I can’t explain this

One of the things that I do with my spare time is I collect baseball cards. It’s not like it was for me when I was ten years old, though. The cards themselves aren’t worth a dime, and never will be, so I don’t do it for the money. More than anything else, I do

Quite an achievement

Even the most hardcore Cubs fan there is could be forgiven if they forgot about Ron Hassey. He came to the Cubs in the middle of the 1984 season, part of the Rick Sutcliffe trade that sent Joe Carter and Mel Hall to the Indians, and set the Cubs on their way to the divisional

But nothing on jersey night

I’m back after a weekend in Cleveland, which was loaded with family, baseball, and rock n’ roll. In other words, all of my favorite things. I could, and probably will, tell lots of stories about the Rock Hall, but those will wait until I have some time. But for now, a baseball tale will have

Chicago and baseball in the movies

From Ferris Bueller catching a foul ball on the North side, to Julia Roberts serving drinks on the South side, Chicago and baseball seem to go together in the movies. And why not? Baseball in this town pre-dates the movies, and the city that can be all things to all people on-screen can surely put

The name was a clue

The story of Roberto Hernandez, who for more than a decade was known as “Fausto Carmona,” is more interesting to me this evening than the Ryan Braun story. Today’s ruling has declawed the testing procedure, and means that the juice will probably be coming back to baseball. Is somebody now going to hit 60 home

A change of scenery

I can only imagine how bad the night of June 6, 1984 must have sucked for Rick Sutcliffe. His team, the Cleveland Indians, was already in 7th place, and 20 1/2 games out of first. The Cleveland populace had taken note of this, and fewer than 4,000 of them had come out that evening to

Milestones

In a stats-driven game like baseball, there are some particular numbers that everyone pays attention to. For a single season, 60 (and later 61) home runs was the magic number, and probably still is, although the juicers (McGwire, et al.) exceeded  that number several times. There’s also 20 wins for pitchers, 200 hits for batters,

My blue hat’s off to Jim Thome

This won’t be a pleasant topic to address. There isn’t any physical pain or suffering involved, only mental anguish on my part. And of course it has to do with being a Cubs fan. What a great life I might have if baseball didn’t matter to me, or I was a fan of a team