rationality out of thin air (and elsewhere)
I GREW UP playing baseball, listening to it on the radio, watching it on television, collecting baseball cards, reading about it. My passion was tempered by the home run derbys of the ’90s, the ongoing PED issues, and my lingering belief that Pete Rose was somehow railroaded.
Still, it’s hard to complain too much when the Phillies, the Red Sox, the Cubbies, and the Astros have all won the World Series in the last ten years.
↓
SO YOU’RE NOT A BASEBALL FAN, but you agree to go to a game with your friend, the baseball nut. You happen upon a game that turns out to be two pitchers throwing no-hitters at the same time. Which usually means lots of strikeouts, no hits, few walks, few baserunners, and no runs. [Read more] “what the hell’s a “waa” in baseball lingo?”
ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN SPRING TRAINING just outside the Mets’ camp in Port St Lucie, Florida, Major League Baseball commissioner Bob Manfred and God are out for a walk. It’s the commissioner’s first real talk with The Almighty, and he has three questions—one about the possibility of another .400 hitter!—that [Read more] “when are we going to see the next .400 hitter?”
I DON’T HAVE MUCH TO SAY about the world of sports these days. I used to be a big major league baseball fan—I still have enough books to fill a good-sized shelf. And I mean the real baseball books: Bill James, Marvin Miller, and other insider accounts concentrating on the politics and realities of the game instead of the romance. [Read more] “if gomer pyle can forgive lance armstrong, so can we”
I GREW UP HEARING the refrain “Baseball and Ballantine” sung on endless commercials while watching Phillies games on television in Northeastern Pennsylvania in the early ’60s. Ballantine was a local brewery and its beer was very affordable and very popular. They sponsored the broadcast of the games because and what goes better together than beer and baseball? [Read more] “dock ellis and the psychedelic no-hitter (or ellis in wonderland)”
FROM TODAY’S SEATTLE TIMES (August 9, 2013, page C1) is a piece by Bob Finnegan titled “2 great talents, only 1 happy ending.” Finnegan covered the Mariners for the paper from 1982 until 2006. Here he recalls his vote for Ken Griffey Jr as the American League MVP in 1996, the year that Alex Rodriguez won instead
I am not going to quote the whole of Mr. [Read more] “recalling ken griffey jr’s purity”