These are no “average Joes” in the Baseball Hall of Fame

At the risk of getting a little too religious by running two Catholic-themed posts in the same week, I write today – on the feast of St. Joseph – to note all the “Joes” in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s an impressive roster, headed by “Joltin’ Joe” DiMaggio, “Smokey Joe” Wood and plain old […]

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 […]

For the 2011 U.S. Open golf championship, a Capitol cap

The U.S. Capitol stands proudly over the U.S. Open logo on my new cap that arrived a few days ago from the United States Golf Association. The 2011 championship will be played June 13-19 at one of the game’s great courses, Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. The cap is sharp in patriotic red, white […]

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 […]