Here is a ruthless summary the previous day’s baseball proceedings from the Toronto Globe on June 6th, 1888: LEATHER HUNTING AT BUFFALO BUFFALO, June 5 — Today’s result may have reduced Mr. Fanning’s opinion of his ability to pitch good ball. Even that is doubtful. The main point now with Mr. Fanning is the opinion…
If you search Mike Trout’s Twitter account for the airplane emoji, you will find 168 tweets in which it is paired with some number of exclamation marks and often accompanying the name of a city. The first such tweet dates back to September 18th, 2013, the day the Angels ended a 10-game road trip and…
1. The crows complaining from the maple tree outside the window sound enough like that one row of fans in Philadelphia in 2006, Mike Lieberthal at the plate in the second game of the September 3 double-header against Atlanta, the one that isn’t the one where Ryan Howard hit three home runs. Lieberthal stands in…
The thing about parachute day was that you never knew it was coming. An elementary school gym class would simply arrive to the boxy combination gymnasium/auditorium and there it would be: a massive circle of silk as bright as a circus tent, making even the glare from the industrial fluorescent lights in their basketball-proof wire…
In addition to coaching the Chicago White Sox Class-A Advanced affiliate, the Winston-Salem Dash, former defensive wizard Omar Vizquel maintains an Instagram account. On said account, one finds the kinds of things one might expect to encounter in the life of a retired professional athlete: photos and videos from his work as a coach, travel…
Whatever is a baseball writer to do? Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich each took home MVP awards last night. The night before, Blake Snell and Jacob deGrom took home Cy Young honors. And earlier this week Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña were rewarded with Rookie of the Year awards. These choices are all…good? Look, I’m…
Major League Baseball used to take the whole “don’t break news during the postseason” pretty seriously. Calvin Griffith, for instance, was once beaten with a sack of oranges for announcing he was going to explore paying his players in company scrip in 1983.* *Do not fact-check this. But times change. Recently, the Commissioner has politely…
We do not each have our own true purpose, Albert Camus theorized in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was happy because he had a specific purpose and fulfilled it, and that’s the end of the list of folks who can find pleasure down that avenue. But that is okay! Now you know. Folks are…
During the top of the 7th inning in Saturday’s Dodgers-Brewers contest, the camera’s gaze took on an increased intensity. After Corbin Burnes walked Max Muncy and gave up singles to Manny Machado and Cody Bellinger, Jeremy Jeffress took the mound for Milwaukee. Joc Pederson served up a single. With the bases loaded and the Dodgers…
The closest I ever got to possessing a baseball used in a major league setting was PNC Park in 2001. Some Arizona Diamondbacks player drilled a batting practice ball almost to the seats. I was in the outfield first row and reached to grab it. Some player instead caught it right under me, then turned…
With the end of the Major League Baseball regular season coming on Sunday, this may be my last chance to write about Joe Mauer as an active player (and get paid to do it). As a lifelong Twins fan (who appreciates monetary compensation), I would be a fool not to. But what is there to…
I am a 40-year-old man who still plays video games. I say that (both parts of that, actually) with a not-insignificant amount of shame. I know I thought, at several points in my adult life, that I should probably give them up, but then I also discovered a level of disposable income, occasional free time…