Injuries and the Unpredictability of a Baseball Season
Predictability? Every season begins unpredictably. And this season has thrown some wicked breaking balls at fans paying close attention. Notice the injuries? Last season through 19 games, the Boston Red Sox were 17-2, 7.5 games ahead of the 9-9 New …
Baseball 2019: Brute Force, Full of Surprises
The 2019 season is in full swing and already, 10 percent in, it’s a season that has fallen prey to the same problems that bedeviled baseball the last quarter century. Too many home runs. Too many strikeouts. Too few base …
The Tampa Bay Brand: Fiscally Sound, Value-Driven Baseball
That’s right, baseball teams are brands. They offer fans a promise of who fans want the team to be. Who the team wants to be. And what the team may become. Winners? A rebuilding year for a .500 team? An …
Red Sox Postseason Projections Drop After Woeful Start
Listen to the Red Sox players. The manager. Cliches flow. Groundless excuses whirling across empty spaces. Homilies about unwanted consequences. More soliloquies about the promises of the next game ahead. And just as baseball can be redemptive, it can be …
Reserve Clause (Almost) Fifty Years Later: A Closer Look
Who says the new, younger, more analytically oriented general managers are not astute baseball men? Not Ronald Acuña. Not his family. And certainly not his financial planner, who suddenly has a lot of money to manage. Because the eight-year, $100 …
Ramon Laureano and Craig Kimbrel: Performance Versus Value
Into the Teeth of the Shift Too many articles have been written in the sporting press recently about the folly of Craig Kimbrel’s current lack of employment. Seems some writers believe Kimbrel still offers top-notch performance for the value he …
Up is Down, Left is Right with Sputtering Red Sox
31 March 2019 There was a Little League moment in the Boston Red Sox’s 6-5 loss to the Seattle Mariners last Saturday evening. Seattle third baseman, Dylan Moore, almost single-handedly fumbled the game away in the top of the ninth …
Mike Trout $430 Million Contract: Lunacy or Sanity?
The Value of Must-See At-Bats From collusion to lunacy, that’s the range of economy in Major League Baseball. First there wasn’t even one contract this past offseason that approached the $300 million stratosphere, and then Manny Machado and Bryce Harper …
Baseball’s Blue Plate Special Tastes Pretty Darn Bland
When Baseball Got It Right Baseball got it right in April 1947 the moment Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers took the field against the Boston Braves before 25,000 fans at Ebbets Field. Branch Rickey’s bold decision to opt for …
Hard and Harder: Must-Watch Television
This is a baseball column, but sometimes it’s easier to make a point by reaching outside the sport. And in this case, basketball’s version of must-watch television comes to mind. Especially, its 10-foot basketball hoop. Julius Erving’s Flight to the …
