The Mickey Mouse Club of baseball stats

Sabermetrics

  This item from Stadium Rant reminded me that for some reason, whenever I see an article about the new baseball statistics acronyms, I think of the theme song from the old Mickey Mouse Club (kids, ask your grandparents): M-I-C (See you real soon) K-E-Y (Why? Because we like you) M-O-U-S-E I’ve tried watching the […]

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Bits and Pieces, August 16, 2025

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

♦  Congrats to Jan Powal, who was recognized for her breaking the gender line for Major League umpires and was the subject of a question in the latest weekly New York Times quiz. ♦  Greatly looking forward to Jane Leavy‘s forthcoming, Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It. […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, August 15, 2025

2024 title

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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Bits and Pieces, August 10, 2025

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

Certainly the debut of Jen Powal, MLB’s first female to umpire in a regular season game, will warrant a book of some sort, be it a bio of her or female umps in general or women in baseball. Here’s just one article on the event, which took place yesterday in the first game of the […]

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Where have all the young men gone? Doug Glanville on the circle of life

Bookshelf Conversation

Doug Glanville published The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View back in 2010. Hard to believe but it’s been fifteen years since I had him on as a guest for an early version of The Bookshelf Conversations. Glanville, who played for the Phillies, Cubs, and Rangers over a nine-year career, became an […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, August 1, 2025

2024 title

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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Agree to disagree: The Art of Fielding redux

Fiction

Unlike the quartet which seems to fawn over The Art of Fielding in this Defector article, “The Art of Reading,” I maintain that the work of Chad Harbach was overrated. Yes, it got a lot of attention when it came out in 2011, primarily, I believe, because the first-timer author received such a huge advance. To […]

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Bits and Pieces, July 30, 2025

2025 title

♦  Adding to the previous B&P item about gathering Hall of Fame induction speeches: you would expect writers to be more comfortable with the process than the players. Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell was the 2025 winner of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award. Here is his acceptance speech. Side note: According […]

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Bits and Pieces, July 29, 2025

2025 title

A thought occurred to me as I was posting about the passing of Ryne Sandberg. Although I still subscribe to the physical edition of The New York Times, I also have the app which sometimes will publish several days ahead of the print version. I have frequently found that an obituary not not appear for […]

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Lest we forget: Ryne Sandberg

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

Saddened to hear about the passing on Monday of Ryne Sandberg at the age of just 65. After making his debut for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1981, Sandberg spent the next 15 years with the Chicago Cubs, where he became a 10-time All-Star with nine Gold Gloves seven Silver Slugger Awards and the NL MVP […]

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What else do the new HOF inductees have in common?

Autobiography/memoirs

Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner will become the newest inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame this Sunday. What else to they have in common? They all have books written by or about them. Dick Allen Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen, by Dick Allen and Tim […]

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This date in baseball books: July 25, 2025

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

From the pages of On This Day in Baseball History: A Day-by-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by the Baseball Time Machine… 1941: Lefty Grove of the Boston Red Sox wins his 300th game in a  10-6 victory over the visiting Cleveland Indians. It would be his final win in his final season. Lefty […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, July 25, 2025

2024 title

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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Baseball Best-Sellers, July 18, 2025

2025 title

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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The Bookshelf Conversation #199: Steve Steinberg

"Bookshelf Conversations"

When I was a kid, the legends of the game included the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and other players from the game in the post-Black Sox era (i.e., during and after the Roaring Twenties). But needles to say there were superstars before then, many of whom today’s fans have never heard. (As an […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, July 11, 2025

2024 title

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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Lest we forget: Dave Parker

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

The Hall of Fame outfielder who spent most of his illustrious career with the Pittsburgh Pirates died on June 28 at the age of 74. Parker, who had been suffering from Parkinson’s for more than a decade, also spent time with the Reds, Athletics, Brewers, Angels, and Blue Jays during his 19 big league seasons. […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, June 27, 2025

2024 title

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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This date in baseball books: June 24, 2025

Anniversaries

1979: Rickey Henderson makes his Major League debut with the Oakland As, going 1-4 and stealing the first of his 1,406 bases in a 5-1 loss to the Texas Rangers. Rickey Henderson: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant (2022) Off Base: Confessions of a Thief, by Henderson with John Shea […]

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Lest we forget: Scott Miller

2025 title

Shocked to learn of the passing of baseball writer Scott Miller, who recently died at the age of 62 following a battle with cancer. Miller released the excellent book, Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will, in May. I reviewed it on Bookreporter.com. I am sorry to have missed the opportunity to have him […]

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