Pujols joins the Angels, and my favorite Giant bids goodbye for the Mets

Two deals, one huge, one minor, have disrupted the Baseball Force in my universe over the last several days. The Giants sent Andres Torres to the Mets and Albert Pujols signed an enormous contract with the Angels. Neither of these deals is news today, but I’m trying to catch up on posting after a drought […]

A tip of the cap to Tony La Russa

We tip our cap to Tony La Russa, who announced today that he’s retiring after 33 years as a big-league manager. With the White Sox, Athletics and the Cardinals, he had an uncanny knack for taking the talent he had and getting them far into the playoffs. Good for him, going out on top after […]

The baseball season ends, and winter begins

It’s no coincidence: The baseball season concluded last night as the Cardinals knocked off the Rangers in St. Louis, and it’s snowing this morning in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York. What more do fans of the Phillies, Pirates, Yankees and Mets need to remind them that the 2011 season didn’t go their way? But what […]

A miserable night in Chicago as the World Series begins some miles south in St. Louis

CHICAGO — It’s a miserable night here, and not just because of the dreary, cold rain drenching the city. Three hundred miles to the south in St. Louis, the Cardinals have opened the World Series against the Texas Rangers. In Chicago, I wager most Cubs fans are trying to ignore the game. But deep inside, […]

Remembering the Milwaukee Brewers post-World Series parade of 1982

It probably was an omen. Over the weekend, I found in our garage an old cassette tape. Onto the cassette was dubbed a recording I made for The Associated Press radio network after the 1982 World Series, in which the Brewers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. This year, the Brewers lost […]

In which I erect a shrine to the Milwaukee Brewers in my backyard prior to Game 6 of the NLCS

All the neighbors thought Ray Kinsella crazy when he plowed down a couple of acres of prime corn land and built a baseball field for Shoeless Joe Jackson in Iowa. If they could see through the cypress trees, my neighbors would undoubtedly think the same today as I erected a backyard shrine to the Milwaukee […]

And the most valuable player in major league baseball, 2011, is ….

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance, of which I am a proud member, bestows its annual Stan Musial Award on the best player in baseball by a vote of the group’s members. This is my first year casting a ballot for what is the equivalent of the Major League Baseball most valuable player awards, and it’s a […]

Revenge is sweet: Brewers defeat Cardinals in Game 1 of the NLCS

Twenty-nine years I waited for today, when the Brewers defeated St. Louis in Game One of the National League Championship Series. I’ve rued the Brewers’ Game 7 loss to the Cardinals in the 1982 World Series all this time, and it was sweet for the Brew Crew to win on a glorious fall day in […]

Salary cap for baseball? It’s not the American way

FOX Sports ran a commercial today during the Cardinals-Phillies game on TBS that got under my skin in a bad, bad way. It was a misty-eyed paean to the Yankees, with lots of images of Derek Jeter and Reggie Jackson implying that the Bronx Bombers own October. I hate that. Let me say that again: […]

What a night in baseball!

What a crazy night in baseball. Using the MLB app on my iPhone, I just listened to the last inning as the Braves fell to the Phillies in 13 innings to give the Cardinals the NL wild card. Then I switched over to the Yankees broadcast to hear the Rays win in the 12th moments […]