continued from Part II… Back to the Stadium on Thursday, with my Futility Infielder research assistant, Peter Quadrino in tow instead of my wife. Whereas Wednesday evening had brought unseasonably high temperatures prior to the rain, Thursday felt like a classically crisp October afternoon, with temperatures in the mid-50s as the game started. Paul O’Neill …
continued from Part I… Despite the swift kick in the ribs provided by the Dodgers-Mets result, the situation in the Bronx was looking up, with the October night bearing far more resemblance to a midsummer contest, with temperatures in the low 70s. Andra and I had missed the National Anthem but arrived in our seats …
Ladies and gentlemen! Step right up for the thrills, chills and spills of fall! The whiplash-inducing, widow-making, heart-breaking ride of postseason baseball! It’s death-defying, brain-frying and satisfaction-denying, with large objects flying and small children crying! Ride the Octobercoaster if you dare! The biggest drawback to pulling for two teams in the playoffs is the chance …
Sorry to have dropped off the face of the earth just as things were getting good. I spent most of this past weekend communing with the TV and the computer as I watched one of the most eventful final weekends in recent memory. It was probably to my wife’s advantage that she was out of …
You know you’re as marginal as marginal major leaguers get when in the Age of the Long Ball, you’ve gone over 1,000 at-bats in your career without getting a single major league home run. And you know you destined for the Hall of Punchlines when your life as a player pales before that of your …
Despite some technical difficulties that delayed its start and had the old rage-o-meter in the red for a few minutes, my chat at BP yesterday was pretty fun, lasting nearly three hours — much longer than I intended to go. Tons of questions about JAWS, Frank Thomas, Trevor Hoffman, the MVP races, the Hit List …
I’ve got a Baseball Prospectus chat scheduled for Wednesday at 1 PM. Drop by, or submit a question beforehand — the Hit List, JAWS, Yanks, Dodgers, the NL Wild Card race, the postseason, the offseason, the secret lives of futility infielders, and barrels full of rabid monkeys — it’s all fair game.
With the Dodgers idle after Sunday’s second Nomar Garciaparra walkoff of the week — NOMAAAAAAH! — this one a grand slam to close out the regular-season schedule in Chavez Ravine, Monday night was a helluva night for scoreboard watching as I finished the week’s Hit List. The NL playoff picture, in particular, is more fun …
Continue reading ‘More Fun Than a Barrel Full of Rabid, Knife-Wielding Monkeys’ »
The American League Central has turned out to have one of the best races in recent memory, with the Tigers, Twins and White Sox dueling for two playoff spots. But it appears the three-horse race has dwindled to two, and it’s the defending Sox — six games out of first and 5.5 back in the …
Continue reading ‘The Sox Come Unraveled, and Other Tales From the Bullpen’ »
Last Friday night, I finally got a chance to watch Twins reliever Pat Neshek. By way of belatedly introducing this week’s Hit List, in which Neshek appears, I just had to share a few of my favorite things about this guy. 1. First and foremost, he’s a rookie big-league pitcher who has his own blog; …