Last week, we started a new feature here at the Joe Peppy Tone Baseball Roundup, a little something we call “How Many More Years.” We began with Nomar Garciaparra … the idea is to look at players who are near Hall of Famers and ask the question: How many more years would he have needed…
Month: May 2017
A toast to the best
Apologies in advance for how personal this tribute will be but I don’t know how else to do this. When I was 20 years old, I was scared, confused, entirely unsure about what I could possibly do with my life. All of my childhood dreams — to play second base for the Cleveland Indians, to…
Hamilton: One Year Later
A year has drifted by since we went to see Hamilton on Broadway and people still approach with their stories. A mother tells of taking her daughter to Hamilton. A father and son go to New York together for the first time, see a Yankees game one night and Hamilton the next, it is a dream. A young…
There’s only one MVP
Baseball awards are fun to argue about. There’s a specific reason for this: Baseball, more than any other major American team sport, separates the individual. Yes, of course, the overall goal is always winning. But in baseball the goal of the single player — get a hit, get a strikeout, make the catch — matches up…
The Mysteries of Novak
Saturday evening in Rome, Novak Djokovic utterly dismantled a wonderful young player named Dominic Thiem. In case you don’t follow tennis too closely, this was kind of a big deal. Djokovic has been something of a mess the last year or so. Well, it was almost exactly a year ago that Djokovic beat Andy Murray…
Flippin’ Bats
Your browser does not support iframes. So you might remember a couple of years ago, when Jose Bautista launched the bat flip heard around the world during a playoff game against the Texas Rangers. “The Good Place” executive producer Michael Schur and I co-wrote a piece after that game, and here’s what we said about…
Ranking the Stadiums
My pal Jon Hock, director of great sports documentaries like the 30 for 30 “The Best There Never Was” on Marcus Dupree and “Of Miracles and Men,” on the 1980 Soviet hockey team, took the above photo of gorgeous PNC Park in Pittsburgh. And it reminded me that I have not ranked the stadiums in…
The Wonder of Trout
Mike Trout is 25 years old and with his latest barrage — homering in four straight games — he just went over 50 wins above replacement for his career. You might not be a fan of WAR, but it’s still a meaningful moment because 50 WAR is just about where the Hall of Fame conversation…
Inside the Mind of Bill
Your browser does not support iframes. A couple of weeks ago, I saw my great friend Bill James. Well, I can tell you the exact day — May 1. I know this because it was the day after Anthony Rendon had 10 RBIs in a game against the Mets. Bill and I LOVE when stuff like that…
Missing Dexter
From Medium Baseball, like life, moves pretty fast. Nobody should know this better than Ferris Bueller’s favorite team, the Chicago Cubs. Six weeks ago, the Cubs were considered all-but unbeatable, Las Vegas’ darling for another World Series victory, a brash young team on the brink of a dynasty. Every other day, it seemed, they were…