Month: February 2019

Elijah “Pumpsie” Green was the first African American player to appear in a game for the Boston Red Sox. He did that on July 21, 1959. You probably know that; it’s Baseball Trivia 101. It’s likely, too, that you know that the Red Sox were the last team in baseball to integrate. And you might…

Continuing with your votes for the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates. No. 80: Jimmy Wynn Score: 29.81 “The first time a sportswriter saw James Sherman Wynn hit a curveball 450 feet out over the Astrodome, he looked at the dimensions of the home run, and then the dimensions of the home run hitter, and…

Let’s pretend for a moment that his name isn’t Bryce Harper. Let’s call him Glenn Strider instead. I once started writing a baseball novel, and it was absolutely terrible, and there’s nothing worth saving from it … except my protagonist was a ballplayer named Glenn Strider, and I think that’s a pretty good baseball name….

Continuing with your votes for the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates. No. 85: Ron Cey Score: 28.36 From 1974 to ’82, Steve Garvey was widely regarded as one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, star in baseball. He started in the All-Star Game for seven straight seasons during that stretch, he put together…

Will try to squeeze in some spring training baseball stuff. And I’ll take requests. I rarely have revelations of any kind, but in 2008, I actually had one. In late February or early March, I was sitting in a breakfast place on the road between Peoria and Surprise, Ariz. I had the USA Today baseball magazine,…

Continuing with your votes for the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates. No. 90: Sal Bando Score: 25.86 Years ago, I remember someone called into the Larry King radio Show* and said that he had an interesting baseball opinion, but before he offered it he wanted some guarantees. He needed Larry to hear him out,…

Continuing with your votes for the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates. No. 95: Willie Davis Score: 23.86 There’s a lost generation of players in the 1960s who, because they didn’t put up the sorts of numbers that people had grown used to seeing from young stars, were saddled with that awful word: disappointment. You…

Before we begin with the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates as you voted for them*, several of you have asked how I did the scoring for this list. *I originally was going to do the whole list at one time, and then I was going to do the list 25 at a time, then…

When I was a kid — and I remember this distinctly — my Dad pointed to a huge man who was coaching for the Milwaukee Brewers. “Look,” he said, “that’s Frank Howard. He’s in the Hall of Fame.” Of course, I believed him. I knew nothing at all about Frank Howard — he retired in…

Well, look, the idea here is to give you work to enjoy. I would hope that there will never be any pandering here — that wouldn’t serve anybody — but at the same time, I don’t want people to ever be disappointed by the tone. Yes, we have opinions. Yes, we will point out when…