mlb
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Anyone who loves baseball and knows how to write wants to write a baseball book. Baseball is the most literary of the sports. Its long season, the leisurely nature of the games leads inevitably to stories– of past games and past players. Lawrence S. Ritter was an economics professor at NYU and an editor and… Read more
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On July 1st, 1910, White Sox Park opened. The stadium, which became known as Comiskey Park, cost $750,000 to build. It was the oldest stadium in baseball when it was closed in 1990 and replaced by a new structure called then also Comiskey Park. I went to a lot of games at Old Comiskey in… Read more
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On June 30th, 1995, future Hall of Fame, Eddie Murray got his 3,000th career hit against the’s Minnesota Twins’s Mike Trombley in a 4-1 Cleveland win at the Metrodome. Murray became the 20th player to reach that milestone and the third in franchise history to do it wearing a Cleveland uniform. I was lucky enough… Read more
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On June 29th, 1990, Oakland’s Dave Stewart and the Dodgers’s Fernando Valenzuela both threw no-hitters. Stewart blanked the Toronto Blue Jays 5-0, and a few hours later Valenzuela did the same thing to the Saint Louis Cardinals with a final score of 6-0. The rareness of this event was possible because Stewart and Valenzuela were such absolute studs at their profession.… Read more
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On June 28th, 1907, Branch Rickey, then a 26-year old backup catcher for the New York Yankees, had 12 Washington Senator players steal safely on him. The Yankees, predictably, lost that day to the Senators 16-5. It is easy to forget that Branch Rickey, who is most famous for bringing Jackie Robinson to the Major… Read more
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I have always liked players named Willie: Willie Mays, Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, Willie Wilson. Now that I think about it, one of my favorite cats was named Willie, as well as my favorite Classic Country singer-songwriter (Willie Nelson). A recent article in the StarTribune by Phil Miller, got me thinking the last few days… Read more
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Though I have lived in the Twin Cities now for almost 40 years, I did live in a number of places before that: Northern California, Eastern Washington, Western Montana, Western Minnesota, Chicago, Houston, and Saginaw, Michigan. Beginning when I was 21 and first moved to Chicago, I picked up the habit of rooting for local… Read more
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We are told by many commentators of the game that as fans we should be angry at the players who “cheated” the game of baseball by using steroids. Their argument is that steroids and human growth hormones hurt the “integrity of the game.” Personally, I think the Yankees (beginning with the purchase of Babe Ruth)… Read more
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This March 28th (Opening Day 2024), I made my first visit to Oakland Coliseum, the soon-to-be-former home now of two of my childhood teams. I say soon-to-be-former, because at the end of this baseball season, the Oakland Athletics– like my beloved Oakland Raiders before them– will cease to be anything but a memory. When Al… Read more
ClimbingSky 