ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

April 2025

  • Tom Seaver

    On April 20th, 1967,  Tom Seaver of the New York Mets recorded his first major-league victory with a 6-1 triumph over the Chicago Cubs. Seaver went 7 2/3 innings and gave up eight hits and one run. Tom Seaver won a total of 311 games in his 20-year career. He won 3 Cy Young Awards and Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “The Wife of Kenite” by Agatha Christie

    I have a stereotype of Agatha Christie based on the very few Hercule Poirot novels and short stories I have read thus far. The stereotype is that she writes classic Cozy Mysteries. Cozy Mysteries are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is usually an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Bill James on Baseball

    “”No matter how your mind works, baseball reaches out to you. If you’re an emotional person, baseball asks for your heart. If you are a thinking man or a thinking woman, baseball wants your opinion. Whether you are left-brain or right-brain, Type A or Type Z, whether your mind is bent towards mathematics or toward Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: Edgar Rice Burroughs

    “Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 years for various blogs. This was first posted on February 2, 2012. I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ~ Groucho Marx I must confess that I am a bad television Read more

  • The Loyal Friend

    I love books and reading. And I love collecting quotes. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes about reading and books. I hope you find a few you like and maybe a few for your own collection. Quotes on Books and Reading I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the Read more

  • A Slow Start

    My local nine, the Minnesota Twins, are off to a slow start this season. Admittedly a baseball season is a long season. But you never want to start any season in too big of a hole. The most glaring problems thus far are: Let’s take these issues in reverse order. Injuries: Royce Lewis has all Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Waiting

    He roamed around the apartment after breakfast. He hadn’t eaten heavily because he was afraid it wouldn’t stay down. He drank a small glass of orange juice and a cup of hot coffee. He washed the glass, the cup, and the saucer, and then began waiting for Babs to return. (cf. McBain, Ed. So Nude, Read more

  • A Weird Stat

    Lee Smith became the all-time saves leader as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-7. Smith got his 358th save, passing (former Minnesota Twin) Jeff Reardon. The Save is a relatively new stat in baseball. It did not become an official stat until 1969 And the rules for getting a Save have changed over Read more

  • The Eighth Wonder of the World

    On April 12th, 1965, Richie Allen hit the first home run in the Houston Astrodome, off Bob Bruce, as the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Astros 2-0. I have a special place in my heart for the Astrodome, “The Eighth Wonder of the World.” Just as I have for the Metrodome and Wrigley Field. 20 years after Richie Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Eagleton on Marx

    In our own time, as Marx predicted, inequalities of wealth have dramatically deepened. The income of a single Mexican billionaire today is equivalent to the earnings of the poorest seventeen million of his compatriots.            * * * * * * * * * *  Why do we continue to indulge Read more