The Yankees’ evil empire keeps expanding

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=Lance+Berkman&iid=8924515″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/8924515/mlb-brewers-astros-may/mlb-brewers-astros-may.jpg?size=500&imageId=8924515″ width=”234″ height=”351″ /] A few years back my younger son and I marveled at the awesome display of power Lance Berkman put on at the home run derby during the All-Star break. Now the longtime Houston Astros slugger is wearing pinstripes for the Evil Empire that is the New York […]

A tip of the cap to Lou Piniella

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=Lou+Piniella&iid=7044743″ src=”http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/7044743/tampa-bay-devil-rays/tampa-bay-devil-rays.jpg?size=500&imageId=7044743″ width=”234″ height=”350″ /] In a graceful move, Lou Piniella has announced he’ll retire after wrapping up the season with the Chicago Cubs. Piniella has distinguished himself as someone who excelled as a player and a manager, a combination that is uncommon if not rare. I’ve followed Piniella’s career for a […]

Bye, Bye, Lebron

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=Lebron+James&iid=9312354″ src=”http://view4.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9312354/file-photo-cleveland/file-photo-cleveland.jpg?size=500&imageId=9312354″ width=”500″ height=”319″ /] Lebron James has bid adieu to Cleveland and the Cavaliers, choosing to take his quest for an NBA championship to Miami and the Heat. The tales in the leading newspapers of the two cities are as expected. There’s joy in Miami, where the Herald’s lead sentence tonight is […]

New batting helmets in minor leagues getting high marks for safety

Here’s a story from today’s Modesto Bee about the new batting helmets being used in Minor League Baseball. The specs from Rawlings say their S100 model is built to protect a batter struck by a pitch thrown at up to 100 mph. The Bee story says the helmets are getting rave reviews for their safety, […]

The MLB app for iPhone blows me away

Resistance is futile. If you love baseball, you must get the MLB app for iPhone. I used a $10 iTunes gift card from my Easter basket (yes, the bunny still delivers to baseball bloggers of a certain age) and another $4.99 to spring for the app the other night, and all I can say is, […]

Rocky Colavito remembers the Detroit years, and a whole lot more

The Detroit Free Press today has a terrific interview with my boyhood baseball hero, Rocky Colavito, who was famously traded from Cleveland to the Tigers in exchange for Harvey Kuenn. Even if you’re not familiar with Colavito — one of the best players in the game from the late 50s into the 1960s — I […]

An American icon: The pocket baseball schedule

CLEVELAND – Besides the crocuses poking their way up through the snow, one of the first signs of spring in northeast Ohio is the emergence of the annual Cleveland Indians’ pocket schedule. I picked my copy up at a shop counter the other day while visiting relatives. The schedule, neatly folded and tucked into my […]

Spike Lee sports a special Yankees championship cap

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=NBA&iid=7939913″ src=”5/d/7/0/NBA_All_Star_165a.jpg?adImageId=10325689&imageId=7939913″ width=”234″ height=”294″ /] Check out the slick New York Yankees cap that Spike Lee wore to the NBA All-Star game last night in Dallas. I hadn’t seen this one before. It celebrates the Yanks’ recent World Series triumph — the 27th in franchise history — and notes the years of […]

Don’t look back

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=satchel+paige&iid=6251079″ src=”e/8/0/f/Feller__Paige_0079.jpg?adImageId=9058614&imageId=6251079″ width=”234″ height=”351″ /] It’s the middle of the winter, roughly midway from the World Series to the opening of spring training, and I need some baseball inspiration. I found it in this photo of Bob Feller and Satchel Paige, from Oct. 15, 1946. Feller led an All-Star team of American […]

2009: The year in review

The second calendar year for the Ball Caps Blog is coming to a close, and I’m happy that I’ve sustained it for that long. Regular posting is the key to building blog traffic, the experts say, and my experience with this blog bears that out. In a couple of stretches I tried to post daily […]