Celebrate the baseball solstice (and put a new equinox on your calendar)

Today, Dec. 28, 2017, marks the annual Baseball Solstice. That’s the mid-point day between the last out of the World Series and the first exhibition game or games of Spring Training. The World Series ended the night of Nov. 1 in Los Angeles, with the Houston Astros defeating the Dodgers. I am still processing the […]

My National League picks for the 2014 baseball season

These picks and $3 will get you a coffee and donut at Dunkin’ Donuts: East 1. Atlanta – Top of a weak heap 2. Washington – They’ll make it interesting 3. New York – Struggle, they will 4. Philadelphia – It’ll be a long summer 5. Marlins – It’s always a long summer Central 1. […]

My Amerian League picks for the 2014 baseball season

These picks and $4.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks: East 1. Boston — Sizemore, win more 2. New York — A close second 3. Tampa Bay — Another “so close” season 4. Baltimore — One of these years, but not 2014 5. Toronto — Still the best team in Canada Central […]

This year’s spring training caps are hideous

Let me repeat that headline: This year’s spring training baseball caps are hideous. As my long blogging layoff will attest, I’ve paid little heed to the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues these past few weeks. So what I saw on a television set in a neighborhood shop a short while ago hit me harder than it […]

Hits and misses: The new MLB batting practice caps

The fabulous Uni Watch blog has a great rundown on the new batting practice caps that major league teams will be wearing this year. The design comments by Paul Lukas are excellent, and I give him a tip of the cap for noting the unbalanced use of serifs in the “P” on the Pirates’ cap. […]

O Holy Cow: The Baseball Solstice coincides with Christmas

The high priests have looked to the sky and determined that the Baseball Solstice will coincide with Christmas this winter, to be celebrated from sundown on Christmas Eve to sundown Christmas Day. The Baseball Solstice, noted in this blog a year ago, marks the midpoint of the long layoff in play between the final out […]

Who’s the more aggrieved Bay Area athlete – Alex Smith or Brian Wilson?

There’s nothing “tender” in the dispensing of major league contracts to baseball players. San Francisco last week declined to offer a contract to Brian Wilson, the fierce and funky closer who in 2010 helped the Giants win their first World Series since the franchise bolted New York for the West Coast. Wilson has been rehabbing […]

Did R.A. Dickey get hosed by not being named National League starter for the All-Star Game?

I was a bit late in catching up to the news today that Matt Cain was named National League starter for the All-Star Game tomorrow in Kansas City. That surprised me, because I figured R.A. Dickey of the New York Mets would likely be chosen by virtue of his higher victory total. What didn’t surprise […]

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 […]

New York vs. Boston again – but I’m OK with that

On these posts I’ve complained, whined and kvetched about how America’s major television networks and the media overall are obsessed with the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. Super Bowl XLVI is upon us, and we have another Boston-New York matchup with the Patriots and Giants. The network executives must be mighty pleased that those two big northeastern […]