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.

A three-way trade gave Joe a taste of the mythical Winter Meetings he felt like he'd been missing, and he wrote about the experience in the following piece, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on December 11, 2008.

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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.

We've already seen some surprisingly large contracts handed out this offseason, but that might just be par for the course in a winter with a new labor agreement, as Joe observed in the piece below, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on November 14, 2006.

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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.

Read the full article...

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.

It seems like a long time ago now, but things had gotten bad enough for the Rays several years ago that Joe considered abandoning hope for the franchise in the following piece, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on June 9, 2005.
 

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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.

Is the Captain capable of selfishness? Take another look at Joe's interpretation of the events surrounding the end of his hitting streak, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on September 18, 2006.

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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.

As Carlos Beltran heads for the NL West, revisit Joe's review of the last Beltran blockbuster, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on June 25, 2004.

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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.

Does Bud Selig believe that baseball isn't an inherently interesting game? So said Joe in the article below, which originally ran as a "Prospectus Today" column on July 13, 2006.

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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.

"...the long-term prospects for this organization are terrible, and it's McCourt's fault." Those words could have been written yesterday, but Joe wrote them right here in a "Prospectus Today" column on November 3, 2005.

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Back in January, when I signed a book contract with PEV to assemble a collection of my work along with original material, September 1 seemed like a long, long, long way off. The deadline made perfect sense: it would leave plenty of time for reading and evaluating the old work, divining a structure, whittling down a list and writing a bunch of original material. With submissions throughout the year, it would leave time for editing, proofing and printing -- the last a very quick process these days -- and a sales season that would coincide with the MLB playoffs, a time when everyone is focused on baseball and one that I have long considered my best time of the year as a writer.

It would also get the book off my desk before I threw myself into postseason coverage.

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That thunder you heard in the New York area last week wasn't the weather, no matter what was reported. No, I think the sound was the earth moving as I filed the first segments of the book to Christina Kahrl. I could not be more fortunate. Christina and I have worked together for 15 years, editing each other's work -- and the work of many others -- in BP annuals and on the Web site. She knows my writing as well as any person alive, making her the perfect editor for this project.

Now, I just have to keep the copy flowing. Having started filing, gotten over that hump, I'm sure the rest of the book will come quickly. In retrospect, I probably spent too much time selecting the pieces for inclusion, which put me behind on the writing, but we're here now, and the words are flowing, and there's an editor and we're vetting layouts, so it won't be long now.

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The thing about September that makes finishing a book hard -- one reason why my original deadline was September 1, to be honest -- is that there are so many storylines in play that you can write all week and not get to all of them. In just the last six days I've written a Sports Illustrated piece on Carlos Gonzalez, an SI.com piece about home-field advantage, a book blog entry about the Yankees/Rays series and newsletters about key games in the NL West race, the Twins' second-half surge, similarities among some AL teams, a wrap of Tuesday night's games, and, if you can believe it, Wilson Betemit. I'm working on an AL Cy Young piece for tomorrow, while also plowing through copy on Bud Selig for the book.

I know this sounds funny coming from the guy who just wrote about the struggles of dealing with volume, and I won't pretend it's like this for everyone, but sometimes I can get into a rhythm and everything just comes easily. This week has been like that. It's a great feeling, especially on the heels of the recent struggles. I am well aware that one reason I write is because I want to be liked, and I need that approval, that e-mail, that comment, that Retweet. When I'm cranking out the bylines, I get that. Make no mistake about it: I'm addicted to that rush, that ego boost.

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I want to be excited about tonight's Yankees/Rays game. I want to be pumped about the clash of the two best teams in baseball, separated by a half-game in the standings, with two of the best pitchers in the AL squaring off in the opener. I want to be invested in the outcome, either as a Yankee fan since childhood or a professional writer for about half that time. I want to believe.

I can't do it. The game just doesn't mean very much. I have no doubt that the players on both teams will go all out to win, and I am sure that Joe Maddon and Joe Girardi would rather win than lose, but I know the history. We have 16 years of evidence that suggests that teams that have locked up postseason berths treat winning the division rather than being the wild card as something nice to have, rather than something necessary.

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