The Season of Second-Guessing
I guess it’s that time of the year. The leaves turn, the temperatures drop, the intensity heightens, and everyone becomes an expert. Fans have watched their team play for six months, they know their favorite roster backwards and forwards; they even know their opponents strengths and weaknesses. So, from the comfort of their couch, the…
The Man Before “The Man” – The Walk Before the Trot
Lost in the hullabaloo of huge walk-off home runs are the little things immediately preceding that make them possible. Watching the Dodgers-Cardinals game last week, I had an incredible flashback that I don’t believe was discussed on the broadcast. Ranked the No. 1 sports moment in the history of Los Angeles sports, Kirk Gibson’s walk-off…
It Can’t End Like This
As you may know, I have a great deal of affection for Clayton Kershaw. In recent years, I, like many Dodger fans, hold my breath when he takes the mound in the playoffs. We feel, at almost a cellular level, the pain of his many post-season losses. We know, with absolute certainty, that his managers…
Waiting For the Other Sock to Drop
When I was in my last year of law school, I visited a head hunter because, after almost three years of schooling and nearly six figures of debt, I decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer; and hell, “you can do anything with a law degree.” The recruiter and I bandied about a bunch…
Laying Down With a Dog
I have always loved the Theo Epstein story. Local Boston kid leaves home, cuts his teeth, comes back and orchestrates the roster that ended an 86-year curse. When management wanted to go in another direction, he moved to the Midwest and orchestrated the roster that ended a 108-year curse. And then he became best buds…
A Game of Inches
I think I was about 14 years old when we had a bang-bang play on the baseball field. Some wise-beyond-his-years kid in the dugout said – to no one in particular – “Baseball is a game inches.” One of our wise-due-to-his-years coaches quickly retorted, “Baseball isn’t a game of inches. Sex is a game of…
From “Let’s Go” to Letting Go
My son was three years old when I handed him a small glove and said, “Let’s go.” We were headed to Dodger Stadium and his first baseball game. But his early life experiences would not be limited to Chavez Ravine. No, as my father did before me, and as his father did before him, I…
What Are We Doing?
One of my best friend’s favorite thing to say is “What are we doing?” I have thought about that expression often the last couple of weeks with respect to MLB umpires turned TSA agents ferreting out illegal substances. By now we have all witnessed the Max Scherzer interrogations as well as the Sergio Romo striptease,…
Fathers & Sons
When I first walked through the gates of Sancet Field (now Stadium) at the University of Arizona, my eyes were immediately drawn to center field. Shagging fly balls out there was the best baseball player I had ever seen. He wasn’t huge (5’11”, 195 pounds), but he was so smooth. He tracked down every line…
When Playing Politics, Play to Win
Much has been written, including by my IBWAA colleague Dan Schlossberg, about Rob Manfred’s (unilateral?) decision to move the 2021 All-Star Game from Cobb County, Georgia (it is important to note that the Braves technically do not play in Atlanta) to Denver, Colorado due to Georgia’s new election law. MLB issued a statement saying that…