The Great Friday Link Out XI: On Saturday this week

Many apologies for this week’s link post being late. Here is some stuff worth reading:

• The series Bill Miller and I are doing on good players for bad teams continues. I wrote the latest installment, on Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Philadelphia Phillies of the 1910s (link should be active at some point Saturday) and Bill wrote last week about Graig Nettles, who I never realized played a few early years with the Cleveland Indians.
• Speaking of Bill, he wrote an open letter to controversial, former New York Times writer and current blogger Murray Chass and got a response. The exchange is worth checking out.
• Something I’ve been meaning to mention: I’ve started doing a podcast. Fellow SABR member Paul Hirsch and I are doing a show each Sunday for Seamheads.com called “Baseball by the Bay.” The show runs 7-7:30 p.m. PST though it can be listened to anytime here. We mostly focus on the Giants and A’s, though we’ll be comparing all-time Bay Area lineups this week and discussing the pending demise of Cal’s baseball program. At some point, we’ll start having guests, too.
• Joe Posnanski writes about players who went through a season without an intentional walk. Who’d have thought it would include Roger Maris when he hit 61 home runs in 1961 or Alex Rodriguez?
• Interesting anecdote from a new Babe Ruth biography: Apparently the idea of a designated hitter was proposed in 1930, under the name Ten-Man Baseball, a full 43 years before Ron Blomberg became baseball’s first DH.
• Standing Tall: Slim Love’s Rise from Bar Room to Big Leagues. I’m pretty much always impressed at the caliber of writing and research from this blogger and his original, quirky, historical topics, speaking as someone who generally aims for that here.