Resurrecting the baseball solstice

Way back in December 2011, in a funk over the lack of baseball during a long winter, I dreamed up the baseball solstice. It would mark the midpoint between the end of the World Series and the first pitch of Spring training. It would also serve as a mid-winter reason to celebrate the game we […]

Remembering a great season and a great World Series

As the sun has set on the 2025 baseball season, I’m in a reflective, thankful mood. We had a heck of a World Series, with the Toronto Blue Jays taking the mighty (i.e., mightily financed) Dodgers into 11 innings of Game 7 before coming up short. I was rooting for the Jays and shut the […]

Baseball cards to celebrate the playoffs

At the hardware store last weekend, I was surprised to find baseball cards for sale at the checkout counter. Single packs with sticks of desiccated pink gum weren’t on offer as in my childhood days — just cube boxes containing eight Topps packs. I hadn’t bought or even seen baseball cards for sale yet this […]

Face it: We’re playing ‘The New York Game’

As Kevin Baker abundantly and entertainingly makes clear, America’s pastime is “The New York Game.” Baker’s book with that title examines the development of baseball from its organizational stirrings in the mid-19th century to the cusp of racial integration at the end of World War II. The setting? New York City. My friend Jerry and […]

A gripping story of the Detroit Tigers and a 1930s wave of terror

I am forever on the hunt for baseball books, and by chance I discovered through an electronic library “Terror in the City of Champions.” The book, published in 2016, chronicles the exploits of the Detroit Tigers and other Motor City sports teams in the 1930s against a backdrop of violent crime perpetrated by a ruthless […]

‘Love and Loss’ — the tragic tale of Ray Chapman

One of my Christmas presents was the book “Love and Loss; The Short Life of Ray Chapman,” the only player to die of injuries suffered in a Major League Baseball game. The Cleveland Indians shortstop was fatally struck in the head at the Polo Grounds by a pitch from New York Yankees hurler Carl Mays. […]

My Rooting interests for the AL and NL championships

To demonstrate that I bear no animus toward New York City, I hereby declare my rooting interest in baseball’s American and National league championship series, gateway to the World Series. Anyone who knows me even passingly should not be surprised that I am pulling for the Guardians, the pride of my hometown, Cleveland. They are […]

An amazin’ Casey Stengel biography

Through my employer’s digital library, I checked out a copy of “Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character,” a book rich in baseball lore and laughs that I highly recommend. Author Marty Appel combed through many records and historical sources to pen this biography of “the Ol’ Perfessor.” Stengel was managing the Mets when I was a […]

A Father’s Day treat: Trenton Thunder baseball

For Father’s Day, I treated myself to a Trenton Thunder baseball game, spending an enjoyable couple of hours in New Jersey’s capital city as the home team fell 8-3 to the Mahoning Valley Scrappers. This was only the second time I’d been to a game in Trenton. The first was several years ago when the […]

My quest for the Classic Cleveland Indians cap of my childhood

I started this blog years ago with the idea that I could comment on sports and life while riffing off the many baseball caps I owned, each one inspiring some memory or insight that I thought others might like to read. Today, I’ll tell the tale of my latest acquisition, one I spent several frustrating […]