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Category Archives: Baseball History

Book Review: Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski

I have not had the time to do a lot of book reviews here on the blog in the past ten years or so, but when I saw Joe Posnanski was titling his latest book Why We Love Baseball, I knew it would be a moral imperative for Why I Like Baseball to review it. […]

SABR 51: Chicago

It’s been a few years since I had the time and brainpower to write up one of these recaps of a SABR convention! Of course there were no conventions for a few years in the pandemic, so last year’s one in Baltimore had been delayed twice. This year was Chicago, where we returned to the […]

The Karma Series

The Washington Nationals have won the World Series and the nation could not be happier.

Pride Project: LGBTQ Pride and Organized Baseball: History in the making?

Those of you who’ve followed my career through my various gigs at writing and editing in the baseball sphere, from the early days of the New York Yankees’ attempt at a website, stints at Gotham Baseball and Baseball Prospectus, to my current position as Publications Director for SABR, may have heard me say this before: […]

Heartland of America Trek, Post #4, Louisville Slugger Museum

We drove across Missouri on Saturday, had dinner in St. Louis, and then continued on the Louisville, Kentucky, where we planned to see the Louisville Slugger Museum in the morning. On Sundays, the museum opens at 11am, which was also checkout time at our hotel, so we slept as late as we could (it was […]

Heartland of America Trek, Post #2 – Negro Leagues Museum

It’s been a while since I did one of these baseball treks–over ten years. What can I say? I’ve been busy. So has the world. The last time I did this, I drove all over the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida looking at landmarks and places associated with Babe Ruth and other greats like Ty Cobb […]

Heartland of America Trek, Post #1: Introduction

I’m on a trek across America’s heartland right now, ostensibly to put me in the vicinity of the total eclipse next week. But who knows if the sky will be clear that day? To ensure myself a worthwhile trip, I’ve planned a baseball trek to take in some of the places I’ve heard of over […]

A Fraction of the Amazing Stuff I Learned at #SABR47

This year’s SABR convention was in New York, which was awesome for me, given how many of my research interests are New York-centric. It meant that I didn’t have to “pick out” all the Yankees-related topics to go see because there were so many. (Unrelated but cool: There were also so many women presenting and […]

Masanori Murakami speaks at #SABR45

This year we have many distinguished speakers at the SABR convention, as usual, but one I did not want to miss was Masanori Murakami. “Mashi” as he is known, was the first Japanese player to appear in the major leagues back in 1964. He is the subject of Rob Fitts’ new biography (Mashi: The Unfulfilled […]

Jeter Walks Off Into the Sunset

The scene is a conference room, shades drawn, coffee cups scattered across the table as the scriptwriters gather for a brainstorming session. “Okay, how about this?” one of them says. “The kid, totally green rookie, gets a shot because a veteran player goes down, and then he hits a home run in his first game.” […]