One of the most appealing things to me about baseball is the fact that the game isn’t governed by a clock. There’s no chewing the clock or running the clock out. You play the game until the nine innings are over. I try not to be “that guy” but I will immediately correct anybody who…
The team which contained the best pitching staff in baseball the previous season had seen a miserable regression to 5th best in the NL in 1939. The jokes, then, practically wrote themselves when the team debuted new uniforms for the 1940 season. “As long as our team hasn’t any arms, Wrigley feels we need no…
The damn stove wasn’t working again. I hate having to light a match to fix it. I’m afraid I’ll burn myself and then have to explain to people what happened. It had become very important to me that on weekday mornings I have a breakfast of eggs and coffee, and in order to cook the…
I have tried to be polite and civil about this matter, as it is not my wish any player should wind up in shackles turning the giant wheel beneath Rob Manfred’s office that powers MLBAM, but enough is enough: professional baseball players of America, I need you to let me live my life! It was…
I was scrolling Twitter yesterday and I came across something that sent a chill down my spine and sent me into the doldrums for a quick second. This wasn’t an injury or a bad call. Instead, it was the sight of a man being stripped of his individual creativity. It was a screencap of Edwin…
On Friday it was announced that The Good Place will end after its upcoming fourth season. Mike Schur, its creator, attributed this end to the natural conclusion of the story, which the writers had planned from the beginning. It’s incredibly rare for American television shows to reach such an end. Either they end prematurely, like…
The NCAA baseball tournament and the Women’s College World Series are in full swing and it’s an exciting time to watch the college game. It just so happens that this moment of fun-yet-intense baseball coincides with the annual MLB Draft, which started yesterday. Compared to other sports, the MLB Draft is almost quaint in its…
Life is more or less a series of mistakes, and atonement for these mistakes. Some are so miniscule that forgiveness is a foregone conclusion. Others are so damaging and irreversible that asking for forgiveness seems foolish no matter how many decades have passed. The closer we come to the end, the more heavily our mistakes…
Last weekend, as I cleaned out my parents’ basement, I discovered a notebook not much bigger than a baseball card, the leather aged into plastic. Slipped into the front pocket is a little card, bearing a signature beneath the words, “The Museum of Modern Art, West Fifty-Third Street, New York 19, N.Y., Vern Mittlestadt, Date…
The 1930 Vaudeville comedy “They Learned About Women” tells the story of Jack and Jerry, two professional baseball players who tour the Vaudeville stage during the offseason. Both Jack and Jerry fall in love with the young, ‘innocent’ team secretary, Mary. Jack initially wins Mary’s affection, but soon after abandons both her and Jerry in…
As a whole, the uniform landscape across Major League Baseball is a picturesque one. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a baseball uniform that is objectively ugly. Even though MLB uniforms are in a good state right now, it’s still always a lovely breeze of fresh air to see teams turn back the clock and wear…
It’s a widely held belief that the best way to enjoy baseball is by listening to it on the radio. It best captures the timeless nature of the sport, narrating present day events while imparting the feeling of a lazy summer day spent sitting by the dock at your grandparents’ cottage. It provides the perfect…
One of my favorite things about baseball is that just when you think things are starting to get even a tiny bit mundane, something will happen during a game that will remind you of just how much fun this game can get when things enter into the arena of absurdity. We ended up getting two…
Symbols provide hope to the powerless. They connect people who are isolated, universalizing experiences and silently voicing calls to action. From the raised fist of the IWW to the rainbow flag, symbols have been at the forefront of social and political movements throughout history, anchoring concrete plights and aims to universal characters. But the passage…
Last night, Orioles fans got to celebrate the rare occasion of seeing their favorite baseball team win a game. They did so in emphatic fashion, as they beat the A’s by eight runs. They even squeezed in a Little League home run and if you haven’t seen it, you should watch that highlight immediately because…