The Jay Ballers of the World, Part I

Off and on over the past six months, I've been working on a piece about all of the ballplayers named Jay who have appeared in the major leagues. Thanks to the wonders of Baseball-Reference, Retrosheet, the Baseball Library and other sites around the web, I've compiled capsule histories of each of the 38 ballplayers who share my first name (even if it was actually their nickname). Part I covers the pitchers. Part II, which should be up in the next week, will cover the hitters. Enjoy!

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 12:45 AM Link

A Banner Day

A set of banners which I designed for the Baseball-Reference.com website are now in place: the main banner, the banner from the player search results, and a link banner over at Baseball Primer. These are something I offered to do for Sean Forman's fine site back during the summer, but the process became long and drawn out because both of us were so busy elsewhere within our own sites. One of my New Year's resolutions was to finish them off. In fact, I think that was the only solid resolution I made. Maybe I should set the bar higher... nah.

It's nice to see the banners finally in place; I hope those of you who use that site enjoy them--though I'm sure the few Red Sox fans among you are probably gritting your teeth at my choice of photos. That's Babe Ruth, along with his stats from 1919 (his last year in Boston, when he hit a then-unthinkable 29 HRs) to 1927 (when he swatted 60 for the Yankees). At the time I did them, Sean and I discussed doing a series with other famous players as well, but the issue there is finding a photo we don't have to pay for, not to mention one so instantly recognizable at such a small size. Not to say it won't happen, but you Sox fans are going to have to grin and bear it for awhile, heh-heh.

It's not something I'm planning on doing to pay my bills, but any of you out there who are interested in my services as a graphic designer, particularly for a baseball-related project, feel free to email me because I might be willing or interested. I get a kick out of having designed a piece of something I use almost every day--there's baseball-reference.com, my own website, and, from the world of my paid job, the World Almanac 2002, for which I did the cover and photo inserts. Believe me, it beats some of the other stuff I have to design to pay the bills.

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 10:53 AM Link