Old Time Family Baseball

Baseball’s back … kind of! Sure, the games don’t mean anything in the standings, but c’mon, how much does one game out of 162 really mean during the season, too? Honestly, that’s kind of the beauty of it! 

The players are out there, they’re swinging bats, announcers are talking about the need to make contact and they’re reading local sponsors again. (Who knew how badly I needed to hear about Farmer John’s hot dogs or what PC Richards and Sons could do for me and my family?) 

I already saw Tim Anderson bobble a ball, flip it in the air, grab it and fire backhand to second for the out. I’ve seen a Red Sox farmhand rob a home run. I’ve watched dozens of college teams I’ve never heard of before get out onto their carefully manicured astroturf fields, with players showing off some incredibly questionable looks. 

The last year has been a seemingly never-ending nightmare, but the summer months are coming. Cases are coming down and vaccines are being distributed. The baseball season is coming and fans will – all scientific evidence suggests so – safely be in the stands. And even though I’m not in Florida or Arizona and am still continue staying in my apartment, it’s a much needed dose of optimism. I hope it’s a welcome boost for you, too. 

Anyway, here’s a few stories I’ve written recently: 

The best baseball cap for every team. Come and yell at me for having bad opinions! Or shower me in gifts for being a noted tastemaker. 

Lauren Taylor found her calling after traumatic brain injury. I was fortunate enough to speak with Taylor about her recent Topps card release and how she turned to art following the darkest moment of her life. She has an amazing story and she has a great talent worth following. 

Which teams can go worst to first? In eight of the last 10 years, a team has gone from last place to a postseason spot. Who could pull it off this year? 

And here are some things I didn’t write, but definitely recommend: 

The time Hank Aaron faced Satchel Paige. Matt Monagan discovered a very cool story: when Aaron was in his prime and Paige was trying to get his pension, the two faced off in Spring Training. 

Meanies, Beer Bellies, Big City Boys: The MLB team names that almost were. It’s Grant Brisbee, so I certainly hope you’ve already read this. 

Ace stuff from names you don’t recognize. Mike Petriello dove into the data and found pitchers who you may not know, but whose pitches closely resemble the very best in the game. Could be good prep for that 16 team, NL-only fantasy league you’ve got. 

I know it’s not a unique story: Young teenager who, up until that point, hadn’t really thought of music – simply taking in whatever MTV happened to play or whatever 92.3 KROQ felt like playing – puts on a new album. And, like in a movie when a character takes their first tab of LSD or a rip off a jazz cigarette (The horror of horrors), all of a sudden it hits. The eyes grow wide, the hair stands on end, long-dormant parts of the brain light up. 

That’s what happened when I first heard The Strokes. Sure, I had dabbled in some punk music and had explored some of the bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s like the Velvet Underground, but I had never heard a contemporary band that told me there was something else out there. The Strokes’ “Is This It?” grabbed me by the shoulders and screamed to me, “There’s an entire world out there that you don’t know anything about.” 

From there, I fell in love. I devoured albums. I bought import magazines at the now-shuttered bookstore in my suburban town. I started bands and wrote record reviews for my high school newspaper. The Strokes quite simply changed my life. To this day, when I walk the streets of New York and I put on a Strokes album, it feels different. I feel different. 

All of this is to say – if you were wondering why a baseball blog was spending so much time talking about high school like this was some kind of coming of age tale – that the Strokes released a baseball robot music video for “The Adults are Talking.”

They also wrote a song called “Ode to the Mets” on their newest record. And that’s why I got to speak with lead singer Julian Casablancas for a half hour about the video, his love of vintage sports gear, and how the Mets broke his heart. It was a dream come true for me to speak with him – even if I wasn’t able to send him any demos.  

Here’s the link to check it out: The Mets broke Julian Casablancas’ heart. And thanks to Tom Forget for making the amazing baseball card you see at the top of the post. 

Here’s a few other things from me you may have missed recently: 

The 10 best bloopers of the year. You have to see the amazing ‘90s VHS-style video that was made to go along with the post. I’ve never loved anything so much. 

The 11 funniest moments from Tommy Lasorda’s career. Lasorda was a complicated man and he certainly wasn’t perfect, but he was a beloved figure. His players loved him. Los Angeles will probably give him a statue. So, in honor of his long career, we picked some of his most hilarious – like the time he got a mascot ejected from a ballgame. 

The history of the bullpen phone. This is a bit older, but with the baseball world quiet it got resurfaced. So, if you missed it before, here’s your chance again! 

When the Mets acquired Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco from Cleveland, it was just the latest in a long line of bizarre trades. Matt Monagan and I took a look at some of the best – including Harry Chiti being traded for himself. 

“The Holiday” is on in the background as I write this. I hate “The Holiday.” But this year, the idea of going somewhere – anywhere – renting someone else’s house, meeting someone and letting them INTO MY HOUSE?! Wow, now that is a fantasy I can get behind. I don’t even care about the rest of the plot. Just let me see someone in my house without worrying that they’ll kill me or I’ll kill them. 

Christmas movies are a weird genre. They’re basically: One (1) terrible person whose life is a mess meets a magical person that changes everything – all while Christmas lights twinkle around them. But then I realized: That’s also the plot of most sports movies. 

Think about it: So many sports films open the same way. The team is a mess. The star players are awful, selfish people. The backups are drunks, and the team owners make Scrooge seem like a real nice guy. But then, just in time, the new coach, the new signing, the 12-year-old-whose-arm-snapped-in-just-the-right-place shows up and everything is better. There’s a miracle and we all cheer and love and feel joy again. 

I guess what I’m saying is “Rookie of the Year” is a Christmas movie. There’s plenty of ivy, too. If “Die Hard” is an xmas movie, so is this one. 

Anyway, skip a smooth transition, here’s a few things I wrote recently: 

What if Max Scherzer was never a Tiger? When Scherzer was traded to the Tigers in 2009, no one really knew what he was. He wasn’t even the reason for the trade. The starting point was Arizona wanting to bring in Edwin Jackson (and start him on the path to 14 big league clubs.) But what if Scherzer was traded to the Yankees instead? It’s not hard to imagine – and if it does go down, baseball history is forever changed. 

The triple play that started off a player’s head. All triple plays are weird. This one from 1935 might be the oddest. 

And here are a few things I didn’t write but that are very good and worth your holiday time: 

9 weird stats from this year.  In a 60 game season, nothing makes sense. Embrace the strange! 

The MLB holiday lineup. All hail Steve Christmas! 

You may not know the name Mike Maksudian, but you will now. Mostly because he would eat beetles and cockroaches while in the Minors! 

Who is the best player at every position not in the Hall of Fame? Glad you asked. 

Anyway, I hope wherever you are that you have a relaxing holiday and a happy new year. Here’s hoping 2021 isn’t so dreadfully terrifying. 

One of my favorite things to do during the offseason (beyond catching up on some movies, books, and – gasp – watch a few other sports, too. Sorry, Rogers Hornsby, but there’s just too much good stuff out there in the world!) is taking a time machine to another baseball season. You can pull up YouTube and just type in “Rangers 1992″ and be presented with some random game where you have no idea what you’re going to get. Yeah, that means we’re getting plenty of Dickie Thon – one of my favorite names to ever exist. 

Or you can just watch some old VHS highlight reels (or even better, blooper ones) people uploaded without express written consent. Or you can grab a huge stack of old Smith and Street Baseball Guides – a co-worker sent me his collection of about 20 years recently – and dive in. 

Sure, you may know the broad strokes. You know who won the World Series, you know who won the MVPs, but there’s all the nuance you miss. There’s the bit players who had a good month or two and everyone at the time was wondering if he would break out. 

There are interviews that have been lost to time – never archived for the web, never memorialized in a book of baseball quotes, never added to a plaque at Cooperstown – and they can provide so much joy. Like, say, that George Brett didn’t hit .400 in 1980 because he wasn’t drinking four to five beers after every game. 

So, if you find yourself missing baseball, head to eBay and grab a giant stack of old mags and transport yourself into another baseball season. 

But you should also make sure you read stuff from this year – specifically stuff I wrote. (See how smooth this transition was?) Here are some of the things I’ve worked on recently: 

Baseball’s oldest living player turns 100. Eddie Robinson has seen and done everything in baseball. He was playing when Ruth’s number was retired, he won the Indians’ last World Series (quite literally, too, driving in the winning run in Game 6), was the GM when Hank Aaron hit his 715th and was scouting when McGwire hit 62. I spoke to Robinson for about an hour before his 100th birthday. 

Jameson Taillon is obsessed with coffee – but he also loves people. The offseason is the best time to get to know ballplayers a little more as they get to let their guard down and talk about things that aren’t arm-slot related or about the game last night. So, I got to chat with the Pirates ace about coffee – his favorite shops, the best brews, the small changes you can make to improve yours – and also learned that what Taillon loves most of all is getting to know people. 

Cody Bellinger is Otta Sluggasson in “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.” I’ve yet to play any Assassin’s Creed, but the fact that an MVP Award winner AND World Series champ plays a hilariously baseball-themed viking character makes it much more likely that I’ll try it out soon enough. I spoke with Bellinger while he’s rehabbing Arizona to learn about how he got the gig and what it’s like being baseball’s biggest meme. 

Dick Allen was one of the coolest to ever play. I never got to watch Dick Allen play, but he was always one of my favorites. The mutton chops, the glasses, the big swing and willingness to push back against a Philadelphia media that couldn’t accept a Black star. Allen passed away last week, so I wrote about what made him such a compelling star. 

Finally, here are a few pieces I didn’t write, but which I highly recommend: 

Billy Wagner learned how to throw lefty. Wagner somehow managed to throw over 100 mph WITH HIS LESS DOMINANT ARM. I can’t even write my name legibly with my left. 

The Ringless Teams!  Not going to lie – I’m completely shocked that Dusty has NEVER won the World Series. 

Get to know Red Sox reliever Connor Seabold. He’s a changeup artist – that’s cool. But he’s also an artist artist. 

Sorry for the long break in between posts. (Or, if I’m in the mood to be particularly old-timey, “missives.”) Since I last was back here, we had an election … that, uh, is still somehow not over. (Well, except that it is.) The World Series was played and somehow Youppi’s curse over the Dodgers is over. (The Dodgers had not won a World Series since Youppi was ejected from a game in 1989.) And, oh yeah, there’s a raging pandemic running rampant over the country. 

Sadly, there is no more Major League Baseball to watch while we’re huddled inside, staying safe and socially distant from other people. But that doesn’t mean there’s no baseball. The KBO playoffs are happening every morning – if you’re willing to get up early enough.  

Or, you could dive into Mexican Pacific League in the evening! Or the Dominican Winter League! That one has a nifty streaming package for only $20! And while you’re watching, you can see Juan Francisco – maybe a few lbs heavier than his playing days – bash baseballs again. And just check out these amazing unis he’s wearing! This is what I wish the Marlins uniforms looked like: 

Dude is just wearing #111 like there are no rules anymore pic.twitter.com/zE8qAcey8v

Of course, this is also the time to catch up with reading and books and movies – whether about baseball or not. Personally, if you’re looking for something to soothe your weary head and keep you from being perpetually anxious, I recommend Ted Lasso on Apple+. It may not be the funniest show, but it basically takes Major League, sets it in England, and fills it with nice and well-meaning people. 

And if reading is what you’re after, you’re in luck! Here are some stories I’ve worked on recently: 

Negro Leagues statistics have often been referred to as something mysterious and unknowable. But that’s simply not the case – and part of the issue is that the people who set the rules for these things in the 1960s didn’t care about the Negro Leagues. Fortunately, a group of researchers are diving into microfiche and box scores and old scorebooks and are assembling the most complete data there is. Mule Suttles, the single-season home run leader, just added two more to his total this month after new box scores were found! That’s amazing! 

Ken Griffey Jr. is now a Sounders part-owner. Sadly, he is not going to be on the pitch. 

Awards season may be over, but the awards that really should have been given out like best quarantine mustache never were. So, I tried to fix that. 

Some games are good. Some games are bad. And some games are terrifying. Here are nine of the most frightening. 

And here are a few stories I didn’t write, but are worth your time: 

You know I love scary stories. So, my good friend Matt Monagan told the creepiest tale of all about Rochester’s haunted baseball field. 

Mike Petriello looked at all the data about position players pitching that you wanted to know, but were probably too scared to ask. The offseason are for fun and bizarre baseball stories! 

It’s not baseball, but if you’re an Old Time Family Baseball person you probably care about uniform design. Here’s a ranking of all of the NHL’s new Reverse Retro jerseys. My personal favorite is the Minnesota Wild’s gorgeous update on the old North Stars unis. 

Anyway, stay safe! Have a great holiday – and if you’re traveling, get tested and isolate! See you next week! 

What happens when you accomplish your dreams, but it turns out more like a nightmare? How do you go on with your life when everything you worked for ended up turning out in the very worst way? 

That’s something I’ve thought a lot about since speaking with Ron Wright. Once a top prospect with light tower power, Wright had a series of injuries and a mistake in surgery that ended all that. Still, he made it up to the big leagues for one game. That day, he struck out, hit into a double play and hit into a triple play never to make it up again. 

Somehow, that didn’t deter him from living a great life without regret. Click here to read his story. 

Here are a few other stories I’ve written recently if you’d like to read: 

While it may seem like destiny for players like Mike Trout to become the best in the sport, that’s not always the case. Trout was never even the game’s top prospect. But there is always one game when we all realize we’re seeing something special. I looked at that game for five of the game’s very best. 

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a special kind of baseball fan. Maybe you’re drawn to the uniforms. Or maybe you like to write fictional stories about baseball players mixed with hefty doses of magical realism. Maybe you’re in a band and you watch baseball games with your guitar on your lap. Carl Skanberg is one of those fans. He’s an accomplished cartoonist and has been spending his quarantine creating amazing sketchbook scorecards for every White Sox game – including Lucas Giolito’s no-hitter. I talked to him about his process of turning daily sport into art.

We’ve just passed the halfway point of the year. Which means … it’s time for completely meaningless midseason awards! 

Also, if you want more stupid baseball stuff, hit me up on Twitter. That’s where I’ll be during most games, screencapping real dumb stuff. 

And here are some things I didn’t write, but you should read: 

My colleague Matt Monagan wrote the story of a man who was traded for catfish (really) and then pitched a perfect game for his new team. 

One of the biggest inspirations for me to start writing about baseball was Craig Calcaterra, who combined baseball knowledge, humor, and razor sharp takes. For 11 years, he wrote every day at NBC Sports. Recently he was let go as the entire sports division took massive cuts. He started up a newsletter which I highly recommend to keep up with the sport. 

Bryce Harper showed up on Opening Day with the most insane, crystal-loaded cleats that looked like the Phillie Phanatic. Turns out, a fashion designer created them. This is the story. (The Athletic, sub required) 

I hope you and yours are staying safe and doing your best to socially distance while soaking up what you can from the worst summer in history. 

In a year of just absolute dreadfulness, the past few days have been a welcome relief. Obviously, I’m talking about the new Taylor Swift record. (OK, I’m joking. It’s mostly the new baseball season, but that Lady Tay decided to drop a surprise album with the guitarist from The National on the eve of Opening Day was a pretty nice boon, too.) 

I hope wherever you are, you’ve been able to get some enjoyment from the new season. Watching Joey Votto go deep on Opening Day, perhaps turning back the clock from the past two seasons, was a delight. Seeing Kyle Hendricks throw a complete game – the first on Opening Day since 2013 – was a wonderful surprise. Seeing Anthony Rizzo hand out hand sanitizer is a reminder that yeah, things are different these days, but we can still be good to each other. 

I know my last few months have felt like the days have blended together into a kind of fuzzy, endlessly depressing blur. I now only see friends on Zoom calls or the two times I’ve sat on chairs near their stoop for a chat. Baseball can’t fix everything, but the joy I’ve had being able to sit down on my couch (where my entire life now resides) and getting to watch the game I deeply love has done wonders for me – even if the Pirates don’t feel like winning games so far. I hope it’s been able to do that for you, too. 

Anyway, here are a few things I’ve written recently that you may want to read: Here’s a reason to believe for all 30 teams. Hey, even the Orioles have a chance (just not a very good one.) 

Does Taylor Swift’s new record predict the season? She’s been predicting baseball for a long time – even if just by accident – so I have written dumber things. 

The 12 strangest Opening Day games in history. The Tigers’ first Opening Day as a big league team in 1901 is my favorite.

Finally, two things I didn’t write, but are worth your time: 

The MLB.com team put together a weird fact from every Opening Day game. A weird year demands weird facts. 

Daniel Bard, who was out of the game for seven years, made it back with the Rockies … and earned a win. 

If you’ve been here for a while, you know whimsy and fun are my favorite part of sports. Sure, the moments where you think you’re going to throw up because you’re so tense, or that you want to cry because a loss was so crushing are great and addictive, but if that was every day we’d never tune in. Most movies and TV shows we watch don’t even push us to the brink. (There’s a reason it’s the season finales that do it.) 

So, yeah, sports should be fun. Fun things are fun and should be treated as such. None of us played Little League because it was do or die every Saturday. And though I felt that way, it had more to do with being an extremely overanxious kid than how much it actually mattered. 

Years before we were GIF-ing dugout celebrations and players were sharing fun moments on their social media accounts, supermodel, actress, entrepreneur etc etc etc Christie Brinkley shot a super fun and strange baseball card set. I talked to her and Jim Thome – and Mark Bowman helped out with a conversation with Chipper Jones – about the set. Check it out here. 

Here are a few other things I’ve done recently: 

A short season means we could see some awfully weird numbers. Could Trout hit .400? Will Madison Bumgarner ever get to the plate? How many errors will Fernando Tatis Jr. commit?! These are the over/unders I set. 

Speaking of Bumgarner, will he be the last pitcher to ever hit a home run? 

Looking for that perfect shirsey to set you apart from other fan’s? This is the 2020 shirsey guide. 

Like players that do things unlike anyone else? Love Tim Locastro’s speed and ability to get hit by pitches (Who doesn’t?) I looked at seven players who are unlike anyone else in the sport. 

And here are some things that I didn’t write, but are definitely worth your time: 

The star of the scrimmages has been the Dodgers’ ballboy Chico. But just who the hell is he? 

Two triple plays in a single game? It happened and the Twins’ Kent Hrbek remembers it. 

When the season starts, we’ll see a real decrease in dumb stories that are lots of work and are super fun. Like this one by big baseball brain Mike Petriello on the best jersey numbers in baseball history by WAR. 

This is a great story. After being out of the Majors for seven years, Daniel Bard made the Opening Day roster with the Rockies. 

I’ve seen some of the chatter online, that whoever wins the World Series this year will have a giant asterisk attached to it. I don’t want to hear about that, I have no patience for it. 

Sure, it’s a 60 game season. Sure, a “bad” team could sneak into the playoffs. But guess what? 60 games is just as absurd and arbitrary number as 162. There was no stone tablet handed down by the baseball gods that say “Thou shalt play 162 games games, and if thou doesn’t, you will burn in the 1,000 fires.” And you think bad teams haven’t snuck into the playoffs? Just talk to the 2006 Cardinals – winners of 83 games – and tell me that it wasn’t really just a handful of wins at the right time that pushed them to the top. 

This season is going to be hard. There is a pandemic racing through the country that we couldn’t beat and, it seems, didn’t want to beat. There’s a reason to be concerned for the safety of the players, the staffs, the families of those involved. The season may not even finish. 

But if it does, and there is a World Series champion crowned, what they will have done will have been even more impressive than in a normal year. Just consider the personal stresses that will be on every player. Just think of the importance of every game as fans trapped at home and anxious because of /gestures toward everything happening in the world get at least a few hours of the greatest sport on Earth to soothe the nerves. 

Baseball can’t fix everything. And perhaps the season will lose its battle against the virus before it even starts. All I know is that this is what my brain looks like right now: 

baseballbaseballbaseballbaseballbaseballbaseballbaseballbaseballbaseball

Here’s to July 23. Or 24th. Whatever they decide. 

Anyway, enough of that big picture stuff. Here are some baseball articles I wrote if you want to read them and think about baseball: 

The 13 coolest teams of all-time. Being good is nice, being cool, though? So much better. (Yes, obviously Ken Griffey Jr. is inside here) 

You ever hear about John Paciorek? You should have. He had the greatest debut a player can have. At the age of 18, he went 3-for-3, drew two walks and drove in three runs. But he never played in the Majors again. This is his story. 

I also wrote about Bobo Holloman, who had to beg his boss to let him start … and then went out and threw a no-hitter. Yeah, that’s cool. 

Finally, I wrote about 15 of the strangest, funniest and most bizarre uniforms in baseball history. Check it out. 

Here are some pieces I didn’t write, but are definitely worth your time: 

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I love the bunt. So, I actually hate this article. But if you hate the bunt like most do, Mike Petriello on why the sacrifice bunt might disappear is probably up your alley. 

Here’s a fun one from Tim Brown and Hannah Keyser. They interviewed 30 people in baseball and asked them what they got better at during quarantine. (If you’re anything like me, you got better at sitting on the couch and eating trash.) 

I hate the DH. That’s fine. You probably like it. But this year probably marks the end of pitcher’s hitting. Jayson Stark wrote the eulogy for these awful hitters.