Former Giants outfielder Angel Pagan is safe and sound after being rescued at sea in Puerto Rico (via @DaltonJ_Johnson) https://t.co/e7E6pth5br pic.twitter.com/RVrWDCzH74 — SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 29, 2019 He did not know, when they set out– Two men and a boy, on a fishing trip, The rhythm of his days now, Retired at…
Oh my goodness. You did it. You did a split. Is it an Olympic-level split? Probably not, no. It is close enough, though. It looked at the task at hand and completed it. Often that’s all you could ask for. You don’t understand why the word ‘serviceable’ has a whiff of insult to it. Maybe…
This past Tuesday, the Charleston RiverDogs, A-ball affiliate of the New York Yankees, hosted “Average Night,” a celebration of baseball averages, but also, averageness in the greater sense. “Are you one of your parents’ favorite children? A solid five?” asked the video promos, inviting you to come on out–on a Tuesday, the most average of…
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…
Baseball has been played professionally in San Antonio since at least the late 1880s, when the city was a charter member of the Texas League. The history of chili in the city is much harder to trace, with many travelers coyly referring to “stews” that will “make one malodorous for days,” as one lady traveler…
When Christian Stephen Yelich, his oak tree strength forged in, fittingly enough, Thousand Oaks, California, hit another towering home run, or dinger, or tater, first coined as another word for home run by Phernum Terance “Sleepy” Rosewater in a Somerville, Tennessee Taco Bell in 1971, despite the fast food establishment never serving tater tots, according…
Despite pouring money into improving the product in the off-season, MiLB.tv remains charmingly low-rent, which is exactly how I like it. Give me broadcaster chatter and Power Point slide art and wonky camera angles any day over slickly produced MLB.tv content or that godawful Imagine Dragons song being shouted at me every half-inning through a…
Flanigan Loveless raced to Dewey + Truman Advertising Agency’s Conference Room E in a futile effort to outpace his brain. “People, we are deep down in the gutter drain,” Loveless began after a long swig of warm water. “We got to get in front of this drain…” A second gulp. “Fast before we sink. It…
The rain had started around midday, and it couldn’t have matched the mood more accurately. Bryce Harper‘s return to Washington had been anticipated so much by local fans in a cold, sad way. With no motivation to root for their former star, Nationals fans had enthusiastically embraced Harper’s new villainous role, with many using duct…
Call me a nut, because what I missed most of all were the sounds of baseball. The crack of the bat. The ground rules to enjoying a game, as explained by the hometown players so you know they are not making stuff up. An echoed Deborah Kerr asking “Do you think it will ever take…
Baseball has changed again without asking. They do not know what they have done, but they are about to find out. Inning breaks will be reduced from 2:05 to 2:00 in local games and from 2:25 to 2:00 in national games. Time is needed for us to decompress; to consider what was just shown. When…
Thought experiment: if you could magically add 30 points of on base percentage to any team in baseball, who would you pick? (Ordinarily, I’d add the caveat “excluding your favorite team” but let’s face it…if you’re an MLB fan during this execrable offseason, there’s a 95 percent chance the owner of your favorite team has…
The chant begins the second he steps from the batting cage after his final round: I-chi-ro. I-chi-ro. It comes from Japanese fans who have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to be here; from American fans wearing worn Ichiro All-Star jerseys; from professional autograph hounds to small children who only know that he is a…
Comedian Brody Stevens died last week of an apparent suicide. He was 48. Stevens was one of a kind. The phrase “comic’s comic” actually applies with him. Not even Dick Van Dyke himself could tell if Stevens was killing or bombing during sets. It wasn’t just Van Dyke and other popular comedians who commented and…
[PROLOGUE: It should be noted, after we absolutely roast this old ballplayer who was probably just having fun but in reality hates advanced stats, that after seven full major league seasons Aubrey Huff was 30 and Manny Machado was 25. We’re only talking five years difference, which is barely anything if you compare it to,…