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I went to the Dodger game last night. In the eighth inning, the Diamondvision prompted a fan sing-along to a piece of big-haired 80′s drek that I won’t call “rock”. No, I don’t want to bring my kids to sing or hear MTV-raised “fans” who should know better sing “A singer in a smoky room [...]

OK, on the eve of taking my family to tonight’s Dodger game against the San Francisco Giants, I had a painful coffee-spraying guffaw, courtesy of Larry Dobrow the CBS Power Rankings: You know how y’all assume the writer of these rankings is completely biased against your favorite team? Well, let me come right out and [...]

I was a little sad to hear that Mike Piazza retired this week, unsigned and out of uniform. For Barry Bonds to fade out of baseball and disappear unclaimed and unwanted makes sense. It is unfortunate to see the greatest offensive catcher ever ride off into the sunset without a grand tour to let his [...]

Leave it to the illiterates at USA Today to title a story Ex-Yankee catcher’s memorabilia goes to auction. Ex-Yankee catcher? Ex?!? Made me think of some x-rated expletives! Thurman Munson never played for any other team. When he died in an airplane crash he was the captain of the Yankees. He died a Yankee. A [...]

I have never seen an article like Rob Neyer’s Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk today about a football or basketball story. Baseball box scores never die. Neyer does a spectacular forensic study in his new book “Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends“ of a story I read years ago about Thurman Munson and repeated [...]

OK, I was impressed with today’s one-pitch win by Joe Beimel, but troyfromwestvirginia is a Beimel-lovin’ freak. He’s recorded at least 5 YouTube videos about his icon and has this lovely animated Joe Beimel bobblehead as the background of his YouTube page. Way to go, Troy. You put fanatic in the word fan.

I was greeted at the office today with a trivia question… what is the fewest number of pitches needed to win a MLB game? The trap I fell into was thinking of starting pitchers and began thinking of 15, one pitch per batter for 5 innings in a rained-out game. Then someone at my office [...]

I’m conflicted. My brain tells me there is no such thing as a jinx. My heart tells me otherwise. The haunted expression of the construction worker who dug up the jersey of the Red Sox’s David Ortiz in the concrete of the Yankee Stadium-to-be tells me that more than a few fans believe strongly in [...]

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Archive

Clemens: You want answers? Congressman: I think I’m entitled to them. Clemens: You want answers? Congressman: I want the truth! Clemens: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has baseballs. And those balls have to be hit by men with bats. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Congressman? I have [...]

Congratulations to Rich “Goose” Gossage for being the only nominee to merit election to the Hall of Fame. I have a memory of Gossage pitching against Don Baylor of the Baltimore Orioles during a night game. Goose was in his wind-up and the stadium lights went out for a moment. When the lights went on [...]

Forgive the mix of Scottish lyrics and the combination of Loch Lomond with Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken. The low road is the short “high” road of syringes of HGH and steroids, paved with lucrative contracts gained through performance enhancement… properly at the cost of immortalization in the shrine of Cooperstown’s Baseball [...]

The American idiom bet the farm is defined as to risk everything you have because you are certain of something. If baseball, and the prices that George Steinbrenner pays his player teaches us anything, there is no such thing as sure thing. My local Dodgers are blessed with a good farm system and some young [...]

Commentary on the Mitchell Report on baseball player doping… Where’s a Jimmy Dugan to straighten out this mess? Baseball’s pathetic owners wouldn’t allow an actual lover of the game like Bob Costas or George Will to clean house and ruin their poker game.

I’m usually the last to leave my office. Around 6pm, Maurice comes to our building to tidy the four suites on our floor and the one suite on the floor below ours. Tonight he asked me how he thought “our Dodgers” would do this year, and the conversation turned to my asking him when he [...]

Major League Baseball players listed in the Mitchell Report The following players were connected to steroids, either use or possession, in the report: Chad Allen — 2007 team: Played in Japan An outfielder who played with four teams in Major League Baseball between 1999 and 2005, the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Indians, Florida Marlins, and Texas [...]

Let me start off. I grew up a Yankee fan. I lived in the pre-cable Little Leaguer’s heaven equidistant between New York City and Philadelphia and could watch 3, count ‘em, 3 baseball games most summer afternoons. I could watch the Yankees with Phil Rizzuto calling the plays on WPIX channel 11, the Mets with [...]

Asking men… [poll=2] REUTERS: Kimberly Bell, 37, spoke to Reuters ahead of the Friday publication of a nude pictorial spread in Playboy in which she discusses a romance that started in 1994 and continued into Bonds’ second marriage. … Bell, who used to work as a graphic designer in the San Francisco area but now [...]

Two players in the modern era were virtual Rocks of Gibraltar on the basepaths. You might think of typically constrained positions players like catchers or career firstbasemen… but you’d be wrong. Both players played the majority of their games in the outfield. Only 415 players in history lasted long enough to acquire 6000 at-bats. One [...]

You know, I was going to photoshop something using the Six Million Dollar Man and his bionic arm, but that’s so dated… you can’t even get a middle reliever for $6M these days. Barry Bonds’ HR Record Tainted by Elbow ‘Armor’? By Michael Witte Published: August 06, 2007 10:45 AM NEW YORK (Commentary) Beyond his [...]

For the rest of the month or so, Roger Clemens is back to being the oldest active player in MLB. As of this writing, Clemens (6-4, 44k, 4.04 ERA) is beating his old team, Toronto, 3-0 in the third inning. August 1: Braves drop Franco but want him back August 7: Franco assigned to Class [...]

Um… my GeezerWatch: Rocket Man Roger Clemens – Now the Oldest Active MLB Baseball Player article was premature: 48-year-old Franco returns to Braves Julio Franco will get another chance to swing the bat in the big leagues. The 48-year-old utilityman signed with Atlanta on Wednesday, rejoining the Braves a week after he was cut by [...]

ESPN’s Rob Neyer seems to be echoing the theme of my June 27 300 Wins Requires 120 Before 30 – Baseball Theory in his July 3 Somebody will win 300 again. Neyer picks Roy Oswalt and Johan Santana to reach 300 and omits Carlos Zambrano and Dontrelle Willis. No way, Neyer. We at least agree [...]

I’ve been following my Orosco number closely and it’s not looking good. Roger Clemens is good for only 3/4 of a season these days. Today, 48 year old Julio Franco was designated for assignment. Franco hit only .200 in 50 at-bats with one home run and eight RBIs. Mostly a pinch-hitter, he also played a [...]

There is one day a year where there are no NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL games. What is it? Charles can’t play. My America-centric apologies to fans of world sports like soccer’s World Cub and cycling‘s Tour de France.

Today is the last day to vote for the 2007 Baseball All Star Game. Who will get a “hammy pull” or minor injury on the Sunday before the game so they can spend 3 days off at home, insulting the fans who voted them in and gave them a chance to contribute to their league’s [...]

This is a golden age for old pitchers. We have two active pitchers, Roger Clemens (349) and Greg Maddux (339) having over 300 wins. There are two near-certain to pass the 300 milestone, Tom Glavine is within 4 and Randy Johnson is within 16 wins. After that the list of active pitchers drops off the [...]

The Oregon State Beavers lost. To UC. Bad. Totally outplayed. Not today in the run up to the college world series, but a few weeks ago on Memorial Day when they were here in town to play my alma mater, the UCLA Bruins. It’s not hard to tell that baseball rules in my house. Between [...]

Death makes us reflect on our mortality. With the passing of the Yankees’ 3B Clete Boyer today, I got to wondering about another fan-mortality milestone to join the Orosco Number (which is the count of active players younger than you), a statistic to indicate the number of living baseball Hall of Fame players older than [...]

Its 9:30 on a sunday morning and I’m standing on the sun scorched grass of a high school practice field watching 10 little boys in bright orange Tiger jerseys facing down one loan Met with a 29 inch aluminum bat in his hands. Standing on first and ready to run is another little Met. Everybody [...]

I’ve been following the coverage of doping in the cycling world over at Bicycle.Net and thinking a bit about the nature and value of sports. In the 1730s the RamChaL, an Italian Jewish philosopher and Kabbalistic mystic, wrote a guidebook to doping and cheating in sports. Well, he probably didn’t have sports in mind when [...]

Good Jesse Orosco Number news for geezers who are far from the Wheelchair Brigade. 44 year old Roger Clemens is coming back this summer. 48 year old Rickey Henderson wants to: “Seeing Roger come back, all the seed that it plants is ask me to come back one time,” Henderson said Tuesday in the Mets [...]

Here in Los Angeles we had a much-needed rain today. Los Angeles averages 15″ per year of rain. As of March, we had had only 2.42″. “The last time it was this dry was in 1923-1924 season when 2.50 inches of rain was recorded through March 22, 1924.” — Eric Boldt said from the National [...]

In 2000, the following essay I wrote appeared on the now-defunct comedy website ComedyWorld.com entitled “Thank God For Jesse Orosco”: I would like to say one thing at the start of the 2000 Baseball Season: Thank God for Jesse Orosco. I said this throughout the 1980’s when the New York Mets left-handed relief pitcher dominated [...]