From the category archives:

“Ripped from today’s headlines…”

Happy Spring, everybody! ♦   Kevin Baker‘s latest book, The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, was recently reviewed in The New York Times. Baker — who will be a guest on the “Bookshelf Conversation” in the near future — has written several novels about New York in the 19th century […]

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Congrats to Larry Gerlach, Leslie Heaphy, and Sarah Langs, this year’s recipients of the Henry Chadwick Award given by the Society for American Baseball Research, “established to honor the game’s great researchers — historians, statisticians, annalists, and archivists — for their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America’s present with its past.” […]

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A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally […]

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Award season, continued

January 31, 2024

It should come as no surprise that this year’s CASEY Award, presented by Spitball Magazine, goes to Joe Posnanski for his latest masterpiece, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments. It almost seems unfair that such great work should come from the same writer in such quick succession. From the press release from […]

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Say it ain’t so, SI

January 19, 2024

What is this world coming to? It was bad enough when Sports Illustrated laid off many of the staff that made the magazine “illustrated” to begin with. I was bad enough when it went from a weekly to a bi-weekly to a monthly to just online. But now? “Sports Illustrated lays off most of its […]

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Mind your manners

January 3, 2024

Because you can put your baseball cap on a shelf: From the  ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION BEWILDERED BY ATHLEISURE AND BASEBALL CAPS DEAR MISS MANNERS: Returning to the United States after several years of living in Europe, I have noticed that “athleisure” wear is acceptable everywhere, and that wearing baseball hats in restaurants (done by people […]

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When is this book coming out?

November 28, 2023

Be honest: How many of you out there had heard of Baseball United? I hadn’t until it popped up today in my Google search. According to the very well-produced BU website, “With a footprint of 2 billion people – 1 billion of whom are cricket fans – the Middle East and South Asia is the […]

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A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally […]

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A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (See my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks.”) In addition, occasionally […]

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But they probably tried to fence them. HT to Lisanne R. who sent me this curiously vague story from the Montclair Local about the arrest “of the individuals responsible for the 2014 robbery of priceless memorabilia from the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center.” The story is very sparse on details, other than the gratitude […]

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♦ The Atlantic published an article on the current state of the game as the cover story of its July/August issue. Funny, the online version is titled “Moneyball Broke Baseball” while the cover seems to offer a slightly more upbeat spin with “How Baseball Saved Itself.” ♦ This is the time of year when we […]

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We lost two major baseball writers with the passing of Rick Wolff, 71, on April 10 and St. Louis Post Dispatch veteran scribe Rick Hummel, 77, on May 20. Wolff published numerous books on coaching and sports psychology. He collaborated with his son on Harvard Boys: A Father and Son’s Adventures Playing Minor League Baseball […]

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More and  more, it seems the players I grew up admiring as a teenager are shuffling off this mortal coil. This includes Hall of Famers, Greats, Near-Greats, and ordinary lunch bucket guys. The latest from that “generation” is Vida Blue, who passed away Saturday at the age of 73. Here’s his obituary by Alex Traub […]

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♦  Soon to be a major motion picture? “For Maggi, 1st MLB hit proves ‘you can do anything’” ♦  The ReviewGeek judges Cross Game, by Mitsuru Adachi, among the best sport mangas. ♦  Speaking of the late Vin Scully, how will you do on this quiz about baseball broadcasters from the Chicago Sun-Times? Warning: it […]

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Just for kicks, I asked Chat GPT to generate reviews of by two baseball books. Specifically I asked, “Can you write a book review?” The answer was, “Yes, I can write a book review. Please provide me with the title and author of the book you want me to review, and any specific guidelines or […]

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The first thing you have to have is a catcher. Because if you don’t have a catcher, you’re going to have a lot of passed balls and you’re going to be chasing the ball back to the screen all day. Casey Stengel on the decision to make Hobie Landrith the expansion New York Mets first […]

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Was listening to Extra Hot Great, one of my favorite podcasts ever, and heard a mention of this under “Winners of the Week”: “Lou Gehrig Series From Lorne Michaels in the Works at Apple” From the Hollywood Reporter article: “The iPhone maker/streamer is teaming with Universal Television and Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video to adapt author […]

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  From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “11 new baseball books for your 2023 lineup, from the World Series and opening day to Bo Jackson.” The use of the word “new” is curious, since the Jackson book came out almost six months ago. Same for The Grandest Stage and some books are even older.   This is […]

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It’s been a tough week. We lost three former players, each of whom were icons in their own right. On February 28, Jean Faut, a star pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, died at the age of 98. From The New York Times‘ obit by Richard Sandomir: Over eight seasons, the right-handed Faut […]

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  Heard on NPR’s Morning Edition show, March 6: “Evan Drellich’s new book sheds light on the Houston Astros cheating scandal.”   I usually don’t mix baseball with politics with baseball (unless it’s in a good way), but this is important enough to me that I don’t care if I ruffle a few feathers by […]

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