Sept. 24, 1883. Roxburgh, of the Leadvilles, catches without a mask. How long will he continue it probably depends upon the number of fouls he is called on to catch. One of the audience remarked recently it reminded him of the engineer’s opinion of the Indian who attempted to stop a train by standing on […]

Spring training is a lot like life, sometimes you have an opportunity that becomes a jewel in your eyes, something that can solve all your problems and inevitably it slips from your fingers, leaving you pondering how it could have fallen to the wayside so swiftly. In baseball sometimes your team has player who is […]

There are 216  single stitches on a baseball (which some people call 108  double stitches). 216 reasons to love baseball, 216 tiny threads holding together a 5 ounce sphere that is only 9 inches in circumference. 216 is a random number, I have no idea why it’s not 214 or 218 or 312 stitches, but […]

Somewhere these two men are smiling “One of the dumbest ejections I’ve ever had,” Ed Montague, a 31-year veteran whose report to the Commissioner’s Office will also include how Bowa, in full tantrum mode Tuesday night, repeatedly bumped manager Joe Torre into the umpire during the ensuing meltdown. Larry Bowa… a man born a century […]

I stumbled across this article on managing in the Bill James “1988 Baseball Abstract” I quote: A managers duties can be broken down into three distinct areas: 1. Game level decision making.2. Team level decision making3. Personal management and instruction In best I can estimate, a manager makes about 70 game level decisions a game, […]

“We got fired at Minnesota, we got fired at Detroit, we got fired at Texas.” Art Fowler Earlier this week the baseball lost a character who was in the game for 30 plus years, and unbeknown to most Reds fans he had a link to the Reds. When Art Fowler finally got into the Reds […]

“Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms… The game of ball is glorious.” Walt Whitman The winter in the Pacific Northwest is one of short days and long nights. It’s a lot like Michigan, just not as cold. In Michigan the winters were spent […]

Keeping with the winter theme and the long stretch between pitches we’ll pull away from the holidays and focus on the wonders that the game brings to those encumbered by the cold or in other cases as we’ll see distance from the origins the baseball we watch here in the US of A. First let’s […]

“You know how much stuff he had? He had a nickel curve, a nickel fast ball, a purpose pitch and a million dollars worth of heart, that’s what he had.” Gene Mauch On Fred Hutchinson. Do you know your team? Do you know the patterns that they drag you through, the whims that the men […]

“He grabbed me and said, ‘I didn’t have the ball’ and then he punched me. … I was trying to pick up my helmet. I tried to take a step around him and he grabbed me. I thought he was going to say ‘Hey, are you OK?’ And I was going to say the same […]