United they ball
Wednesday, January 29th, 2020
There’s a new baseball team in Kentucky, and they’ve got quite a name: The Florence Y’alls. The name is a reference to the Florence Y’all water tower, seen below, which features a truly ridiculous tale of ingenuity.
Minor and independent league baseball often has the best branding.
It's still a better contract than Pablo Sandoval.
Friday, September 20th, 2019
In 2014, the Red Sox signed Cuban player Rusney Castillo to a 7-year, $72.5 million contract. Now, due to arcane rules surrounding baseball’s luxury tax, that deal is actually preventing him from playing in the big leagues.
Do they juice those radar guns?
Monday, August 12th, 2019
I don’t know if Nathan Patterson will ever make the major leagues, but if he does, he’ll have an astounding story of how he got signed.
Monday, July 22nd, 2019
Since 2012, I’ve been hoping Mike Carp would make his way to the Los Angeles Angels, joining an elite school group of players who share a last name with a type of fish. In 2015, a minor league contract brought Carp close to the right city, but the wrong team. In 2016, he fell out of pro baseball entirely, before his 30th birthday.
However, Google Alerts never say die. A recent email showed me that Carp is now playing for the New Britain Bees, an independent league team, as he attempts a return to the majors.
Better still, the Alert included news of recent Bees game, where Carp had an RBI base hit. Keep it up, Mike, and hopefully the Angels will come calling soon.
Well of course he wasn't invited – they think you're dead!
Wednesday, July 3rd, 2019
This is a real Mets move, or string of moves, really.
Let it be noted that the Yankees lost, or at least, did not win.
Wednesday, June 26th, 2019
75 years ago today, the Polo Grounds of New York played host to one of the strangest games of baseball in history. It featured the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, and New York Giants, playing a three-team game that raised millions of dollars for America’s efforts in World War II. On this anniversary, take a moment to read about “tri-cornered game”.
He classed up the game a little bit.
Monday, June 17th, 2019
Yesterday, Kansas City Royals catcher Martín Maldanado had a special accessory to go with his usual catching gear.
[Photo credit: @MLB]
Honestly, it’s a good look.
Bat dogs are great, and major league bat dogs would be even greater.
Monday, March 18th, 2019
Andrew Mearns is making a case for a beautiful future of bat dogs in the major leagues.
If they wind up on the same team, they can probably pull a Prestige on the world.
Friday, February 22nd, 2019
Last fall, I wrote about the rather remarkable coincidence of the Bradys Feigl. Since then, the doppelgangers have met, and they even took a DNA test to see if they’re related.
You can really sell anything to sports fans.
Wednesday, November 21st, 2018
Since the Red Sox won the 2018 World Series, I’ve received a fair number of emails from the team pitching all sorts of swag. This one really made me laugh.
First off, as the 2001 Seattle Mariners know, regular season wins don’t mean much once the playoffs start. Once the regular season ended, the Red Sox magic number became 119 wins. They hit that goal, and thus, the 108 regular season wins no longer mean too much.
That’s not the truly goofy part of this email, however. Instead, it’s this line:
Oo, game-used dirt! How enticing! And yet, how can I be sure it really is game-used dirt? I don’t want to be fooled by any fake dirt, or even Major League Baseball field dirt that wasn’t game-used. Can Major League Baseball allay my fears?
Fortunately, they can. I know, thanks to the last gift my father gave me before he died. As you can see below, the cover of the 2013 Red Sox World Series Champions book includes a small bit of “Authenticated World Series™ Dirt”, with a hologram sticker and everything. You probably thought there were no dirt authenticators, but you were wrong.
I don’t think my dad bought this expressly for the dirt. Still, now I’ll always be left to wonder.
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