I am 37 and married with two kids. It is not a period of time I think anyone dreams about. Children do not fall asleep to thrilling stories of dad staining the deck, or of him waiting for the water to heat up to help us scrape the dried macaroni from a dish left out…
With the signing of (Late Twenties Player Two Years Off A Four-Win Season) for (Less Money Than Said Team’s Setup Man Earned In Arbitration) on Sunday, the story of Major League Baseball in (Current Year) continues to be one in which players and ownership find themselves at odds over the future of the game’s labor…
PORT CHARLOTTE (FL) — The pink slips came early this year at Charlotte Sports Park, as the Tampa Bay Rays made a significant shuffle to their roster. In total, 17 players were reassigned to minor league camp. Included in the cuts were some surprise names: Willy Adames, Ji-Man Choi, Ryne Stanek, Austin Meadows, Christian Arroyo,…
You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, Twilight Zone Baseball. Submitted for your approval: The worst team ever assembled. A team so remarkably inept that history wouldn’t allow them to be forgotten. A team…
You didn’t know this, but Derek Jeter has never played in a baseball game on a losing team. When Derek Jeter scratches off a losing lottery ticket, he responds, “No,” and eats it like a hamster. If you are dining with Derek Jeter and finish before him, he quietly orders two more entrees and begins…
Far from my backyard, if you squint, you can just make out the edge of the Puget Sound. It lies to the east of us, and as weather systems blow in from the north or southwest our modest little view lets us see the winter storms not as they approach, but as they depart; our…
Through the generosity of a good friend I recently came into possession of one (1) Official Scorebook for the 1969 Seattle Pilots. The year is both vital for establishing cultural context, and completely unnecessary, as the 1969 Seattle Pilots were the only Seattle Pilots. The next season they left for Milwaukee, and Seattle has only…
Walls are in the news, and walls are on my mind. Today, as I write this, or yesterday, as you read this, Edgar Martinez was elected to the baseball hall of fame. Edgar had many walls placed in front of him throughout his career, and one was named Jim Presley, who stood tall and solid…
“Time, you know, takes everyone out. It’s undefeated.” — Rocky Balboa in Creed *** David Wright’s career has been a constant in my adult life, a series of memorable moments in time and space. Many of these are marked in my brain with some weird correlation to whatever was going on in my life at…
Boston Red Sox: Warmest and most sincere holiday greetings, John Henry Sports Team Fan. Whether you enjoy your excellence at the plate or on the pitch, domestically or abroad, we here at Liverston Redpool Inc. want to wish you another bountiful year of winning, winning, always and only winning* *Beneath the luxury tax, of course…
1. The crows complaining from the maple tree outside the window sound enough like that one row of fans in Philadelphia in 2006, Mike Lieberthal at the plate in the second game of the September 3 double-header against Atlanta, the one that isn’t the one where Ryan Howard hit three home runs. Lieberthal stands in…
It is cold outside, and the plants are dead. We have a long pot on our front porch, and whenever I look at it in the winter I wonder how it’s possible those thin brown strings covered in dead leaves can summon the strength to become vertical again each March, and yet somehow they do….
If you’ve never seen a Hallmark Channel Original Movie, they more or less go like this: Young, single woman from a small town moves to the big city for her fast-paced creative job (ad executive seems to be a particular favorite), goes home for the holidays and in the process, meets and woos/is wooed by…
It has grown dark in the Northwest. The region is best known for its rain, but for me it’s the darkness that defines our winters. Located farther north than Quebec, Seattle Decembers are marked by a sun that spends but a few hours barely cresting the southern horizon. I used to hate it. I couldn’t…
Baseball is a game built on failure, and the successful separate themselves through their ability to cope with failure. In many cases, coping with failure begins with accepting its enduring presence without dwelling on it, when the objective becomes living without regrets. Of course, this goal is inherently unachievable; every day players encounter regrets large…
To Those Concerned with Such Matters, As the Seattle Mariners lie coughing, bleeding, dying at our feet, I stand here, before all, to confess of the murder. I loved them once, long and true, through our years of plenty and our long seasons of want. We rejoiced together during The Double, 116 Wins, Ichiro, Felix,…