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Phantom Ball, With Video – And Monty (Updated)
In Spring Training of 2011 I wrote of the lost joy of pre-game “infield practice,” in which a team’s manager or coaches hit grounders and flies to their position players while barking out game...
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Ryan Howard – Saturday?
On the record the Phillies say that first baseman Ryan Howard, still recovering from his brutal Achilles injury on the last play of the team’s 2011 season, will be attempting to play back-to-back rehab...
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Steinbrenners Rob Reggie To Allay A-Rod
These are not your father’s Steinbrenners. For that matter, do they appear to be their father’s Steinbrenners. In four days it will have been two years since George Steinbrenner died, and in that time...
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The Epic Battle For World Series Home Field Adv…zzzzzz
In the nine years since baseball’s Think-of-Something-Anything response to the embarrassing 2002 All-Star Game tie, the gimmick – deciding which league would secure World Series home field advantage...
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Why Does MLB Put Players In This Position?
As Kansas City fans boo Robinson Cano during his live interview, sitting next to Derek Jeter, on MLB Network, this question: Why does MLB put the onus of who doesn’t participate in the All-Star Game...
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Of Hype And Baseball Cards In The Attic (Updated)
Sometimes – whether you merit it or not – you seed the Publicity Storm Cloud just right with the chemicals and you get eight inches of rain. Such it was yesterday when a respected memorabilia auction...
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Jose Bautista’s Injury: The View From 25 Feet Away
I haven’t witnessed something like this before. I haven’t even seen something like it live on television since Moises Alou cracked his ankle doing nothing more risky than rounding the bag at first....
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So: What Does Bryce Harper’s Hitting Coach DO?
Hadn’t visited with my friend Rick Eckstein since he worked with the kids on the anachronistically named Vermont Expos of the New York-Penn League in 2006. Tonight, as for all this year and in spring...
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Bye, Hanley. Bye, Marlins. Bye, Rays.
The Miami Marlins have dumped all of Hanley Ramirez’s contract (“an original Eovaldi - how lovely”). They have traded Omar Infante and Anibal Sanchez for a Detroit Tigers’ can’t-miss pitching prospect...
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FBI: “The” Honus Wagner Was Trimmed
In 1991, I got a call from my friend Matt Federgreen, the proprietor of the Beverly Hills Baseball Card Shop and my co-host for a little segment I did on each of my half-hour-long Sunday night...
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The Winner Of The Debate: Mike Trout
I am so old that the previous two Triple Crowns were won in a) the first year I had any awareness of the game, and b) the first year I was a true fan. I got kinda spoiled. It was – and is – a singular...
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Exclusive: Yanks, Marlins Talk A-Rod Trade (Confirmed)
Updated 10:45 PM EDT: ESPN New York’s Wallace Matthews has the moving parts of the Jeffrey Loria/Randy Levine conversations that kicked off the trade talk between the Marlins and Yankees about Alex...
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A-Rod And Miami: What We Know
I broke the news here yesterday that representatives of the Yankees and Marlins – later identified elsewhere as New York team president Randy Levine and Miami owner Jeffrey Loria – had discussed a...
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So, Are We Sure About These Tigers Scrimmages?
Ever seen this singular photo before? It is one of the few remaining documentations of the day a bright idea by the Boston Red Sox that wound up – in all likelihood – costing them the 1946 World...
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World Series Forecast
Here are the forecaster’s problems. The Detroit Tigers’ pitching dominance over the New York Yankees – the .144 OBA over four gruesome games – is not the indicator that you might think. The Yankees...
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The Marlins: A Modest Proposal
So. Time to take Marlins Park and: A) Disassemble it; B) Crate it; C) Sell It; D) Ship it to San Jose (or Oakland, or Portland, or San Bernardino, Austin/San Antonio/Round Rock, or – wherever). Now...
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The Non-SABRmetric Argument Against Miguel Cabrera
It was my privilege to be part of this morning’s MLB Network Hot Stove roundtable on the real election of 2012 – Cabrera v. Trout (reairs at 4 PM ET if you’re reading this before then). If you noticed...
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Marvin Miller, The Man Who Reinvented Baseball
Last season, $10,000 would have bought you eight front-row tickets to one regular season game at Yankee Stadium. In 1966, $10,000 was the average salary of a Major League Baseball Player. 1966 was not...
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Not Convicted? Not The Point (Updated)
This is the first time in my life – and this wish began when I was nine or ten – that I’m glad Santa never answered my request that he bring me a Hall of Fame ballot. Watching the handwringing by the...
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Nobody Elected to HOF: We Deserve It (Revised)
Well, this is it. Kindly pay your piper. Welcome those chickens coming home to roost. Please enjoy your Hall of Fame Day of Reckoning. The anecdotal accounts – and an invaluable “exit poll” – foresaw...
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