Post-game drivel

Here’s an absurd, imagined scene: yours truly as manager of the Cleveland Indians, addressing reporters after a ballgame in a press availability that is broadcast live to the masses. The absurdity is not so much that I’d be manager of the Tribe (although it certainly is daft). No, what’s loony to me is that across […]

Baseball north of the border

Odds are against it, but I’m hoping I’ll get to keep my streak of annual summer baseball journeys to new parks intact. Last summer, I met up with my nephew Toby and his family for an Indians game at Progressive Field (his first first there). We caught a Blue Jays-Tigers game at Comerica Park (my […]

Missing baseball? Check out these old radio broadcasts

Baseball on the radio forms the soundtrack to much of my life, and I miss hearing live games. Fortunately, the Internet Archive has a trove of old broadcasts that can scratch your audio itch. The broadcasts, free of copyright restrictions, run from the 1934 All-Star game through the 1973 World Series. I’ve sampled several games […]

Keeping the Tiger team intact

When your season is unexpectedly cut short by a pandemic, what’s a college coach to do? At Princeton, Scott Bradley has turned to virtual tools to keep coaching. Through the university’s athletic fellows program, I’ve had a glimpse of how the head coach and his assistants have managed to keep the team together and inspire […]

Baseball Cards, the Astros, and other Garbage Pail Kids

As I dashed into Target last week to pick up a few food items that needed restocking, I swung by the display for the trading cards on my way to the checkout line. If there’s not going to be a baseball season, I reasoned, I need some baseball cards by which to remember it. I […]

The joy of throwing a ball at a wall

Just as I did 1,000 times as a kid, today I threw a rubber baseball against a wall. Growing up, I spent countless hours practicing my pitching and fielding by throwing a rubber baseball or tennis ball at the stone and brick steps leading to the front door of our suburban Cleveland home. Over those […]

Cleveland’s League Park: A gem restored

June was a good baseball month for me: Not only did I get to take in my first game at Pittsburgh, but on a trip back to my hometown of Cleveland I visited the old location of League Park. The park was the full-time or part-time home of Cleveland professional baseball [go ahead, insert your […]

Flash! It’s the 2016 Baseball Solstice

Happy New Year and Happy Baseball Solstice, everyone! Today — January 1st — not only is the first day of the new calendar year but it’s also the midpoint between the last out of the 2015 World Series 2015 and the first pitches of Spring Training exhibition games on March 1. I dreamt up the […]

Agreed: The Tribe should retire Chief Wahoo

The Plain Dealer came out forcefully in an editorial Friday recommending that the Cleveland Indians drop their long-serving, cartoonish mascot, Chief Wahoo. I agree. Years ago, I didn’t. I made the usual arguments: Chief Wahoo is part of our Cleveland heritage, a rallying point for the whole community — black and white — that unites […]

Baseball: The Winter Game

Yes, baseball is the summer game. But that is precisely why it resonates so warmly in the dead of winter for those of us in cold climes. As I write this post on a Sunday morning from my home in New Jersey, a good deal of snow still dominates the view through the picture window […]