Jules Tygiel (1949-2008)
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
Archive of posts filed under the baseball history category.
Eliot Asinof (1919-2008) and the Mystery of Rocky Perone
The obituaries have been all too full of familiar names in recent weeks, men whose life’s work brought me a great deal of joy, countless hours of entertainment, and plenty of food for thought. Since Memorial Day alone, we’ve lost director Sydney Pollack, actor Harvey Korman, musician Bo Diddley, and sports broadcaster Jim McKay. Today’s …
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Minor Things
As somebody who grew up in a city with a minor-league team instead of a major-league one, and who frequented another city even further down the minor-league ladder, I always maintained a mental bookmark list of players I’d seen who made it to The Show, and some who came close with no cigar. This week …
Joba’s New Job / Scoring the Drop
I was pretty excited when over the weekend I learned that I’d have to bypass seeing one of my favorite bands, the Waco Brothers, because I held tickets to Tuesday night’s Yankees game, a matchup between the Blue Jays and Yanks that would pit Joba Chamberlain in his long-awaited first major-league start, against Toronto ace …
Miller Time II
I had to dash out town on Friday — down to Delaware for my brother-in-law’s wedding — before I could get the link to the Hit List up here, but of more interest three days later is the full transcript of the interview I did with Marvin Miller for last week’s feature. Here’s a taste: …
Miller Time
Wednesday was a big day here at Futility Central. In addition to doing three radio hits in a 24-hour span on topics as diverse as fantasy duds (XM’s Rotowire Fantasy Sports Hour with Chris Liss), the impact of maple bats on baseball’s scoring levels (XM’s MLB preview show with Mike Ferrin) and the exciting debut …
Somebody Get Me a Dock…
Over the weekend, the news came down that one of my favorite baseball eccentrics, Dock Ellis, is critically ill due to cirrhosis of the liver, fighting for his life in the hope of getting well enough to be put on a transplant list. He’s had some problems with health insurance in recent years; Yankees president …
Last Buzz
The second installment of my historical take on recently deceased former executive Buzzie Bavasi is now up at Baseball Prospectus. It’s even longer than the first part, covering not only the Dodgers’ 1960s heyday — Sandy Koufax’s prime — but also his tenures with the Padres and the Angels. At one point, I was sure …
Bavasi and the Bookshelf
Fresh off last week’s bloggy take on Buzzie Bavasi’s death, I’ve delved into a two-part look at his lengthy career over at Baseball Prospectus, the first of which is up today. Bavasi helped make history before ascending to the GM chair and enjoyed a great run with the Dodgers, but he also experienced some of …
Farewell to a Much Better Buzz
“Who else played golf with Babe Ruth, had dinner with Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale and worked for people of the stature of Larry MacPhail, Walter O’Malley, Gene Autry and Ray Kroc?”–Buzzie Bavasi (1914-2008) While Buzz Bissinger continues to be raked over the coals, the baseball world lost one of its titans on Thursday, as …