Where extra does not mean free, just longer, and the outfielders have lost the brisk skip of earlier innings, a unit concludes only with a win and loss. Weeknights especially, more cost than boon to stay longer. Keith Law says no such thing as free baseball, only the unit known as a single game. This…
Have we considered this? Covering baseball, being immersed it, being able to walk up to it, listen to it, smell it and–albeit likely at the consequence of immediately revocation of my media credential–touch it, only increases the suspicion that it might actually suck. It lasts absolutely forever, demands constant travel, and touts a culture of…
When you were a kid, you thought you’d be an astronaut. You could think of nothing else. You borrowed all of those books from the library, memorized the constellations, begged for a telescope for Christmas, and then for your birthday, and then for the Christmas after that, at which point you finally gave up. As…
You can choose the family you spend your life with, but you can’t choose the family you’re born with, even if you know that some of them, given the opportunity, would certainly switch you out for someone else. As a child, you always say that you’re going to run away, that you’re going to the…
The ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia fell annually on February 15th. It was a great deal of fun by all accounts, and was celebrated for centuries, drawing a willing and rowdy crowd. It was a lewd, rude, and wildly popular festival that survived imperial Christianity until late into the 5th century. The day began at…
I am BP’s senior prospect writer. In that role, I must be able to give objective evaluations of players, without biases conscious or subconscious. These evaluations aren’t always positive, but it’s really fun when you find a dude that nobody else is on and he turns out to be pretty good. This is one of…
“And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot.” -Arthur Rimbaud And Pat Hughes says: As we pause 10 seconds for station identification. He says mental lapses are a thing of the past. It doesn’t hurt to raise his left arm. There was a playfulness— And Ron Santo says: I’m only eating a hot…
A field guide to how baseball players should interact with kids; a Tigers game just at the end of the world; and the anniversary of the Prince Fielder contract, the end of its own little world.
It would make sense to extend the netting completely across the ballpark, and maybe just have the ballpark covered in plexiglass with holes for the athletes to breathe. Because in the end we really treat athletes as zoo animals: creatures to observe, admire, and fervently believe that they are not us. Getting money to play…
My aunt may be advancing in years, but she remains a sharply engaged holiday shopper, securing her entire bounty by the end of November. That means any requests of jerseys for presents had to be locked in before the start of the offseason in earnest. For a young man in his early twenties who thought…
Don’t think about the last time you attended a funeral in Pittsburgh. Don’t think about your great aunt’s funeral on one of those cold gray days the city specializes in. A city with less sunshine than Seattle; a city clouded in funereal gray. Your sister stands next to you, and your shoes sink in the…
Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak in games gets way more attention, because he dated a famous actress. Those games contained various at bats — a large number, when you think about it — where he recorded an out. And that’s fine. A hit on a given day is a sign that you contributed something, and to…
Last year the signature event of the baseball industry was held in an upscale Disney resort hosted in a tiny tax shelter of a town carved out of Orlando that had a reported population of 47 in the last census. With a single lobby and accompanying bar, the initial thrill of hanging out with all…
I remember an evening in a warm cafe in Toronto, sitting with Ben, a United Church pastor. We had become friends after I persuaded his church to give sanctuary to a refugee named Ibrahim. We didn’t know that a Holocaust survivor lived nearby, and that Ibrahim’s presence near her home triggered old and dreadful fears….
Sure, Shed Long pic.twitter.com/O6r1Plwrox — James Fegan (@JRFegan) May 8, 2018 What other uses does Pensacola Blue Wahoos second baseman Shed Long’s weird plastic thing–which he places on his bat for wind resistance on practice swings–possibly have? (Note: It has his name on it. His name is Shed Long.) –A nametag, obviously. It’s unwieldy and…
So in the evening, again, we started ahead of the porters and went down and across the highways and through a deep thicket of strip malls and across a train depot to the stadium, where the ground was broken and the walking difficult, and afternoon sun was very hot. We walked until we reached the…