Bill Clinton at the ballpark

I live in Chicago, and by now I’m used to the Secret Service helicopters flying over my house whenever the President or his family are in town. The military helicopters are usually the ones I hear, and they’re always gone in a flash. I’m sure that’s a good thing for keeping the President safe. So

Farewell to the assassin

I can’t deny the greatness of Pudge Rodriguez. He’s the Johnny Bench of his generation, the player by which future catchers will be measured against. We’ll see him again in five years when he’s inducted into Cooperstown, no doubt. But I’m going to depart from the career retrospective approach that others might take. For me,

Remembering the Hawk

One of the themes running through the “Don’t Blame Steve” song and video is admiration for Andre Dawson (or “Hawk Dawson” as he’s referred to in the video). Dawson only played six seasons in right field at Wrigley Field, or roughly half as long as Sammy Sosa’s tenure there. But believe me when I say

You drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy

I just learned today that my family and I will be going to Cleveland in May, and I finally will get to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Besides the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, that’s probably the only one that I would be interested in seeing. So it will be a

Post number 300

I previously wrote a little bit about Jamie Moyer here, although my purpose for writing was more to describe something on one of his old cards than to talk about him. So now, on the occasion of my 300th post on this blog, I’ll return to Jamie Moyer for a few more comments. This would

Baseball’s first professional player

In 1936, the first ballots for the newly-created Baseball Hall of Fame were mailed out for voters to consider. As with modern Hall of Fame balloting, there were two ways to be elected: the Baseball Writers Association of America (or BBWAA) was allowed to vote for contemporary players from the 20th century, while the Veteran’s

Jeff Bagwell for the Hall of Fame

As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (or BBA for short), I recently participated in their annual Hall of Fame voting process. I don’t have one of the writer’s votes for the election that determines who will actually be enshrined at Cooperstown, but like everyone who loves the game, I do have an opinion.

Hard to believe

The last post I wrote was a celebration of the career accomplishments of Mariano Rivera. He’s been great, he’s a first ballot Hall of Famer when the time comes, and I don’t think we’ll see another one like him again. But, having said that, there’s at least one instance where he didn’t come up big.