Andres Torres re-signs with the San Francisco Giants

One of the best stories of 2010 was Andres Torres, who bounced around the minors for more than a decade before supplanting Aaron Rowand as the Giants’ center fielder. Even more engaging: Torres had an appendectomy late in the season only to return and make significant contributions as the Giants drove to their first World […]

A quick note on the new Ball Caps Blog URL

To my handful of regular readers: I’ve acquired the ballcapsblog.com domain, and you can now reach The Ball Caps Blog through that URL or through the original ballcaps.wordpress.com. There may be a few hiccups with redirects, as I’ve experienced on my browsers the last two days. I cleared my caches and everything cleared up. You […]

With “Jesus” at his side, Manny to be Manny in Tampa Bay

Multiple reports tonight citing unnamed sources say that Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon will be reunited this season as members of the Tampa Bay Rays. While the news isn’t quite as big in 2011 as it would have been a few years ago, it’s still worth a “wow.” Manny and Johnny, the former with his dreads […]

Caps, logos and the aesthetics of baseball

While baseball teams have plenty of crass commercialism in the names of their arenas and stadiums, at least the uniforms aren’t sullied by corporate logos as they are in other countries. Over at ESPN.com, Jim Caple laments that major league baseball team logos are becoming more corporate, blander and not nearly as much fun as […]

Sights and sounds of the Giants’ World Series trophy in Modesto

Here’s some more detail on the fun all the San Francisco Giants fans had in Modesto last evening as the World Series trophy tour pulled into town. The Modesto Bee (my employers, bless them!) has a story, videos and photo gallery at this link. As I noted in the previous post, I wasn’t able to […]

The Giants’ World Series trophy comes calling, and the Ball Caps Blog goes uptown

The San Francisco Giants brought the World Series trophy to Modesto today, coaxing hundreds of orange-and-black-clad fans into the cold January air to queue up to see it. By the time I walked from my office to the convention center, the line snaked around the block and I spent a few minutes at the end […]

Jason Giambi keeps hanging in there

Like the drips falling off icicles on the eaves, baseball news comes in slowly but steadily during the month of January. I just did a quick check of the latest deals on MLB.com and chuckled when I read that the Rockies have reached a minor league deal with Jason Giambi. If Giambi finds a way […]

Thanks to television, the NFL is truly the national sport

Baseball may traditionally be America’s national pastime, but as a spectator sport football is king. That’s a tribute to television broadcasting. In a continent spanning four time zones (and I’m excluding Alaska and Hawaii), football has an enormous advantage in capturing the attention of the public. Even in an era of Monday night and occasional […]

Try as I might, I can’t get behind the Green Bay Packers

You’d think someone who spent a significant chunk of his life in Wisconsin, met his wife there and has two cheesehead children would be backing the Green Bay Packers in the NFL playoffs. But that’s not the case with me. I tried to like the Packers when I lived in Milwaukee in the late 70s […]

Oakland Raiders cut Cable, and other musings on big-league coaching

Word is out tonight from the Bay Area that Al Davis has given the heave-ho to Coach Tom Cable, who guided the Raiders to an 8-8 record this season, their best in recent years. Evidently improving operations is not enough in Oakland, where it’s “just win, baby.” Or so it’s supposed to be. The Raiders […]