45 days until pitchers and catchers report
December 29, 2019
88 days until Opening Day!!
Month: December 2019
Quote of the day
December 28, 2019
These old ballparks are like cathedrals in America. We don’t have big old Gothic cathedrals like they do in Europe. But we got baseball parks.
~Jimmy Buffett
This day in baseball: The Yomiuri Giants are formed
December 26, 2019
On December 26, 1934, Matsutaro Shoriki, the head of Yomiuri Newspapers in Japan, announced the formation of Japan’s first professional team, the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants. The team consisted of players signed to compete against the American all-star team (originally called the Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club). However, professional league play, with six teams, would not begin until 1936 with the formation of the Japanese Baseball League.
Today, the Yomiuri Giants are considered “The New York Yankees of Japan” due to their widespread popularity, historical dominance of the league, and their polarizing effect on fans.
Happy Holidays
December 25, 2019
Happy Holidays to all my readers as well as to your friends and families. I hope this holiday season provides an enjoyable repose before we launch into the next decade!
This day in baseball: Carl Mays sold to Reds
December 23, 2019
Yankees submarine pitcher Carl Mays was sold to the Reds for $85,000 on December 23, 1923. Mays had a personality that tended to clash with most people, and he never really got along with manager Miller Huggins in New York. Mays would go 49-34 in Cincinnati before ending his career with the New York Giants.
Quote of the day
December 22, 2019
Baseball players have such a bad rap of, like, we don’t work out or we’re not strong or this or that. Guys work so hard in baseball, it’s incredible. But people don’t know that.
~Bryce Harper
“Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (Rap Version)
December 21, 2019
This rap version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is incredibly impressive, and I am amazed that this video hasn’t gotten more views than it has. It’s not just a straightforward rap of the lyrics as we know them — the team from Ball State University that put this together did a great job of stirring things up and modernizing the verse to make it more fitting and engaging, while still leaving enough to recognize the original tune. I particularly like the whispered lines of, “One… two… three… the batter’s out!”
54 days until pitchers and catchers report
December 20, 2019
And 97 days until Opening Day!
Quote of the day
December 18, 2019
I’d like to see ’em go out and pound tequila rather than cookies and milk, because nobody’s going to get us out of this but us.
~Tony Muser
This day in baseball: Joe Tinker traded to the Reds
December 15, 2019
On December 15, 1912, the Chicago Cubs traded Joe Tinker, as well as Harry Chapman and Grover Lowdermilk, to the Cincinnati Reds for Red Corriden, Bert Humphries, Pete Knisely, Mike Mitchell, and Art Phelan. Tinker, who had been canonized in Franklin Pierce Adams’ baseball poem “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” went on to serve as the player-manager for Cincinnati.
