Throwback Thursday (aka, links dump)

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 that famous quote from Forrest Gump. If it’s a box of chocolate covered cherries, don’t you know exactly what you’re going to get?)

On the one hand, I’m happy to report that I’m catching up/running out of these old links. On the other hand, it’s been cool reminiscing.

I highly recommend Pocket as a way to hold onto links you come that you want to keep. Unlike bookmarks, Pocket keeps the entire page and makes it relative easy for you to find stuff you “pocketed.” I have keepers going back six years — more than 5,000 links — and I’ve decided it’s time to start cleaning house so here are some submitted for your amusement, perusal, and education. Some are not current, but in a sense, they’re timeless.

Last night Ryan Braun hit the 250th home run of his career in a 3-2 extra-inning loss to the Chicago Cubs. That’s one short of the Milwaukee Brewers’ franchise record held by Robin Yount. Here are a couple of pieces I posted about Braun when he was fighting “allegations” of PED use; you know how that turned out. This one appeared on the Huffington Post with this one in my newspaper.
Speaking of drugs, here’s a hilarious visual spin on the Raiders franchise as it might have pertained to drug testing, courtesy of the folks at Baseball Prospectus.
HBO’s Real Sports did a feature on the Wounded Warriors Softball Team. Here’s a clip. Sorry I don’t have the full segment, but I’m sure it’s available somewhere.
The Internet Archive site offers the 1980 publication Stories of the Base-Ball Field; The National Game’s Great Exponents and Their Methods. It’s available for download to multiple platforms. A site search for the term “baseball” came up with this, which I have not vetted.
SSP (shameless self-promotion) alert: Here’s an old review I did for Bookreporter.com on The Emerald Diamond: How the Irish Transformed America’s Greatest Pastime, by Charley Rosen.
C’est ne pas juste. Once in awhile I like to pick up a good livre. But France’s Amazon is only available to consumers in a few European countries. For what it’s worth, here’s what a search of “baseball” turns up on their site.
I have been disappointed in what Grantland has turned into, but once in awhile they were true to their original purpose of offering long-form essays on sports, including this piece on”Hollywood’s Lady All-Stars: Title IX in the movies,” which includes A League of Their Own.
Dave Studeman of The Hardball Times put of this thought-provoking piece on “The most critical at-bat of all time.” Three at-bats, actually. Care to guess what they were? I’m thinking on real students of the game will be able to pick them out.
Sabermetrics? No, Cyberemrtics, i.e. “The sabermetric blog of Cyril “Cy” Morong, professor of Economics at San Antonio College.” Not all his entries are like this one.
I may not know art, er, baseball fiction, but I know what I don‘t like. And this was one of them. But when I offered readers of the Bookshelf a chance to weigh in, on Bruce Spitzer’s Extra Innings, it turned out I was in the minority.