And now for something completely different. When my wife and I were on vacation in London a few years ago, we stopped in at the world famous Harrod’s department store. While she went off to look for gifts and I ended up in the menswear section where I came across… This was a strange yet […]
Tagged as:
baseball jerseys
The first full day of the annual convention for the Society for American Baseball Research was about what I expected. A chance to catch up with old friends and meet others with whom I’ve only had a social media/email correspondence. Please forgive the somewhat sloppy but it’s late and I’m tired A few personal highlights: […]
Tagged as:
SABR,
Society for American Baseball Research
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
Tagged as:
Baseball America,
baseball fiction,
Bill James,
Michel Lewis,
Oakland Athletics,
Rogerl Angell
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
Tagged as:
baseball bats,
baseball equipment,
baseball library,
baseball plays,
baseball quiz,
ESPN,
George F. Will,
Jimmy Breslin,
Manny Ramirez,
New Republic,
New York Mets,
New York Times,
R.A. Dickey,
Richard Sandomir,
trivia
Just finished thumbing through A History of Baseball in 100 Objects, the latest baseball release by Josh Leventhal, author of several other well-produced baseball titles. The objects included herein represent the game since before its “formal” recognized inception in the mid 1800s (and please don’t write about the exact DOB of the game). But the […]
Tagged as:
baseball history,
baseball memorabilia,
Milwaukee Braves,
Moneyball
Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books as […]
Tagged as:
baseball statistics,
Bill James,
Derek Jeter,
Fantasy baseball,
Los Angeles Dodgers,
Michael Lewis,
Montreal Expos,
Oakland As,
Tommy Lasorda
Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books as […]
Tagged as:
Bill James,
Cleveland Indians,
Derek Jeter,
Fantasy baseball,
Michael Lewis,
Moneyball,
New York Yankees,
Ted Williams,
Yogi Berra
As of the end of the 2013 season, Jewish athletes had accounted for about 170 of nearly 19,000 Major Leaguers. So you wouldn’t expect the new “Chasing Dreams: Baseball & Becoming American” exhibit at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia to have the breadth of material one would see in Cooperstown. Nevertheless, […]
To paraphrase a Groucho Marx line (and with all due respect to the PETA faction), you can’t swing a dead cat (if that’s your idea of a good time) at the annual SABR conference without hitting a baseball writer. While in Philadelphia, I caught up with a few of them (writers, not cats) to see […]
Tagged as:
Al Clark,
Dan Schlossberg,
Dorothy Mills,
Eric Rolfe Greenberg,
Japanese baseball,
Lyle Spatz,
Masanori Murakami,
Norman Macht,
Robert Fitts,
SABR,
Society for American Baseball Research,
Steve Steinberg,
The Celebrant
Love to see the disciplines getting together, don’t you. Like Dr. Robert Adair’s classic TThe Physics of Baseball (3rd Edition) and Why a Curveball Curves: The Incredible Science of Sports (Popular Mechanics), et al. So that’s why I love stuff like this from Alan Nathan’s The Physics of Baseball website. Lots of great links. A […]
Tagged as:
Physics of Baseball
* Baseball Prospectus is adding a mid-season “addenda” to its annual publication: The Call Up 2012. Here are a couple of review, the first from SouthsideShowdown, the second from ValueOverReplacementGrit. My question is: why is a book like this necessary? Those interested in such information would probably find it easier to get the most recent […]
Tagged as:
Baseball Prospectus,
New York Yankees
* John Rocker‘s memoir is not exactly new but it’s still getting some buzz. Whether or not it’s good is besides the point. I think a lot of people want to know if he’s as big a train wreck as he came off in that Sports Illustrated piece in 1999. * Dennis Anderson sent me […]
Tagged as:
John Rocker,
Sports Illustrated
Bill King of Baseball Reflections posted this piece about some new ideas coming out of the SABR Analytics Conference in Mesa, AZ, March 15-17. John Thorn, MLB’s official historian, will also be there. In 1985, Thorn, along with Pete Palmer, published one of the earlier books on the game’s new generation of metrics in The […]
Tagged as:
John Thorn,
Major League Baseball,
Pete Palmer,
sabermetrics,
Society for American Baseball Research
Before he began working with an actual publisher, James used to type out The Baseball Analyst on a bi-monthly basis and make copies as needed for distribution. How times have changed. Like SABR’s annual publications, The National Pastime and Baseball Research Journal, the Analysts were contributor-driven. The first issue contains articles such as “Ballpark Effects […]
Tagged as:
Bill James,
sabermetrics,
Society for American Baseball Research
The semi-regular roundup of things I neglected to post previously. From DriveLineBaseball, this review of The Physics of Pitching: Learn the Mechanics, Science, and Psychology of Pitching to Success. Upshot: It “falls well short of [Robert K.} Adair’s classic text [The Physics of Baseball]. Sure, it looks a lot cooler (the photography is top notch), […]
Tagged as:
Armando Galarraga,
Frank Deford,
Jim Joyce,
Jim Leyritz,
Joe DiMaggio,
John McGraw,
The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball
Good news for researchers: Baseball Prospectus will make all materials older than one year available to the public. For free! “It’s our way of saying thank you to the Internet for making our work possible over the years,” said Dave Pease, a partner at Baseball Prospectus in a statement. Very cool. One of the departments […]
Tagged as:
Baseball Prospectus
The Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award, which recognizes outstanding baseball research in areas other than history and biography, has been awarded for the following books published in 2010: Satch, Dizzy, and Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson, by Timothy M. Gay (Simon & Schuster) Evaluating Baseball’s Managers: A History and […]
Tagged as:
Society for American Baseball Research
Time once again for a major links dump to make up for bad behavior. Warning: some of these links go back to March. Just sayin’. * A member of Red Sox Nation pays tribute to a “mortal enemy” by giving the NY Times photo book on Derek Jeter the thumbs up. * The Wall Street […]
Tagged as:
Albert Pujols,
Derek Jeter,
Effa Manley,
Los Angeles Times,
New York Times
Bits and pieces
July 10, 2012
* John Rocker‘s memoir is not exactly new but it’s still getting some buzz. Whether or not it’s good is besides the point. I think a lot of people want to know if he’s as big a train wreck as he came off in that Sports Illustrated piece in 1999. * Dennis Anderson sent me […]
Tagged as: John Rocker, Sports Illustrated
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