As of last weekend, Earl Weaver is gone, passing away at the age of 83.

You do not need me to tell you that we will not see his like again. The job in the dugout has changed, the responsibilities of a skipper have changed, and perhaps most fundamentally, the game itself has changed. But however mechanically I might mound up that kind of obviousness risks missing something equally obvious: In his work, Earl was a teacher, and the lessons he offered to all, big and small, inside the game and out, remain as valuable today as they were 30 or 40 years ago.

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While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

Before Jeff Bagwell's first year on the Hall of Fame ballot, Christina summed up her attitude toward steroids in the piece reprinted below, which was originally published as a "Prospectus Perspective" column on December 31st, 2010.
 

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While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

While we wait to see whether any teams complete an improbable late-season comeback in 2012, revisit some of the unlikeliest playoff teams ever in the piece reprinted below, which was originally written for the paperback edition of It Ain't Over but instead was published at BP on October 4th, 2009.
 

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​While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

With hindsight, it's easy to see that the Rangers won the Hamilton-Volquez trade. At the time the trade happened, though, that wasn't obvious, as indicated by the contemporary review reproduced below, which originally ran as part of a "Transaction of the Day" column on December 27, 2007.

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Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers, edited by Steven Goldman, is the sequel to Baseball Prospectus’s 2006 landmark Baseball Between the Numbers, a book that gave many their first taste of state of the art sabermetric thinking in the years after Bill James and Moneyball. BP now returns with a sequel that delves into new areas of the game, such as how to evaluate managers and general managers, the true effects of performance-enhancing drugs, how prospects are recruited and developed in Latin America, and more. The book is now available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and should ship ahead of its official release date of April 3, 2012. Today, we present the first of two excerpts from the book.

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Placed OF-R Manny Ramirez on the 15-day DL (fractured finger); purchased the contract of UT-B Bry Nelson from Pawtucket. [5/14]

I touched on the Twins a bit over on the SweetSpot on Thursday morning, but they're a fun topic, and I can expand on it here. My hope is that you're willing to indulge me, even as the Twins retreat from San Francisco after a pair of losses to the world champs. They're 15-5 this month, so they still rate as one of baseball's hottest teams, and in a division where nobody's a good bet to win 90, they're worth listing among the living.

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The last couple of weeks have had me on my seat's edge. The season has arrived, and for all sorts of reasons I've been stoked with anticipation. Admittedly, I already got to enjoy a long trip to the Cactus League, which left me even more interested in the Cubs and Sox in a year that already figures to provide exciting races in every division.

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The book tour may be done with, but there are still going to be events at which you'll have plenty of opportunities to mingle with some of your favorite BP contributors. This coming Thursday night, March 31, is one such occasion. Through my volunteer work as a director on the board of Equality Illinois, we've partnered up with Sluggers in Chicago on 3540 N. Clark Street to create a casual evening's fun to celebrate the first night of the season, from 6-9 pm on March 31.

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TEMPE—While Randy Wells has been pitching quietly and consistently to put himself at the front of the pack racing to be first  past to pole to provide answers at the fourth and fifth slot, there's still the question of whether or not Andrew Cashner's going to wind up as the fifth man.

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