How many major league ballplayers died serving their country in World War II?

On this Memorial Day, I awoke early, wondering how many major league baseball players lost their lives in the service of their country. The son of a World War II veteran, I was most curious about that conflict, and a Google search quickly pointed me to the Baseball in Wartime site. The site reveals that […]

New York Times profiles the ‘father of baseball card collecting’

The New York Times has a fine story today on the man considered the father of baseball card collecting, Jefferson R. Burdick. I’d never heard of Burdick, and I certainly didn’t know that he donated his card collection and other materials to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I’ll have to check […]

What’s a baseball cap worth? Half a million bucks if it belonged to Babe Ruth

A Babe Ruth baseball cap fetched more than half a million dollars at auction yesterday, but its value is a pittance compared with one of Ruth’s New York Yankees road jerseys that sold for $4.4 million. (The New York Daily News has the details.) The cap, which Ruth had worn in the 1930s with the […]

Justing Verlander comes oh-so-close to a no-hitter

The Pittsburgh Pirates have just broken up a no-hitter bid by Justin Verlander, who held the Buccos hitless for 8 and 1/3 innings tonight. A solid hit up the middle by Josh Harrison broke the spell. Verlander was able to wrap up the game and finish a one-hitter as the Detroit Tigers won easily, 6-0. […]

Another magic night in Baltimore: Josh Hamilton clouts four home runs

When I heard last night that Josh Hamilton had hit four home runs in Baltimore, the Cleveland Indians genetic coding in my brain lit up. It was in Baltimore back on June 10, 1959, when Rocky Colavito knocked out four homers against the Orioles at old Memorial Stadium. Hamilton homered twice, doubled, then homered twice more […]

Getting the number right on the uniform

Something’s been bugging me this season about the San Francisco Giants, and I finally figured it out while watching the game tonight. Brandon Crawford wears No. 35, and that’s wrong for a shortstop. A shortstop ought to have a number in the teens or single digits. The mid-30s? No. Give that to an outfielder or […]

A great night with the Modesto Nuts

I caught my first ball game of the year at John Thurman Field in Modesto, watching the hometown Nuts defeat the Stockton Ports 4-0. It was a special night, hanging out with a couple of buddies from work and getting an unexpected tribute from the ball club. Before the game along the concourse I came […]

Gomer Hodge and other forgotten baseball heroes of Opening Day

Opening Day in baseball always brings up memories for me, most of them taking me back to the finger-stinging cold that usually accompanied an Indians opener on the shore of Lake Erie. And somehow this week popped into mind Gomer Hodge, a utility infielder who was the toast of Cleveland in April 1971. Keep in […]

My National League West prediction for the 2012 season

With a heaping helping of faith and wishful thinking, I’m picking the San Francisco Giants to win the National League West this year. Even as I typed that sentence, the nagging voice in my head was saying, “What about the Diamondbacks?” The pick comes down to arms versus bats, and the Giants have the better […]

Paving the way for women sports writers in the locker room

The Baseball Hall of Fame saluted a pioneering female sports reporter the other day in noting that a couple of her press passes from the late 1970s will be on display in a new exhibit on women in baseball. The reporter was Melissa Ludtke, who was writing for Sports Illustrated during the 1977 World Series […]