays and serve as Strat’s official podcast, which will be launched later this month.  Strat-O-Matic will be celebrating its 50th anniversary early in 2011 and to commemorate the occasion, we’ll be running a replay league […]

Former Baseball Player Charlie Maxwell Honored in Paw Paw, Michigan on Monument and Ball Diamond

Paw Paw, Michigan celebrated Charlie Maxwell Days on August 7- 8, 2010. The two day event started Saturday in downtown Paw Paw at the Carnegie Center. From 10:00 to 3:00, family, friends and fans were able to attend the open house and view a slide show and memorabilia. Following this event there was an open […]

The Famous Names of Not So Famous Players

Through the years a number of baseball players have became so well known that their fame transcended the game. Everyone knew who Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle were, even people who were not baseball fans. Then you have the players whose names attracted attention for other, more unfortunate reasons. Johnny Grubb, John Wockenfuss, […]

Ty Cobb Returns to Georgia!

Tyrus Raymond (The Georgia Peach) Cobb returned to his old stomping grounds of Atlanta, Augusta, Georgia and Aiken, South Carolina in the guise of Cobb impersonator and re-inactor, Norm Coleman of Half Moon Bay, California. Coleman was invited by SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research, to perform his one-man show, “Ty Cobb: The Greatest […]

Little Billy Makes His Play

Little Billy squeezed the handle of his new bat so hard his knuckles were glowing white. His new high performance stick with the composite barrel and optimum swing flex was supposed to eliminate all of his hitting flaws—at least that’s what his dad was banking on when he tossed his credit card onto the counter […]

Even 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 even more interesting and odd research finds that I’ve discovered over the past year. What Happens In Baltimore Stays in Baltimore January 8, […]

Taking the Challenge, Both Harper and the Nationals

Bryce Harper’s new teammates challenged the young man to fish or cut bait in the days before the August 16 signing deadline.  Stephen Strasburg said, “If he doesn’t want to play here, we don’t want him here.”   Ryan Zimmerman was almost as skeptical, saying in effect that he saw more maturity and character in […]

You Heard It Here First

Even though the Mets have entered the phone-it-in stage of the 2010 season, my wife and I found ourselves watching a couple of very good pitching duels between the Mets and Rockies the last two nights. First it was Mike Pelfrey outgunning Ubaldo Jimenez (17-2 coming into the game) to win 1-0. That game hinged […]

Seamheads at SABR 40

This is KJOK at your Seamheads anchor desk, reporting “almost live” from the SABR 40 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.   SABR 40 is the 40th annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research, which brings together authors, teachers, researchers and baseball fans for four days of baseball presentations, baseball history, baseball games, baseball road trips, […]

The Bud Selig Statue

The Milwaukee Brewers were brought back to life by Bud Selig and no one has done more for baseball in the second half of the 20th century–in Milwaukee that is–than Selig.  So having a statue to Selig outside Miller Park in Milwaukee–alongside Robin Yount and Hank Aaron??–what the heck, why not.  He tried to contract […]

Roy Firestone to Appear on Seamheads Podcast

Join Steve Lenox and Mike Lynch on “What’s On Second: The Seamheads.com Radio Hour” every Monday from 9:00-10:00 PM Eastern as they discuss the goings on in Major and Minor League Baseball. This week’s guests are Roy Firestone, a seven-time Emmy Award-winning and seven-time cable ACE Award-winning host, interviewer, narrator, writer, and producer. As the […]

Let’s Re-Elect Dizzy!

Here we go, folks–sing along with me. . . . As anyone knows who pays close attention To America’s favorite game, The announcers and writers do not have a “wing” In the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. Despite all the protests of well-meaning fans And colleagues of mikemen and scribes, The announcers and writers do not […]

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