An amazin’ Casey Stengel biography

Through my employer’s digital library, I checked out a copy of “Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character,” a book rich in baseball lore and laughs that I highly recommend. Author Marty Appel combed through many records and historical sources to pen this biography of “the Ol’ Perfessor.” Stengel was managing the Mets when I was a […]

Requiem for a Cubs fan

Bob Newhart has died, and it’s fair to say that any and all Americans who enjoyed his comedy are deeply saddened. I’m squarely in that category. I alway felt an affinity for Bob and his Bob Hartley character on the Bob Newhart Show. Newhart grew up in Chicago and was Jesuit-educated: St. Ignatius High School […]

Saying farewell to the Say Hey Kid

Willie Mays died last night at age 93, news that most Americans woke up to today. So did I, by checking the text my daughter sent me last night shortly after I’d dropped off to sleep. Although I never saw Willie play in person, I saw him play on TV in many an All-Star game […]

A Father’s Day treat: Trenton Thunder baseball

For Father’s Day, I treated myself to a Trenton Thunder baseball game, spending an enjoyable couple of hours in New Jersey’s capital city as the home team fell 8-3 to the Mahoning Valley Scrappers. This was only the second time I’d been to a game in Trenton. The first was several years ago when the […]

My quest for the Classic Cleveland Indians cap of my childhood

I started this blog years ago with the idea that I could comment on sports and life while riffing off the many baseball caps I owned, each one inspiring some memory or insight that I thought others might like to read. Today, I’ll tell the tale of my latest acquisition, one I spent several frustrating […]

A visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Driving to Cleveland for a high schoo reunion this weekend, I had time to stop in Canton and visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Even though I grew up about an hour away and had been in Canton a number of times, I’d never walked through the doors of this shrine to football in […]

City-connecting with friends old and new

With few exceptions, my reaction to the funky City Connect uniforms that Major League teams are wearing has ranged from revulsion to loathing, On Friday, I finally got to see the Phillies’ City Connect uniforms in person, and my stance on the alternative togs is starting to soften. As we hung out at Comcast LIve […]

The thrill of a walk-off win

Last weekend, I left Bill Clarke Field a few innings before Princeton scored a walk-off win against Harvard. On Saturday, I got a second chance, as Princeton defeated Penn with a walk-off 3-2 victory. With the score 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Jake Kernodle hit a grounder to the Penn second baseman, […]

Surprise! Baseball players bunting

I could scarcely believe my eyes. During the three-game weekend college baseball series between Yale and Princeton, several batters squared to — wait for it! — bunt. The Bulldogs and Tigers each laid down a successful sacrifice bunt in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, and Yale laid down two in the nightcap. Neither team […]

The pleasures of baseball photography

When I started this blog several years ago, it was period in my career when I was deep into administrative work and sought a creative outlet to keep my writing skills sharp. That still rings true, but in recent years I’ve grown more and more excited about photography. While writing is what centers my creative […]