Pass the hotdogs — and my change

It’s impossible to discuss the economics of Major League Baseball without discussing the “major market” and “small market” divide so eloquently illustrated in the movie “Moneyball.” Yet even the smallest of markets today is exponentially larger than the hundreds of small towns where baseball developed in its early decades. A nice perspective on baseball’s rural […]

This year’s spring training caps are hideous

Let me repeat that headline: This year’s spring training baseball caps are hideous. As my long blogging layoff will attest, I’ve paid little heed to the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues these past few weeks. So what I saw on a television set in a neighborhood shop a short while ago hit me harder than it […]

Originally posted on The On Deck Circle:
Honestly, I was not going to comment on yesterday’s Hall of Fame voting results. Too many keyboards have suffered enough over that topic the past couple of days. But I read a comment by a member of the BBWAA today that I have to admit irked me a…

A season without a seat in the stands

I’m looking back on the 2012 season and realizing that this is one of those rare years in which I didn’t see a major league baseball game in person. Having switched jobs and coasts in May, I left California before having a chance to see the Giants or Athletics play at home. My two cross-country […]

Hits and misses: The new MLB batting practice caps

The fabulous Uni Watch blog has a great rundown on the new batting practice caps that major league teams will be wearing this year. The design comments by Paul Lukas are excellent, and I give him a tip of the cap for noting the unbalanced use of serifs in the “P” on the Pirates’ cap. […]

And a happy Baseball Solstice to us, every one!

We’ve gotten past the Mayan apocalypse, so now we can move on and celebrate the Baseball Solstice. That’s the mid-point between the end of the World Series and the first exhibition game pitch of spring training, which we will celebrate this year in concert with Christmas. Unlike the winter solstice at Stonehenge, there is no […]

Bad dream for a Giants fan: Tim Lincecum in Cardinals red

What so troubled my sleep last night that I had a vivid dream in which Tim Lincecum was a member of the St. Louis Cardinals? Tim was standing just a few feet from me, wearing a red Cardinals cap as well as a red jacket. It was Timmy all right: The soul patch, the long […]

Great Baseball Books: ‘How to Star in Baseball’ by Herman L. Masin

An avid reader and aspiring ballplayer as a kid, I had one book in my hands more than any other: “How to Star in Baseball” by Herman L. Masin. That book was the Bible of Baseball to me. I studied its pages for hours and hours, reading up and memorizing the fine points of how […]

O Holy Cow: The Baseball Solstice coincides with Christmas

The high priests have looked to the sky and determined that the Baseball Solstice will coincide with Christmas this winter, to be celebrated from sundown on Christmas Eve to sundown Christmas Day. The Baseball Solstice, noted in this blog a year ago, marks the midpoint of the long layoff in play between the final out […]

Who’s the more aggrieved Bay Area athlete – Alex Smith or Brian Wilson?

There’s nothing “tender” in the dispensing of major league contracts to baseball players. San Francisco last week declined to offer a contract to Brian Wilson, the fierce and funky closer who in 2010 helped the Giants win their first World Series since the franchise bolted New York for the West Coast. Wilson has been rehabbing […]