I’ve been thinking about Barry Bonds lately, more specifically about the way I respond to Barry Bonds. Perhaps its a story emblematic of our times, or maybe just a sad commentary on my own capability for detatchment, but it took the recent death of his father for Barry Bonds to finally break through to me. …
When I went into the woods a couple of weeks ago, I predicted to a few people that based on the hairline fracture in Mark Mulder’s femur, the A’s were through. Four games behind the Mariners in the AL West, two games ahead of the Red Sox for the Wild Card, the Grim Forksman had …
I’m not sure if it’s just me, just anybody viewing this site on a Mac, or a system-wide problem, but the comment links at the end of each of my posts are all showing [0] even when comments have been posted. I have no idea what the deal is on this, and I’ll have to …
The aftermath of Sunday’s Yankees-Devil Rays game, in which the Yankee winning streak ended at eight, was apparently quite comical. As is traditional prior to embarking on the last road trip of the season, the team’s rookies underwent a hazing ritual in which the veterans forced them to dress up in outlandish outfits, then go …
Pat Jordan has become one of my favorite baseball writers over the past few years. A minor-league pitcher in the late ’50s, Jordan’s career was finished by an extended bout of Rick Ankiel-esque wildness, a topic he’s come to grips with via his writing career. Jordan eloquently told his own story in A False Spring, …
• What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday morning the Yanks awoke with a collective hangover from two consecutive poundings by the Boston Red Sox and a lead in the AL East that had dwindled to 2.5 games. In the past seven days, they’ve taken a huge game from the Sox, won a makeup …
Johnny Cash (1932-2003) This has absolutely nothing to do with baseball. But I was saddened to awake this morning to the news that Johnny Cash had died. As a musician and an icon, Cash bridged gaps between generations, classes, and cultures in a way that was second to none. In a career that began alongside …
Salon.com writer King Kaufman, whose work I’ve dug for a long time, has an excellent article today about the dearth of football blogs compared to baseball ones. Pointing out that while there are no fewer than 155 blogs linked via Baseball News Blog, he notes that the pigskin sport is quite neglected online. As he …
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The same archaeological dig into my old bedroom desk which netted me autographs from the 1986 Cactus League, brought me remembrances of another spring past. I found a long-lost envelope of photos from the 1989 Grapefruit League, when I saw four straight Dodger games at Vero Beach with my family. The world was a sunny …
Sometimes it just looks simple. The Yanks spent the weekend struggling for runs against the Boston Red Sox, scoring just six over the course of three games and at one point putting up 17 straight zeroes. But by the time the fourth inning of Monday’s ballgame against the Toronto Blue Jays had ended — by …