My friend and occasional contributor here, Rory Paap got his first link from Rob Neyer of ESPN.com on Friday. Neyer had proposed a new addition to Cooperstown he called the Wing of Amazing, “for players who really don’t belong in the Hall of Fame because they weren’t good enough, but did some things that do [...]
Archive for January, 2011
Halls of different Fame
Posted: 31st January 2011 by Graham Womack in Baseball Hall of FameTags: baseball reliquary shrine of the eternals, rob neyer wing of amazing
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BPP Book Club: 1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York
Posted: 29th January 2011 by Joe Guzzardi in Book reviewsAt the beginning of the 20th century, baseball was practiced in the style favored by New York Giants’ manager John McGraw: Play for the single run with a base hit, followed by the hit and run, a sacrifice or a stolen base. But by 1921, Babe Ruth was in his second season with the New [...]
The Great Friday Link Out III: Eye of the Detroit Tiger
Posted: 28th January 2011 by Graham Womack in The Great Friday Link OutThe only thing missing from this week’s link out is Mr. T or another reference to Rocky III. Bill Miller has posted the third installment of the series we’re doing for his blog on good players on awful teams. This week, Bill writes about Rusty Staub, the best thing going on the expansion Montreal Expos [...]
What he did: I recently got an email from Brendan Bingham suggesting I write something on Denny McLain. Brendan wrote: Although Denny McLain’s 31 wins is part of the standard description of what made 1968 the ”year of the pitcher,” the accomplishment perhaps had little to do with 1968. McLain had a great year, but it would have been [...]
Although I never lived in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Boston or Milwaukee, one of my early baseball favorites was Big George Crowe, a first baseman for the Reds, Cardinals, and Braves. My first connection to Crowe, who died on January 18 at 89, came when I was a ten-year-old growing up in Los Angeles avidly collecting [...]
Does he belong in the Hall of Fame? Joe Posnanski
Posted: 25th January 2011 by Graham Womack in Joe PosnanskiClaim to fame: Here’s a trivia question: Who is Charles Dryden? How about Heywood Broun? Frank Graham? As an aspiring sportswriter, I’ve read Dryden, Broun, Graham and other long-dead pioneers of my craft. Dryden even had a cool life story, living as a hobo in the 1800s before going to work as a newspaperman. He [...]
A reader emailed me an interesting post this past weekend. John Bowen of DugoutCentral.com offered a lineup of players who were left off their league’s All Star team in a year they thrived. I went a step further with this idea and crafted a lineup of the best players I could find who never made [...]
Imagine the following. You are a general manager. Your task is to release one of two players. The first is disappointing but talented, able to play several positions and shine, at least defensively in all of them. The other man can play two positions and is labeled a great defensive player simply because he cannot [...]
Carl Erskine and the Oddest Game in World Series History
Posted: 22nd January 2011 by Joe Guzzardi in by Joe GuzzardiDuring the 1950s decade Carl Erskine, the right-handed starting pitcher who played his entire career for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, pitched two of the league’s seven no hitters. Erskine’s gems came on June 19, 1952 against the Chicago Cubs and on May 12, 1956 against the New York Giants. For curious historians, the [...]
The Great Friday Link Out II: The Wrath of Cain
Posted: 21st January 2011 by Graham Womack in The Great Friday Link OutIt’s Friday, which means a second week of links is upon us. It’s going to be hard to top my debut of this feature last week when I inadvertently linked to a one-time white rapper turned baseball memorabilia collector. Who knew SABR members could rap? Barring any of the following bloggers secretly being Vanilla Ice [...]