Just prior to heading out the door for my longest trip of the summer — two nights in Seattle, three in the San Juan Islands, and four more in Los Angeles (including a trip to Dodger Stadium to see them play the Nationals next Saturday) — I published one of my annual favorite columns, the …
Just wanted to note a couple of pieces from Alex Belth that got lost in the All-Star week shuffle. First is his SI.com article about the good, the bad and the ugly of Yankee Stadium II: The list of complaints is sizable: the ridiculous ticket prices, the lousy concessions (how can pretzels not be warmed-up …
I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the All-Star Game. Since attending the infamous tie ballgame in Milwaukee in 2002, my allegiance to the so-called Midsummer Classic has been in a downward spiral: •Skipped the 2003 game in favor of a Staten Island Yankees-Brooklyn Cyclones game, where I saw an 18-year-old center fielder named Melky …
Continue reading ‘The 2008 All-Star Game: This Time It Didn’t Suck’ »
Friend, colleague, YES Network columnist and cancer survivor Steven Goldman has a touching piece on the passing of Bobby Murcer in which he relates an encounter the two of them had last year. I’m not ashamed to say that it borught a tear to my eye: I told Bobby that I didn’t mean to intrude, …
Several years ago, the legendary Cleveland proto-punk band the Styrenes rose from the grave long enough to reissue some great old material via album entitled All the Wrong People are Dying. The title track (listen here) is dirge beneath vocalist Mike Hudson’s spoken-word eulogy for his 33-year-old recently deceased brother Joey, a fellow musician, and …
If you haven’t already done so, set your TiVo or similar appliance to record the Fox Sports Net’s 13-part series, “Baseball’s Golden Age.” Each episode features rare or previously unscreened footage of greats from the 1920s through the 1960s, mainly via home movies, and a lot of it in color. It’s similar to the stellar …
At the beginning of last month, I was fortunate enough to interview former Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Marvin Miller about his recent statement regarding the Hall of Fame. In the weeks since, the topic of mortality has been an all-too-prevalent one around here, underscoring just how lucky I was to pursue the …
I’m just back from a whirlwind long weekend in Milwaukee, where I celebrated one brother-in-law’s 40th birthday and another brother-in-law’s recent wedding, saw two friends’ newborn son as well as my favorite medical miracle. As if that wasn’t enough, I also got to partake in a couple of the region’s great traditions — tailgating before …
The Grim Reaper’s hitting streak continues. In the three weeks since I wrote about Eliot Asinof and a host of others, we’ve lost Tim Russert and George Carlin. Via Baseball Toaster’s
Monday night’s Baseball Prospectus event at Foley’s Pub and Restaurant was a smashing success. It turns out that unlike most BP events there was no pizza and no formal Q&A-type presentation, but the beer was cold, and it’s been said that I do my best work at the bar. I chatted at length with colleagues …