I joke sometimes that if I were ever marooned on a desert island and could bring one thing, I might take Baseball-Reference.com with me. The world’s greatest baseball website has enough content to keep a hardened fan or researcher occupied for months if not years. I’ve certainly killed weekends on it. I was lucky enough [...]
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Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: For support, not illumination. -Vin Scully Three years ago, in the early stages of this blog, I wrote a post suggesting the best eligible player not in the Hall of Fame. It was three years ago, granted, so I knew less about sabermetrics, less about [...]
April 1987 marked the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier. On April 6 of that year, the ABC program “Nightline” had on baseball author Roger Kahn and the Dodgers executive who signed Robinson, Al Campanis as guests. At first, it went smoothly, with Kahn noting that his late friend Robinson might be [...]
I was literally just asked WHY fans should respect MLB history — including that of each of its franchise’s (past/present). WHAT THE HELL?! — Melissa Dickson (@WhiteSoxDiaries) April 18, 2013 Thursday afternoon, news broke on Twitter that Derek Jeter would be out injured until at least the All Star Break and the response was fairly [...]
Hi all, A quick note this morning to say that I have a new piece up at the Hardball Times. As some of you may know, Baseball-Reference.com added salary information and an inflation calculator to player pages not long ago. Using this info, I recently ranked every Hall of Fame player for their top salary [...]
There’s something I’ve been mulling for some time now that I think needs to be said. I’ll try to keep this brief. I’ve reached the point in my writing career where I only want to do paid work. My ultimate goal is to make a living as a writer, preferably a sportswriter. I worry that [...]
Dear Bill Dwyre, My name is Graham Womack. You probably don’t remember me, but I attended a sports journalism workshop you helped put on in 2003 as sports editor of the Los Angeles Times. I was one of 30 college students selected from around the country to spend a few days at Hollywood Park horse [...]
I’ve been preoccupied the last several months. What was once a near-daily stream of posts here has dwindled to a handful per month. I’m not complaining, at least not today. In July, I got a full-time day job. In August, something bigger happened: I got the professional break as a sportswriter that I’ve been wanting [...]
The 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame, Version 3.0
Posted: 2nd January 2013 by Graham Womack in Baseball Hall of FameRecently on Twitter, someone asked my friend and fellow baseball writer Dan Szymborski how many people he’d enshrine off this year’s Hall of Fame ballot. I had to speak up. “Like 15,” I tweeted. It’s been a long time since the ballot has had this glut of talent, maybe 50 years if we go back to [...]
As some of you may know, I’ve had the opportunity over the last few months to contribute to 49ers Insider, a digital magazine from the San Francisco Chronicle. Between this gig and my day job, it’s limited my time and energy to write for BPP, though it’s given me something cool to offer. I’m writing [...]