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…
The summer that I was 20, I worked in the D.C. bureau of a newspaper chain. It was a pretty good gig, so far as these internships go: I got to do some real reporting and make a stupid face in the background of a White House press briefing on C-SPAN2, and it paid above…
The last notable pitcher we could find who dealt with this specific injury was J.J. Putz, who missed about five weeks with it as a Mariner in 2008. Putz, however, struggled with elbow issues the next season while with the Mets, eventually needing surgery to remove bone spurs. Putz, now a special assistant with the…
Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News put out this update on the condition of Tim Lincecum, who was shelved with a blister before the season started and was moved to the 60-day disabled list last week. Here are the saddest portions: 5. The phrase “attacked by a raging blister” It’s not just any blister, but an…
As a kid, I had no routine that I loved quite so much as that of my nightly bedtime story, and for quite a while, there was no source of that story that I loved quite so much as Indians Baseball: 100 Years of Memories. The book wasn’t meant to be used as a collection…
The British Virgin Islands Marlins celebrate home runs by setting off the miniature volcano in left field. “This is just how the islands themselves were created!” the team’s publicity office crows when the great gurgling mass is unveiled. When a television reporter discovers a few weeks later that the “highly technical live-action sculpture” actually runs…
Story co-credit: W.C. Heinz // Photo credit: © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports They were staring at their phones, the weather app reading 37, when it began, there, under the clouds, in the heart of the big apple. Three-thirty, but on it went. Windbreakers screeching during opening workouts from them, there, running and walking and in…
A few years ago, Emma Span published an article here at Baseball Prospectus on the subject of baseball fanfiction, specifically all the many weird sex scenes and pairings that the genre offers. (Please read for the mention of the Kevin Millar/Keith Foulke/Jason Varitek threesome.) The sex is what people tend to focus on when they…
March is the worst month for baseball writing. There’s a fair case to be made for December or January, which are generally rather boring—but at least they’re unpretentiously so. They know that they’re boring. There is no great annual wave of writing that strains to make them any more interesting than they are. March, though:…
There’s a good reason so many dads across this nation love baseball: tinkering. Yes, friends, tinkering — that old-fashioned pastime that your father and his father’s father, and his father’s father have enjoyed. You can find the dad of today in the garage, fiddling with a part that isn’t quite right for a project in…
(photo credit: © Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports) four months old He doesn’t remember this part, of course, but looking back through the worn baby book that his mother keeps on a shelf near the television—he wonders if this shape, the first shape, was maybe the best one. Really, it wasn’t a shape at all. He’d…
(photo credit: © Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports) In the midst of their already-historic fire sale, the Miami Marlins recently announced that yet another head was rolling: The man who had, to that point, worn the suit known as Billy Marlin had been terminated from his position. While it was already sad and disturbing to see…
SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEW SCOREBOARD! • 8,369 sq ft • 258% larger than the old Coors Field board • 784 60-inch televisions • 6.8 million LEDs • HD1080P • Uniquely Colorado Rockies shape • Speaker enhancements on the lower bowl pic.twitter.com/dRMioPXnLr — Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) January 31, 2018 The National Portrait Gallery was, for…
(photo: © Kenny Karst-USA TODAY Sports) The job doesn’t sound bad. It sounds pretty good, even—certainly better than the ice cream parlor where he’d had to sing for tips, and probably better than the telemarketing gig. “Don’t tell anyone, but I actually think being the mascot’s assistant is more fun than being the mascot,” a…
Derek Jeter does not like the donger machine. I have a suggestion for Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter can eat a six-foot bucket of—no? I’m being told no. Here’s what you do, since you want to be rid of it so bad. You put the thing on the bed of a large truck. Military-size truck, probably,…
It’s very easy to create a national holiday. Not a federal bank holiday—that’s very hard—but an entry on the National Day Calendar. Here’s what you have to do: be a company, fill out an application explaining why your brand needs a national day, get approved by the selection committee, reap the glory of a media…