The Mets honor Mariano, and then defeat him

The New York radio airwaves are abuzz over how the Mets did the improbable last night and scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning off Mariano Rivera to beat the Yankees 2-1. It was a stunning victory — the second in as many nights at Citi Field — and even more amazin’ […]

Manager of the year in baseball? Bob Melvin

Who was the best manager in baseball in 2012? I’m going with Bob Melvin of the Oakland Athletics. My criteria are twofold: I go with the skipper whose team is a winner and whose team achieved its success in disproportion to its expectations and talent. By those standards, Melvin is a slam dunk (and I […]

Which former Philly is faring worse on the West Coast?

Listening to the Dodgers-Giants game last evening (thanks, ESPN Radio!), I got to wondering which of the Phillies traded to the two NL West teams was performing worse: Shane Victorino or Hunter Pence? Neither has set the world on fire. Pence is hitting just .225 for the Giants and has an on-base percentage of .290, […]

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 […]

Clayton Kershaw wins his 20th for the Dodgers

Impressive as it was for Clayton Kershaw to win his 20th game of the season last night, what’s more remarkable is that he’s LA’s first 20-game winner in 21 years. I was stunned to read that. The Dodgers, one of the most consistent winners over the course of my lifetime, are the team of Koufax […]

The West Coast: A wasteland for baseball offense

AL, NL, all around the game: the West Coast is a barren landscape for hitters in Major League Baseball. I’m most acutely aware of the offensive struggles of the San Francisco Giants, the defending world champions who rank last in runs, 28th in hits and 25th in home runs. The Giants play a lot of […]

Bits and bobs as the trade deadline passes

I’ve posted mighty infrequently of late. I attribute that to most of my energy being sponged up by a couple of major project at work. Nonetheless, here are a few thoughts that have been passing through my brain in recent days: – It sucks to get swept. The San Francisco Giants dropped three straight to […]

Giants, Dodgers embrace rivalry, denounce violence

When you get 25,000 or 50,000 people together for a baseball game and throw in a few beers, it’s inevitable that some fans are going to misbehave. I’ve seen that ugly side of baseball in major league stadiums up close. One of the worst episodes was in 1977 or 1978 when a nasty fight broke […]

Taking the plunge in fantasy baseball one more time

Fantasy baseball tears me in two directions. On the one hand, I love the concept of creating my own team to see what might happen if I were picking the lineups. On the other hand, pulling apart the game at the seams and stitching into something else should never eclipse the real thing. So I […]

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 […]