Baseball caps and beyond
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’ […]
Read More The Mets honor Mariano, and then defeat himIt’s impossible to discuss the economics of Major League Baseball without discussing the “major market” and “small market” divide so eloquently illustrated in the movie “Moneyball.” Yet even the smallest of markets today is exponentially larger than the hundreds of small towns where baseball developed in its early decades. A nice perspective on baseball’s rural […]
Read More Pass the hotdogs — and my changeLet 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 […]
Read More This year’s spring training caps are hideousI’m looking back on the 2012 season and realizing that this is one of those rare years in which I didn’t see a major league baseball game in person. Having switched jobs and coasts in May, I left California before having a chance to see the Giants or Athletics play at home. My two cross-country […]
Read More A season without a seat in the standsWe’ve seen some outstanding performances by starting pitchers in the league championships and the World Series this year, but has anyone pitched a complete game? No. The closest anyone came was Justin Verlander, who went 8 and two-thirds as the Tigers defeated the Yankees in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. Barry Zito […]
Read More Will we ever see someone pitch a complete World Series game again?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 […]
Read More Manager of the year in baseball? Bob MelvinWhich metro area had the most successful baseball season? After listening to the Athletics overtake the Rangers on my way home from work last evening, I was all set to declare the Bay Area the cross-league, total victory champions. But then I remembered that Baltimore-Washington is eligible, and a check of the standings this morning […]
Read More Baltimore-Washington wins the 2012 Major League Baseball metro-area titleRed Sox fans are crazy for their team, and as I traveled New England while on vacation last week I was struck by the number of BoSox specialty Massachusetts license plates I saw. They were a common site on Cape Cod, on Boston area highways, and I even spotted them in New Hampshire and Vermont. […]
Read More Red Sox Nation shows its pride on Massachusetts license platesA Babe Ruth baseball cap fetched more than half a million dollars at auction yesterday, but its value is a pittance compared with one of Ruth’s New York Yankees road jerseys that sold for $4.4 million. (The New York Daily News has the details.) The cap, which Ruth had worn in the 1930s with the […]
Read More What’s a baseball cap worth? Half a million bucks if it belonged to Babe RuthOne of the critical questions I face this week as I prepare to drive cross-country is what baseball caps to bring on the trip and when to wear each of them. I could, for example, stick with my San Francisco Giants caps all the way. I could wear the standard cap Thursday, a vintage one […]
Read More Finding the right baseball caps for a cross-continent drive