“Going through old cards you’ll find some just have a knack of jumping out at you for various reasons. ’91 Score had a series of cards called ‘Master Blasters’ which were designated for the sluggers of the day and ‘K-Men’ which, well you get the idea. They were hideous.”
Twenty-seven signifies completion in baseball, and the wild week that began with the Winter Meetings included 27 notable transactions among Major League Baseball’s 30 clubs. That’s a funny little coincidence. It means nothing, especially because the… Read more »
“Between 2002 and 2013, ten franchises have made it to the World Series only to come up empty. Each installment of this column will look at one of those franchises to see what has happened in the seasons following their World Series loss. Today’s column features the Texas Rangers.”
“In honor of Channukah starting tonight, I decided to do some research into a few of the greatest Jewish baseball players of all time. To stick with the holiday spirit, I found eight greats in honor of the eight nights and eight candles of the menorah for the holiday.”
Scrapping the bottom of the third base barrel
“Only four days after inking switch-hitting DH Kendrys Morales to a two-year, $17-million deal, Kansas City GM Dayton Moore has signed 34-year-old right fielder Alex Rios to a one-year, $11-million contract. The Texas Rangers bought out Rios’s $13.5-million option for $1 million earlier this fall.”
Hot takes on the hurlers with the game’s hottest heaters! Hoorah! Episode 7: Duck The Style: Again, hardly anything. The Substance: Sam’s topic is the A’s, and specifically, the seemingly rebuild-oriented trades they made prior to the… Read more »
“When it comes to prospects, rookies, and future stars – those special player cards that appear in every so often in a pack of baseball cards – it’s important to remember that there are, at least, two separate but important groups: those who build major league careers and those who fall short.”
Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi certainly seem to be enjoying their first ever tastes of financial flexibility.
Batting champ for sale! Batting champ for sale!
“Our journey down the forgotten memory lane continues with the final twelve pitchers on our list of pitchers who have only one career appearance without recording a single out.”
“I became a baseball fan in 1997. I used to listen to the radio broadcasts of the nearest minor league baseball team (90 miles away from where I grew up). I would keep score by hand until either the radio frequency changed (making it impossible to hear the play-by-play) or until I fell asleep, whichever came first. Fast-forward seventeen years to the summer of 2014, and I found myself in the role of official scorer for that same minor league club.”
“Many Effectively Wild listeners may agree with Sam that the weekly email shows are their favorite part of the podcast. So while EW Rewind handles the in-depth analysis of each episode from the first one on, we’ll also have a series of email show recaps, to give a rundown of each email and make for a handy reference guide. Think of it as the crunchberry-only version of Cap’n Crunch.”
“The Saturday after Thanksgiving I was asked to retrieve the Christmas decorations from storage. To do this I had to maneuver several boxes out of the way, one of which I knew contained my old baseball cards. I also knew if I opened that box, I would fall into a bottomless chasm of Diamond Kings, commons, and ‘Jesse Barfield? I had forgotten about Jesse Barfield!’ moments. Naturally, I dove in.”
“But without you, the reader, there is no blog. So we thought it was only fair that we give you a share of the spotlight, and present some of what you had to say (although, it often involves trying to sell us things…).”
“Post-All Star Break baseball is the best kind of baseball there is. Of course, the playoffs are always exciting, but the madness of the trade deadline (or lack thereof – we’ll get there in a minute) followed by September call-ups make for a steaming potluck of entertaining baseball.”
The Chicago White Sox have had an active winter so far. It’s hard to say, and much too trivial to bother sussing out, whether they’ve had the most impactful, most interesting or best winter of… Read more »
The Kansas City Royals snapped a twenty-nine year streak of regular season futility by making the playoffs this fall. After a Wild Card game for the ages, the Royals went on to sweep the Angels… Read more »
“It’s interesting that, despite multiple examples of players exercising these clauses and either re-upping for more money with their current team (Rodriguez, Sabathia) or heading for greener pastures (J.D. Drew, A.J. Burnett), teams don’t seem to be wavering at including these options in contracts.”
“’We are evolving as an organization. We’ve got a little more to spend now. For the right guy, we can go a little bit beyond our comfort zone.’ This quote from Pirates GM Neil Huntington was in reference to the team’s efforts to upgrade its bullpen, but it could also apply to the rotation and might as well be the team slogan heading into 2015.”
“Thousands of pitchers have played major league baseball. Most of us only remember the greats and rightly so. Hall of Famers like Walter Johnson, Sandy Koufax, and Greg Maddux. These are great pitchers and should be remembered. But what about all the others? There are a few that have slipped through the cracks that I find very interesting.”
“And yet…no matter how many baseball games I’ve seen, I frequently find myself witnessing something I’ve never seen before. It doesn’t make any sense. To my knowledge, the play described below has only happened once in the history of baseball. I have never seen anything like it before or since. I believe it to be the single worst play ever to take place on a baseball diamond. You decide.”
Between 2002 and 2013, ten franchises have made it to the World Series only to come up empty. Each installment of this column will look at one of those franchises to see what has happened in the seasons following their World Series loss.
“Earlier today, a friend of mine asked me about the ideal starting lineup for the Cincinnati Reds I would make if I could use anybody, from any year. And, as I was thinking about outfielders that I would use, I decided that Vada Pinson would be one of my starting outfielders, but you hardly ever hear anyone talk about him nowadays.”
“This brings us to this week’s featured autograph, a 1961 Topps Cal McLish. The card is badly centered, and for some reason McLish is squinting mightily. A Facebook user on my autographs page speculated that perhaps he just saw Marilyn Monroe. Not too likely, but it’s a theory.”
These two episodes were the first where the show turned particularly newsy. That was, perhaps, inevitable, as they were recorded in the run-up to the 2012 trade deadline. Episode 5: Foghorn The Style: Ben notes… Read more »
“The Texas Rangers have a lot of holes left to fill in their 2015 roster, and an uneventful week of Winter Meetings brought the team no closer to addressing those needs. After unfruitful discussions with the Padres about Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross, and talks with Arizona about Wade Miley ending with the lefty heading to Boston, Evan Grant encountered a “grumpy” Jon Daniels on Tuesday clawing at a tangerine.”
“The Giants started well to take an early lead in the NL West and surged to the best record in MLB before a sudden collapse, combined with a run from the Dodgers, saw them drop back to 53-43 at the All-Star break, a half-game out of the division lead and just ahead of several teams in a tight wild card race.”
It has become a popular meme among Cincinnati Reds fans to make fun of GM Walt Jocketty due to his lack of aggressiveness in the trade or free agent market. Many a trade deadline or… Read more »
The top 15 fantasy backstops for 2015.
