A tip of the cap to the New Jersey Devils’ Scott Niedermayer

Just in from Newark: The New Jersey Devils have retired the No. 27 uniform number long worn by defenceman Scott Niedermayer. The honor is well-deserved. I’m primarily a baseball fan and the overwhelming majority of my posts reflect that. But I’ve long been a hockey fan, and I was never more so than in the years […]

Pujols joins the Angels, and my favorite Giant bids goodbye for the Mets

Two deals, one huge, one minor, have disrupted the Baseball Force in my universe over the last several days. The Giants sent Andres Torres to the Mets and Albert Pujols signed an enormous contract with the Angels. Neither of these deals is news today, but I’m trying to catch up on posting after a drought […]

Iconic baseball board games: Ethan Allen’s All-Star Baseball

The baseball board game that kept me the most entertained for many years of my adolescence was Ethan Allen’s All-Star Baseball by Cadaco. I spent hour upon hour playing the game, in which opposing sides consisted of player discs onto which their offensive stats were mapped. I had two versions of the game. One from […]

The new Miami Marlins logo: Nice design, wrong context

The new Miami Marlins logo is a fantastic look for somebody pulling down $8 an hour at a burger joint or a juice shop. But on a professional athlete making a couple of million dollar a year for hitting .236? I don’t think so. Detached from baseball, the logo is appealing. The font is light, […]

The Penn State scandal, the media and irony

This is a vacation week for me, and I’m catching a lot more sports talk on TV and radio than I usually do. There’s plenty of pontificating about the horrifying Penn State sexual abuse scandal, and I’ve heard a number of comments along the lines of, “We’ve built a monster in college football by all […]

The Orioles bring back the cartoon logo

The Baltimore Orioles have resurrected the old cartoon logo that was featured on their uniforms and caps up until the late ’80s. The Baltimore Sun tells you pretty much all you need to know at this link. The Sun also has a poll, and the fans are overwhelmingly in favor of the change. I prefer […]

A tip of the cap to Tony La Russa

We tip our cap to Tony La Russa, who announced today that he’s retiring after 33 years as a big-league manager. With the White Sox, Athletics and the Cardinals, he had an uncanny knack for taking the talent he had and getting them far into the playoffs. Good for him, going out on top after […]

The baseball season ends, and winter begins

It’s no coincidence: The baseball season concluded last night as the Cardinals knocked off the Rangers in St. Louis, and it’s snowing this morning in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York. What more do fans of the Phillies, Pirates, Yankees and Mets need to remind them that the 2011 season didn’t go their way? But what […]

A miserable night in Chicago as the World Series begins some miles south in St. Louis

CHICAGO — It’s a miserable night here, and not just because of the dreary, cold rain drenching the city. Three hundred miles to the south in St. Louis, the Cardinals have opened the World Series against the Texas Rangers. In Chicago, I wager most Cubs fans are trying to ignore the game. But deep inside, […]

Remembering the Milwaukee Brewers post-World Series parade of 1982

It probably was an omen. Over the weekend, I found in our garage an old cassette tape. Onto the cassette was dubbed a recording I made for The Associated Press radio network after the 1982 World Series, in which the Brewers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. This year, the Brewers lost […]