ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and Beer Matter


sports

  • R.I.P. Willie Mays

    Since my parents were Giants fans (San Francisco Giants fans), I can honestly say that Willie Mays has been a presence in my life as long as I can remember. Both Willie and my parents moved to the “Bay Area” in 1958. Willie with the Giants when they moved from New York to the West… Read more

  • My favorite baseball podcast, well to be honest, my favorite podcast period, is one called Effectively Wild. The name is based on an expression for a kind of pitcher that is wild around the strike zone in such a way that opposition batters are so uncomfortable in the batter’s box that they have difficultly hitting.… Read more

  • NFL Football is a sport that is much better on television than in person. The concentrated bursts of action between long periods of inactivity are enhanced by instant replay, color commentary telling us all more about what we just watched, and beer commercials featuring scantily clad women. Anyone who has ever watched an NFL football… Read more

  • At Wednesday’s Twins-Rockies game, All-World shortstop Carlos Correa came up in the 8th inning after having already gone 5 for 5 that afternoon. Another hit and he would achieve one of the rarest of feats in baseball, a 6-hit game. Sadly, he grounded out. Sitting in the stands with my fingers crossed I naturally thought… Read more

  • My concerns about the future of baseball—a $10 billion sport enjoying an unprecedented era of financial success and labor peace—are not based on misplaced nostalgia for a “pure” game that never existed. They are based on the dissonance between a game that demands and depends on concentration, time, and memory and a twenty-first-century culture that… Read more