After signing his contract with Detroit, it was off to Bristol, TN, the Tigers Rookie League affiliate. At the age of 18, Rico was forced to adapt quickly to living on a monthly paycheck of $250.00 after taxes. That year he appeared in 60 games batting .254. The next year he was off to Lakeland, …
The record paid for a home run baseball is $752,000. This was the amount fetched for Barry Bonds’ record breaking 756th home run. Clearly, Jose Molina’s home run, the last home run hit at Yankee Stadium, will not get anywhere near that amount. In fact, an auction held in 2008 with a minimum starting bid of …
Note: The following blog was written by a woman in my Baseball and Statistics course. Please comment on this touching story or supply your own story of how baseball/softball changed your life. The first time I picked up a softball was my first t-ball game. From that moment I became addicted to being on the diamond. …
Please read the previous posting to get up to speed. This posting is based on my phone interview with Paul Russo, one of the two people who claimed possession of the last home run ball hit at Yankee Stadium. The phone interview took place on January 27, 2013. In my phone conversation with Paul I …
The next few postings concern the controversy over the ownership of the last home run ball hit in “The House That Ruth Built”. This posting takes the information from various websites. The next posting is based on my phone interview with Paul Russo, one of the two people who claimed ownership of the ball. Paul, …
Every year baseball records are tied or broken that have held up for decades. Also, players who have never been considered great hitters raise their skill level to accomplish unexpected hitting feats. The rest of this posting looks back at some of these hitting milestones for 2012. One of the problems with writing my book …
Just after the New Year my wife and I had dinner with two couples in Naples, Florida. One couple was Jack and Maryann Dolan. Jack Dolan spent a couple of years as an Associate Producer at ABC-TV sports (1963-65) working under the tutelage of Roone Arledge and with such well-known broadcasters as Jim McKay, Curt …
On New Year’s Day, my wife Tara and I traveled to Sarasota, Florida, to see our good friends, a retired professor and his wife. Vinny had been a colleague of mine at Quinnipiac University for 35 years. My friend greeted me and said we were all invited to a renowned artist’s house. The artist’s name …
Let me begin by thanking all of you who took the time and effort of reading and commenting on my postings for 2012. For those of you who purchased my book “Sandlot Stats: Learning Statistics with Baseball”, I hope the book both educated you on the world of probability and statistics as well as provided you …
What is wrong with the sanctions imposed on universities found guilty of recruitment and other violations? Any sanction which directly punishes innocent past and present student athletes should be changed. For example, in the Sandusky case involving Penn State University why should all the victories of Penn State from 1998 to 2011 be removed? Why …