Here’s to the Irish, especially the baseball players, on St. Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s day, everyone! I was pleased to find that there is an Irish-American Baseball Hall of Fame, thanks to a Google search and the Eddie Kranepool Society Mets blog. The 2011 inductions are on today at Foley’s Pub in New York City. The Irish and baseball have been joined like a firm grip on […]

Labor troubles, the NFL and a bit of perspective

National Football League owners and the players’ union broke off negotiations today, and a whole lot of stuff I don’t understand will follow. What I do understand is that if the football season is delayed or scrubbed, I will survive and life will go on. That’s a lesson I learned from the long Major League […]

Breaking baseball cap news: A protective helmet for pitchers

It’s a rare day when there’s breaking news on baseball caps, but today is one of them. The Easton-Bell helmet company has given a prototype protective pitcher’s helmet to a high school baseball player recovering from head trauma after being seriously hurt by a batted ball. The player is Gunnar Sandberg of Marin Catholic High […]

Twitter and baseball: A good match

Twitter has been around since 2006, but it was last year when it really took off. And 2010 was the year I discovered the power of Twitter for us baseball fans. It was early in the season when I started using the #SFGiants hashtag, and I unexpectedly found myself caught up in a loose-knit community […]

Alcohol and baseball: A dangerous combination

Austin Kearns of the Cleveland Indians was pulled over on a drunk driving charge in Kentucky. Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers was picked up in Florida for alleged DUI. And on Tuesday night this week, Coco Crisp of the Oakland Athletics was picked up on DUI and other charges in Arizona. This has not […]

For Oscar night, a list of my favorite baseball movies

Oscar takes center stage tonight at the annual Academy Awards, and this is a good time to reveal my list of favorite baseball movies. The list is just that: my favorites, influenced as much by sentiment and personal experience as it is by objective judgments on quality film-making. A few ground rules: It contains movies that […]

19th Century baseball: ‘Old Hoss’ book doesn’t disappoint

A brief update: Last night I polished off the last chapters of “Fifty-nine in ’84,” the biography of Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourn that I mentioned in a post a few days ago. The book by Edward Achorn was even better than I expected, bringing to life the game as it was played in the late […]

Gaining a new appreciation for the cactus in Cactus League

A family matter brought my wife and me to Tucson for a few days, the closest I’ve ever gotten to Spring Training in Arizona. While time did not permit us to travel north to the Phoenix area where the major league teams are training, I was able to stop by briefly at Hi Corbett Field […]

Spring training for readers: It’s time to report!

While major league teams are breaking out the bats and balls in Arizona and Florida, it’s time for fans to break out the baseball books. About 20 years ago, I started a personal tradition as spring approaches of finding a new book about baseball to read in anticipation of Opening Day. I have my 2011 […]

Iconic baseball caps: The original New York Mets

A pickup truck carrying a couple of young guys from a neighborhood softball team broke down on our street today. Eying their blue and orange uniforms, my wife asked, “Who are these guys, the New York Mets?” If my wife, who pays attention to baseball only by virtue of being married to an all-in fan, […]