Hitting a Home Run In Your First MLB At-Bat Is Exciting, Not Indicative of Anything
Two weeks ago, Matt Gorski of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit his first major league home run in his first major league at-bat, on the first pitch he saw. With that swing, Gorski became the 136th member of this not-so-exclusive club – the first MLB at-bat homer club. And he joined an inclusive subset of that…
Aaron Judge, The 2024 World Series, and Sliding Doors
My wife is always giving me hard time about playing the sliding doors game. She thinks it’s a waste of time. I had a colleague who once gave me a t-shirt that reads: “What if there were no hypothetical questions?”. And one my favorite books is Mike Pesca’s anthology, “Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs…
Opening Day Performances May or May Not Be a Sign of Long-Term Success
Last Thursday was MLB’s Opening Day. A day of renewal, as teams start the season with a clean slate and great hope for the future. The same is true for the players. While they all start with a .000 batting average, that can only go up from there. Some players get their seasons off to…
Charlie Grimm, a Glove, Wrigley Field, and Generations of Baseball Love
Today would be my late wife’s 54th birthday. In addition to giving me nine wonderful years of marriage and three beautiful children, she gave me her dad, Marty. Marty was an interesting man. He never met an illness he didn’t have or couldn’t diagnose (with the help of the Physicians’ Desk Reference that he kept…
Mike Trout: Angel in Right Field
It finally happened. After years of speculation and too many years cut short due to injury(ies), future Hall of Famer Mike Trout is moving out of center field. As you may recall, when Trout made his major league debut in 2011 at age 19, he played ten games in left field, and thirteen in each…
We May Be In the Golden Age of “The Sound”
Last week, in his daily newsletter, Joe Posnanski wrote the following: “You will remember how Buck O’Neil always talked about hearing that sound three times in his life — hearing it when the ball came off Babe Ruth’s bat, then hearing it when the ball came off Josh Gibson’s bat, then hearing it a third…
If Joe Mauer Is a First-Ballot Hall of Famer, Shouldn’t Will Clark Get Another Look?
Two players appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot for only one year. Player A was drafted 1/1 (first pick in the first round) by his hometown club. Player B was selected 1/2 (second pick in the first round) by a team far from his hometown. Player A spent his entire career with one club,…
Dustin Pedroia a Hall of Famer? A Case Can Be Made
The 2025 Hall of Fame votes are in. Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner will be celebrating in central New York at the end of July. Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones are on the cusp, and will be hoping for a better outcome next year. But there are certain players who deserve better (David…
Should David Cone Be in the Hall of Fame?
Rob Friedman, the Pitching Ninja, recently did an interview with, and a deep dive into, David Cone, the variety of his nasty pitches, and the highs and lows of his long career. For the uninitiated, over a 17-year career, Cone won 194 games (against 126 losses), finished with a 3.46 ERA, struck out 2,668 batters,…
Frank Tanana Deserved At Least 1 Hall of Fame Vote!
I previously wrote about a former fire-baller who, midway through his career, became considerably more crafty, and pitched for nearly two decades, winning more than 200 games. My conclusion was that while David Cone may not have had a Hall of Fame resumé, he deserved at more than one year on the ballot. This week…