Watching the Yankees’ AA team tear it up

On Tuesday evening I drove an hour north to watch the New York Yankees’ AA affiliate Somerset Patriots clobber the New Hampshire Fisher Cats 12-1 at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The Patriots pounced on the Cats, a Toronto Bluejays affiliate, for five runs in the first inning and six in the second. […]

Mike Krukow: A fan’s appreciation

Mike Krukow has announced that he’s retiring from broadcasting San Francisco Giants’ baseball games at the end of the season. All good things must come to an end, and Kruk’s 36 years of providing color commentary were a very, very good thing. Having moved to New Jersey 14 years ago, I no longer catch his […]

Where have you gone, Billy Dick?

On a whim the other day, I asked Google to find pro baseball players from my hometown, Cleveland Heights, Ohio. I grew up knowing that Steve Stone went to Brush High School in neighboring South Euclid, and that Mike Hegan and Gary Roggenburk attended my high school, St. Ignatius in Cleveland. As with many of […]

Another great outing to Baltimore and the Orioles

For the fourth consecutive year, I headed to Baltimore for a baseball wallow with my brother-in-law and two of my nephews. We took in three Orioles games at Camden Yards in which the home team defeated the Chicago Cubs once and the Kansas City Royals twice. For the O’s, it was the front end of […]

Retirement treat: A Philadelphia Phillies day game

My retirement from Princeton University took effect Wednesday, and I thought catching the first available day game at Citizens Bank Park would be a dandy way to celebrate. I drove to Philadelphia late this morning, knowing that I’d likely roast in a heat wave promising a triple-digit high temperature. Roast I did, along with 38,000 […]

Knicks win, and I remember the old champs

I didn’t watch one minute of the series. Yet I was rooting for the New York Knicks to win the NBA championship, which they did by dispatching the San Antonio Spurs 4 games to 1 last night. Although I grew up in Cleveland, I was a Knicks fan in my early years, cheering the New […]

Unexpected find: new baseball caps at an antique store

In my first season of organized youth baseball, I played for the Red Sox in the Tris Speaker baseball league in suburban Cleveland. Now, 60 years later, I finally have an actual Red Sox cap. It’s not the same cap the BoSox wear at Fenway Park, but it’s a fine replica, one I found unexpectedly […]

The ‘Bible of Baseball’ goes to the gamblers

As a teenager, I couldn’t wait for the mailman (in those pre-gender neutral letter carrier days) to stuff my copy of The Sporting News into our mailbox on Erieview Road in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. I read — no, scoured — that newsprint magazine cover to cover, reading the columns by Joe Falls out of Detroit […]

PitchCom: No more shaking off signals

It has slowly dawned on me over this baseball season that a ritual component of the game has gone the way of barehanded fielders. What’s missing? The pitcher shaking off signs from the catcher on which pitch to throw. PitchCom, the secure way for hurlers to get instructions on the next pitch from the catcher […]

Another manager bites the dust

The Philadelphia Phillies fired Rob Thomson as manager today, an inevitable outcome after the Phils got off to a terrible start to the 2026 season. Never mind that Thompson guided the Fightin’ Phils to winning records under his tutelage for the four previous seasons. An ugly 9-11 start doomed Thomson, who I hope gets another […]