Bryce Harper is NOT a Superstar
I am not trying to be provocative; this is not a “hot take”; I am not in the business of taking unnecessary shots. Bryce Harper is good, very good. Harper may, in fact, be great. But Bryce Harper is not a superstar. Now, past performance is no guarantee of future results. As such, Mr. Harper…
Let It Slip Away
Watch sports long enough, and you know. Your football team is down four with three minutes to go and they give up a first down on third and long. You know. Your favorite golfer has a five-foot birdie putt to go one back with two to play, and it lips out. You know. Your basketball…
A Deal Fit For a Kingery
When we last met, we were discussing the Philadelphia Phillies and their deft contracting for a seasoned veteran. In today’s installment of the Matt Klentak diaries, we will look into the Phillies’ deft contracting for an unproven rookie. We begin our tale as Spring Training was winding down. The Phillies multi-faceted prospect Scott Kingery was…
Playing Checkers
There are very few things more satisfying than the “jump” in checkers. And it’s rare when you can incorporate a kids’ board game into Major League Baseball, but Phillies GM Matt Klentak and uber-agent Scott Boras did just that in March when they negotiated for free-agent pitcher Jake Arrieta. Unless you were deep in the…
Skullcaps and C-Flaps
About four years ago I was pitching batting practice to my then 11-year-old son’s team. One of his teammates, a nearly fully-grown 12-year-old (who, in his sophomore year of high school, already committed to play at Vanderbilt) hit a line drive back through the box that nearly decapitated me. I have played baseball my entire…
Too Soon…To Panic?
I worked on a movie that came out last week (note: you should see it, it is really funny). The premise of the film is that three parents venture out to stop their daughters from losing their virginity on prom night. As we confront this over-protectiveness, we are forced to grapple with the question: “How soon is too soon?”…
California Tie-Breaker: Not the End of the World
If you have ever coached a youth tournament game, you are familiar with the California Tie-Breaker. The genesis of the name is unknown, but one must assume it got its moniker on the fields of the Golden State because more youth baseball is played there than anywhere else. For the uninitiated, the California Tie-Breaker works…
2018 Season Preview: Oakland Athletics
It’s a beautiful Saturday night in April, and you can think of ten different places you would rather be. But propriety and parental obligation find you walking into your kid’s school spring fundraiser. You do a quick assessment of the bar to the left (they gave you two whole drink tickets for your $65 admission…