It is 8 AM Sunday night and I am looking forward to Game 4. What an incredible ending to Game 3. As I stated on Facebook, I think it is clear that the home plate umpire made the right call in the ninth inning. Even though the obstruction was not intentional, the third baseman clearly …
As the 2013 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals begins, I felt it would be appropriate to discuss how the World Series started. Before 1903, many attempts were made by baseball to declare a champion between existing leagues. Leagues were made and disappeared throughout the 19th Century. In 1894, Pittsburgh’s owner …
In my July 23, 2013 blog posting, I made my predictions for the post-season. You can read this blog by going to my blog page and clicking on the month of July in the archives. Quoting from that blog I wrote, “These are my playoff predictions for 2013. First, the division winners are for the …
In 2012, the MLB changed its playoff format (thank you Bud Selig) to include two Wild Card teams in each league, with those clubs playing each other in a one-game playoff for the right to move on to the Division Series. Let’s turn the clock back to 2012. The two Wild Card AL teams were …
My guest blogger for this blog is Jack Dolan. From 1963-1965, Jack served as Associate Producer at ABC-TV Sports working under the tutelage of Roone Arledge and with such well-known broadcasters as Jim McKay, Curt Gowdy, Jack Buck, Chris Schinkel, et. al. Jack contributed to an earlier blog where we both told our stories about …
This month I posted 2 blogs about Tommy John and Dr. Frank Jobe and why both should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. After reading my posts, my wife, Tara, reminded me about the day our family met Tommy John. Below is Tara’s story about what happened that day. In 1987, when our younger …
When considering people who have made baseball better, of course the name Branch Rickey immediately comes to mind. By signing Jackie Robinson to a Dodger contract, Branch Rickey opened the door of Major League Baseball to African-Americans. In 1974, an orthopedic surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe introduced a surgical procedure of replacing a damaged ulnar collateral …
Ichiro Suzuki, from the “Land of the Rising Sun”, provided the sunshine in the first inning of the game with the Blue Jays when he drove an outside knuckleball delivered by R.A. Dickey into left field for his 4000th hit. His 4000 hits represent the sum of his 1278 hits in Japan (1992-2000) for the Orix …
Note: My friend Dr. Stan has graciously invited me to expand on my earlier comment on this blog ( A Call for Amnesty, dated August 6, 2013), and I am pleased to do so. Baseball prides itself on being our national pastime, brightening even the darkest days of the Civil War. It is also a team sport …
The idea for this posting came about after I stumbled upon the “Hall of 100” on the ESPN website. This list was published on December 4, 2012. ESPN summoned sports writers, and on-air personalities to compile a list of the top 100 baseball players of All-Time. They were given a list of more than 300 …