2009: The year in review

The second calendar year for the Ball Caps Blog is coming to a close, and I’m happy that I’ve sustained it for that long. Regular posting is the key to building blog traffic, the experts say, and my experience with this blog bears that out. In a couple of stretches I tried to post daily […]

Switching caps (again): Mark DeRosa

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Mark+DeRosa&iid=5056280″ src=”3/b/e/3/Mark_DeRosa_meets_d307.JPG?adImageId=8722277&imageId=5056280″ width=”234″ height=”305″ /] Mark DeRosa joined a new team today, the San Francisco Giants. As a Giants fan, I’m pleased. Assuming he keeps pace with his performance in recent years, he’ll add some pop to what has been an anemic offense the last year or two. After seven years with […]

A merry Christmas to all!

To all readers of the Ball Caps Blog, a merry Christmas! Our last-minute shopping is pretty much done, although I need to do a final check for stocking stuffers and may need to make a late dash to the drugstore. For our morning errands, I was sporting my 1948 Cleveland Indians cap.

A tip of the cap to 49ers broadcast analyst Gary Plummer

Fans who spend their lives rooting for one team in one town and listening only to the hometown announcers don’t have much of a basis for comparison of the men and women behind the microphones. As a kid in Cleveland, after the Indians’ games I’d catch a few innings when atmospheric conditions were right from […]

The Granderson trade: Grist for the Yankee-haters’ mill

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=curtis+granderson&iid=4994621″ src=”0/9/d/f/Detroit_Tigers_vs_a152.JPG?adImageId=8153941&imageId=4994621″ width=”234″ height=”159″ /] The floats that rolled down the Canyon of Heroes in the World Series victory parade have barely cooled their engines and the New York Yankees are already bolstering their formidable roster. The details aren’t final, but at the winter meetings in Indianapolis the Yanks have engineered a […]

Don’t bother Tiger Woods, officer. He’s sleeping.

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Tiger+Woods&iid=7029112″ src=”9/9/1/c/2009_Australian_Masters_8b90.jpg?adImageId=7920619&imageId=7029112″ width=”234″ height=”150″ /]Before the Tiger Woods story erupted this Thanksgiving weekend, I’d been ruminating on the differences between elite athletes and us mere men and women. Highly paid pro athletes like Woods in golf or Alex Rodriguez in baseball or LeBron James in basketball exist on a plane at which most of us mortals […]

Baseball and Black Friday

This is Black Friday, when millions of bargain-crazed Americans head to the malls to shop for deeply discounted merchandise. The only purchases I’ve made today have been on behalf of my son: at the doctor’s office, the pharmacy and – in a weak moment – an online gaming site. If you’re a baseball fan and […]

Life without baseball

This is a fits-and-starts blog. Despite my best intentions to post regularly, I sometimes get in a funk and let several days go by without a post. This past stretch of radio silence has been one of the longest, and I intend to correct that in the days ahead. Where have I been spending my […]

PicApp gets the cap wrog

WordPress, which I dearly love, recently introduced PicApp images for use on our blogs. I just signed up and in my first search – for “baseball” — was pleased to find photos of celebrities and athletes wearing baseball caps and golf caps. The first image to catch my eye was this one of singer Katy […]

An off day for baseball, and a glimpse at winter

Friday was an off day for the 2009 World Series, a reminder that the season is nearly over. Baseball is the daily game, and its rhythm regulates our lives most of the year. It’s the oldest and most established of our spectator sports, and I find it the most American of all. There’s a doctoral […]