People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for the sea to rise up and swallow me. This is a dramatic statement, I recognize. It’s the kind of statement we’re prone to making in 2018, a year of…
It’s fun to ask people why they like baseball. I ask all the time and I bet you already know the top five answers: “It’s something I used to do with my dad.” “I played it a lot when I was a kid.” “It’s beautiful.” “My friends are really into it. We go to the…
Last season, the Dodgers lost the World Series in the early days of November. They lost after drawing the series out to its full seven games, wringing every ounce of drama and emotion they could out of it — so much so that the defining seventh game was itself anemic, drained of any real conflict….
Mookie Betts stole second base in Game 1 of the 2018 World Series. He was anointed a hero for this. He was deemed the individual responsible for giving us all one free taco next week if we so desire one, because he was the first to steal a base in the best-of-seven contest. Mookie Betts…
When I stepped into the subway car parked on the fourth floor of the Whitney Museum, I was standing in a life-sized cartoon. The floor heaved beneath my feet and I could hear the train rattling on the tracks. The papier-mâché passengers had lavish faces four times the size of mine and they were doing…
Before composing Canto 34 to conclude his epic poem Inferno, Dante Alighieri was witness to the elimination of all four of his favorite teams in the 1318 National League and American League Division Series. Experts believe that in response, Dante composed a short poem titled, simply, Canto DS, in order to comfort fellow fans in…
The 1999 Mets are haunting me. Mike Kinkade keeps leaping out from corners to shout “Boo!” as I walk with four iced coffees. Jermaine Allensworth whispers my deepest darkest insecurities in my ear every night as I try to sleep. It’s rather rude. I tolerate this because they were members of the first baseball team…
I started playing Civilization recently. I really don’t know why–I’m incredibly busy with work I need to be doing and have little to no time to be spending building faux-historical empires on my computer screen, but one does what they will. It’s been a long time since I’ve played video games, really, since the Nintendo…
The Astros are blazing with power and flair, Bregman, Altuve, and Cole has his share, An ace with a 5.2 WAR and a Dragon, They’re hitting and running and stealing and tagging. The Astros could be a new dynasty, yet For my part, I’d rather see Betts. The Brewers have Miley and Yelich and Cain,…
He spoke directly, individually, and personally to them. Not to a mass audience, but to them, right there in their home… [Godfrey] launched his revolutionary notion by saying into the microphone the simple phrase, “How are you?” (Dick Cavett, Brief Encounters, 2015) This simple phrase helped Arthur Godfrey become one of the most influential legends…
Chris Carpenter touched first base and the Cardinals exploded in a firestorm, springing around the field like children at a party on a hot summer’s day. Ryan Howard crumpled on the first base line. One swing ended all his hopes of restoring himself as the player he once was. I wondered if anyone noticed. My…
My brother-in-law Tom Stofka was gentle and kind. He loved the outdoors, earning an advanced degree in forestry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tom probably should have spent his life climbing trees, but somehow he wound up working for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. By the time of his untimely death,…
At some point, I stopped locking the front door. Death is not the only disease. It’s the obvious one, though, especially at times like Tuesday night. Felix Hernandez threw the change-up, Robinson Chirinos reached out his wrist to meet it, and then both men winced in pain. One man healed. The metaphor is unavoidable, as…
Milwaukee y Atlanta añaden bateadores diestros veteranos que ofrecen muchas más opciones en sus alineaciones.
If the motion of time crests and recedes, raising some to greatness while obscuring the greatness of others like the second deadball era did to Jimmy Wynn, then I was born at the right time in terms of photography. I’ll admit it: I am awful when it comes to taking pictures. I have no eye…