Thorn, who recently published a fantastic looking book on baseball in the 1700s, wrote some troubling things in a guest column at Bleacher Report today. 

Thorn writes:

 “For a whole generation of fans and fantasy players, stats have begun to outstrip story and that seems to me a sad thing. Even the unverifiable hogwash that passed for fact or informed opinion in baseball circles not so long ago seems today wistfully enticing, for its energy if nothing else.

Where is the pioneering broadcaster Bill Stern now that we really need him? His fabrications were outrageous and, to modern ears, hilarious. But he knew how to grip a reader with a ripping yarn.

OK, maybe Abe Lincoln did not urge Abner Doubleday with his dying breath to ”keep baseball alive; America will need it in the trying days ahead.” So what?”

I…

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defensiveindifference:

Napoleon Lajoie, Cleveland Indians, 1908

Louis Van Oeyen, New York Public Library

Bethany’s Note: Napoleon had the best profile in all of baseball.

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21: The Story of Roberto Clemente will be released by Fantagraphics on April 12.

Great news. This book has been delayed for two years.

(More art from 21: Publishers Weekly)

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This ticket was from the longest game I have ever been to. This was the 19 inning affair between the White Sox and the Red Sox on July 9th, 2006. Papelbon was one out from a save in the ninth when Jermaine Dye hit a solo shot just over the left field wall to tie the game. Tadahito Iguchi eventually won the game with a single to score Alex Cintron.

My wife, the Cubs fan, and I, the Sox fan, somehow make it work.  Not to make light of the very important larger message, I thought this was pretty clever.  Let the games begin!

Craig Calcaterra: Each Team’s Greatest Living Player:

It’s a pretty solid list, and other than my opinion that Pee Wee Reese is the greatest living Reds player, I have no complaints. 

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Eephus League members only: if you want copies of any of my customized scorecards I will be happy to provide them to you. I will also design a custom form for you, if you like. No charge, of course. Members only!

Leave a comment at my blog: xtrabasehit.blogspot.com – tell me about your request, provide your Eephus handle and email address, and I will reach out to you. I moderate all comments before they are published, so I will not publish your email address.

See Bethany’s post in the URL citation for a description of the scorecards!

“We thought that he was running faster, but that just meant that he was chasing the balls he missed faster.”

— Ron Gardenhire, the human quote machine, on the bulkier Delmon Young that has reported to camp. 

Gardenhire already got himself a fancy new t-shirt with his bard-like wit, but what now? A development deal with CBS? A talk radio program on NPR? While Ron Gardenhire is a great manager, part of me can’t wait for him to retire and move into color commentary. 

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Hats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are here!!!! They are flex fit and are pretty awesome.

Stevo is one of my favorite Eephus league members, so when he emailed me his customized scorecard designs, I was thrilled. Those who have been following this site for awhile will know Stevo (he goes by the handle yoshiki89 around here) has a wonderful site where he writes detailed recaps and posts scoresheets of the games he watches. Stevo was kind enough to send me all three of the scoresheets he uses, and I’ll let him explain the quirks of each design.

STD1 – This is my “standard” sheet, used for live games and/or games on TV, with pitch count boxes. Here’s a link to an actual scoresheet I posted so you can see an example of how it’s used:

http://xtrabasehit.blogspot.com/2010/10/103010-san-francisco-giants-2-texas.html

BETA – this is the “standard” sheet, with a new modification I’m ‘testing’ currently. I added the arc

…

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Comet Books, 1949

The almighty Jeff Polman (the genius behind Play That Funky Baseball) has begun a new blast from the past blog. It’s called The Bragging Rights League, and it’s set in the 1940′s. Jeff’s style and humor are so unique, you have to add this to your daily reading list.

Keith Olbermann’s scorebook

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newamsterdamlemonade:

Vic Power of the Kansas City A’s, Yankee Stadium, NYC, May 1955. by Hy Peskin.

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1969

Je me souviens

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Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog sent me a link to these gorgeous baseball desktop designs based on historical images.

decal

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‘34

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One of Greg Maddux’s high school scouting reports. I wonder how often players that were valued as possibly “the number 1 player in the country” end up far exceeding that valuation. It’s also interesting that the Cubs used a 1-10 ranking system, rather than the much more common 20-80 scouting scale.

Click through to view a second report on The Professor.

(via Reddit)

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Stengel, 1953

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The skinny: John Coomer is suing former Royals mascot (known as Sluggerrr), Byron Shores, who flung a hot dog from behind his back into Coomer’s face, detaching a retina. It’s a little hard to believe considering that Shores spent two years “traveling the country teaching mascot classes that included safety training.” 

But the best was saved for court:

“Shores described multiple types of tosses, including underhand, overhand and behind the back.

He said he usually made eye contact with someone before sending a frank their way and that he could see well while looking out of the costume.

During cross examination, Hofer showed Shores video of a toss he made during a 2009 game and invited him to discuss the hot dog’s “arc” and “velocity” as it sailed away.

Shores stayed away from the technical language.

“I would

…

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Little Leaguers used to have great socks. And jerseys. And sense of Americana. (Though that may be with my modern nostalgia-for-a-time-I-never-lived-in-glasses.)

From the excellent Life photo series. 

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Delmar Steinback, ca. 1930s

Longview Cannibals

[for info on the Longview Cannibals of East Texas, check out longviewcannibals.com]

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(Photo by Minda Haas)

Capitol Avenue Club has an interesting post today about Ed Lucas, the 28 year-old super-utility player that stands a fair chance to make the club coming out of spring training. Lucas, a member of the Royals farm system before joining the Braves this year, has played at least 26 games at every position except pitcher and catcher over the last six seasons. That includes 115 at shorstop, the most important position one must handle if they dream of occupying the 25th spot on a Major League roster.

More interesting is his unusual (for a baseball player) academic background, passed along by Greg Schaum of PinetarPress.com:

“He has the type of mind that we could see running a ball club some day. He was an Ivy League graduate of Dartmouth University in 2004 with a Sociology degree.

…

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The 1874 Red Stockings whose fancy bowties gave them class and sass.

(via 90 Feet of Perfection)

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I get sent customized scoresheets from time to time, and I’d like to start posting them more often and build up a scorekeeping section of the site to highlight different notation methods, scorecard layouts, and symbols and abbreviations that scorekeepers developed.

Tike emailed me the scoresheet he designed for himself in excel and I love the little bits of detail he chooses to document. He notes the time of the 7th inning stretch, when he arrived and left, and when the game became official. He also has a space for his ticket stub! Be sure to view it full sized so you can appreciate all the little details.

Sing Sing Prison, ca. late 1920s – early 1930s

 Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

via marycaple

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Tom Verducci, of Verducci Effect fame, has a piece up at Sports Illustrated discussing the mechanical flaws that Stephen Strasburg must overcome on his way back from Tommy John surgery. It’s certainly not what one would call a lighthearted piece; from the possibility that a change in his mechanics will limit his effectiveness, to the Nationals attempt to get more groundballs instead of strikeouts, to the past failures of other bright pitching prospects that also pitched in an “inverted W” like Strasburg. 

But here’s the part that gave me the willies and will forever linger in the back of my mind when I watch a special pitcher throw at 95 mph:

“When people tear ligaments suddenly, in car accidents, for example, the tear is as clean as if cut with sharp shears. When pitchers, however, tear ligaments,

…

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Lou Gehrig is my second favorite ballplayer (Frank Thomas is number 1, of course) so I was stoked to find this shot of he and DiMaggio from 1939 in the Life archives.

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1953 

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tinkersghost:

Hank Aaron as a member of the 1953 Jacksonville Braves. He would help integrate the South Atlantic League and win the MVP that year. 

(no photographer credited)

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What does an MVP-winning athlete do when he’s hungry during spring training? Most would probably send out a staffer or just wait until the game was over before heading to some expensive steak or sushi restaurant. But not Dustin Pedroia, man of the people.

Thanks to the New York Times, we know that after exiting the game in the fifth inning, Pedroia slipped out the back, went to the concourse and bought himself three hot dogs.

Said Pedroia:

“I was hungry,” Pedroia said. “The Red Sox have no food.”

When a staffer offered to get him something, Pedroia said: “I don’t need any help. I’m a grown athlete.”

As always, Terry Francona stole the show when commenting on why no one recognized the second baseman:

“They probably didn’t think he was a player,” Francona said. “He probably

…

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Spring Training 1948

photo by George Silk, for LIFE

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Yesterday I renewed my MLB.tv account again and today I am watching my first game of 2011…The Blue Jays vs Pirates. Not my ideal choice but still better than watching Basketball or Hockey on a rainy Sunday. Too bad the Padres/A’s game don’t have a video stream right now but oh well I am listening to it on the radio while watching the stream of the above game. That’s how I roll. Thank you technology for making this possible.

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So a few years ago, a little band called The Baseball Project released an entire album of songs about baseball, and it was fantastic. They’re now back with a second album that’s equally as awesome.

This isn’t what you would commonly think of a “baseball album” though. All original tunes, no covers of ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ or anything (not to disparage the song).

Easily the best song on the album is ‘Don’t Call Them Twinkies’ which Craig Finn of The Hold Steady did the lyrics and vocals for. A good, if brief, history of the Twins’ World Series appearances.

Album also features songs about 1976, Pedro Sandoval and Tim Lincecum, Bill Buckner, Ichiro, Carl Mays, Pete Rose, and fair weather fans.

Highly recommend picking up both albums. Got a little something for everyone

Number of t shirts ordered as of this moment: 178. Number of tag pieces to print, trim, loop together and tag onto shirts? Oh fudge….

I had lots of requests for a quick start guide to keeping score, so I designed this foldout sheet to go with every scorebook. What do you guys think?

Time to dust off our copy of Bonner’s HOW TO PLAY BASEBALL, with excellent illustrations by cartoonist Bernard Krigstein (Knopf, 1958).

According to an Eephus League member, these cards are from the 1946 Topps set. I have GOT to get to the library this weekend to try and get the book again so I can get some more info.

I couldn’t think of a catchy title for this post, there’s so much more to this man and the way I feel about his passing that I think focusing on an interesting tagline would detract from the comments I could make here.

The news of Wally Yonamine’s passing on Monday, Feb 28 at the age of 85 after a long battle with Prostate cancer definitely brought my Spring Training elation to a unique numbing point. Wally was and always will be one of my favorite baseball players of all time, a guy who loved the game, broke a significant barrier in the Japanese world of the sport (a barrier that opened doors for just as many folks worldwide as the barrier in the states broken by Jackie Robinson), and beyond all that, embraced the opportunity to single-handedly change the behavior…

abe8989:

智弁×高岡商＠2010選抜

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With the official arrival of SPRING TRAINING GAMES to our collective baseball consciousness, I thought I’d post some shortcuts to previously posted Spring Training games from 2009 and 2010 to herald the End of the DARK DAYS (of no baseball). You might also get a kick at how much my scoresheets have changed over the years, if you are new to these parts.

Besides the advent of BASEBALL SEASON, what I really like most about ST games is seeing the Minor Leaguers in action, even if only for a couple of innings. Many say these games “don’t count,” well they DO to ME.

Plenty of games on the radio and TV coming up, you know I’ll be watching/scoring as usual. Without further ado:

2009 Spring Training
3/1/09 HOU @ NYM …the first game I ever scored. My advice…

Project Cobb: Chronicling of British Baseball

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If Wes Anderson made a baseball film.

(Library of Congress, via BBTF)

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