Short Relief

Short Relief: The Red Badge of Milling Around

A Tigers rookie gets his first taste of battle, and a people's history of players weekends.

Rich Hill's perfect game dies in front of us, Jered Weaver's career grinds to a halt, and TV's Monk holds up.

Orson Welles returns to the microphone, baseball players as iconography, and a review of a pleasant little board game.

Also: the freedom of speech exhibited with (certain) baseball cards.

Short Relief visits the three main stages of life: Childhood, Adulthood and Statcast.

Short Relief closes out its week of admiration with three players with absolutely nothing in common.

Today offers a selection of players who actually weren't bad, but also somehow never good enough.

Short Relief continues its five-day mission to open your hearts to the underloved in baseball.

Short Relief continues its paean to forgotten players of yesterday, this time especially forgotten.

Short Relief devotes a week to shining the spotlight on a handful of players who, for one reason or another, never quite got the love they deserve.

Suggesting an alternative line of nicknames for the Washington Nationals, and the latest adventures of Brooks Pounders, PI.

Reggie Jackson faces his italicized self, Billy Hamilton his antiquated self, and Matt ranks Metallica moments.

Baseball with some of the sliders turned all the way down, and thoughts on a pile of dirt.

Dreaming of new opportunities for commercial tie-ins, and the lowest possible expectations surmounted. Also, the aforementioned Kevin Bass Game.

The hunt for the next big thing, the next big story, or just the comfort of home.

For the Cubs, a door closes and a conspiracy theory opens; poetry in wartime between pitchers and mascots; and a small career lost in service.