Comerica Park, the return: Just as nice at night

I first visited Comerica Park for a day game in 2019 and thoroughly enjoyed it. My daughter and her family moved to the Detroit area a short while later, and after a long COVID-induced delay my wife and I finally got to see them in their new home this month. Being the great daughter she […]

Cleveland gets it right: The Guardians is a great name

For this Cleveland native and lifelong Indians fan, the news of the pending switch to the name “Guardians” came Friday morning after I’d finished loading the car for the long drive home from my daughter’s home in suburban Detroit. I did a quick check of Twitter and the news was at the top of my […]

The beautiful game, in under 3 hours

As the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy neared the halfway point of extra time, it dawned on me that, even with a penalty kick shootout, the match would take less time than the average Major League Baseball game. Think about that. In what turned out to be 2 hours, 54 minutes, the Lions […]

The phenom(onology) of MLB Draft League baseball

If a line drive falls into left field and no one’s in the stands, does it make a sound? That question came to mind as I cycled away from Sonny Pittaro Field this evening after watching several innings of an MLB Draft League game between West Virginia and Trenton. Pittaro Field is at Rider University […]

Hanging, not flattening the curve

Sean Doolittle has it right: to counteract COVID-19, we’ve done little. Multiple media accounts are carrying the remarks of the Nationals’ reliever about the pandemic, and I think he spells out its perils very well. Doolittle noted that the coronavirus outbreak is worse now than it was when the baseball season was put on hold […]

The Greatest Rivalry in Human History!

Throughout the course of history, we homo sapiens have witnessed and recorded intense rivalries, starting with Cain vs. Abel. As we have progressed through the centuries, we’ve seen the intense and fatal feuds between the Athenians and the Spartans, the Romans and the Persians, the British and the French. But none of those multi-generational conflicts […]

MLB 2020: Can’t find my way home

This post contain less rational thought than (presumably) most of my posts exhibit. Essentially, I’m screaming into the void. I’m frustrated that the owners and players have gone ’round and ’round on a 2020 season everywhere except on the base paths. Even more, I sympathize with the thousands of people whose livelihoods are tied to […]

Pitchers who rake —a dying, underappreciated art

The chatter around the Cold Stove League today is that Major League Baseball is likely to allow a universal designated hitter for whatever shortened season we get in 2020 as well as 2021 and, inevitably, forever after. For years, I’ve been expecting this change to come, all the while fervently hoping it wouldn’t. Metaphorically speaking, […]

BUSHVILLE WINS again!

I spent many happy innings at ballgames at Milwaukee County Stadium when I lived in that great city, but one of my biggest thrills from that long-gone park came this morning in a Strat-O-Matic baseball game. At my dining room table, I played the 1953 Dodgers against the 1957 Braves in Milwaukee, derided in the […]

Indians fans: It is our lot in life to suffer

This blog has been silent through the September wild card chases, and it took the Indians’ disheartening performance last night to stir me to write again. Although their pitching ranged from acceptable to excellent, the Indians failed utterly at the plate. I credit a gutty performance by the Rays’ starter for much of that, but […]