It’s been a long, long offseason.

So, something new is going to happen on Monday. I’m going to start writing for NBCSports.com. I’m not alone: it will be a group blog — a small group — called “Circling the Bases.” I’ll be joining Rotoworld’s Aaron Gleeman and Matthew Pouliot. Given their experience, their readership and the amount and quality of their […]

I kind of went hog wild on the franchise devaluation thing around here last week. Some agreed, others felt I (and my pinch hitting friend Ethan) went a bit overboard. Well, let’s throw this bit of news into the pot and see what cooks up: Private equity legend Tom Hicks’ sports team holding company has […]

Ron Rollins was reading ShysterBall — and yelling at me for saying statheady things — way back in early 2007. Back then the only other regular readers were my mom and the people Googling pictures of Alyssa Milano. The Googlers soon realized that there was nothin’ good here, and even my mom eventually gave up, […]

Most likely owing to the start time, Catholics in Milawaukee are not quite as bent out of shape about the Brewers’ Good Friday home opener as those in Detroit, but in some ways their suggestions as to how to properly combine baseball and religion are even more extreme: Milwaukee’s soon-to-be-departing, but still current Catholic Archbishop […]

Apparently Cito Gaston is livid to find out that, according to Jeff Pearlman’s new book, Roger Clemens had him fired. Jeff Pearlman himself, however, says there’s a slight problem with that: There’s just one problem: I never wrote that. What my book says is that Clemens had a heavy hand in the hiring of Tim […]

From Jerry Crasnick’s Reds’ preview at ESPN: But the Reds win out because of their surplus of arms. Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo and Micah Owings make for one of baseball’s best 1-through-5 starting contingents. As astute Reds fans and Scrabble devotees have pointed out, you can take the first letters of […]

This is a link to the baseball page at the New York Times. Today the top nine (9) stories are about the new stadiums stadia in New York. I don’t think V-J Day got this kind of coverage. My favorite one is “Two New Baseball Palaces, One Stoic, One Scrappy.” How can a building be […]

The Merc’s Mark Purdy has a wish list for the Giants’ and Athletics’ seasons. Among the wishes: I want A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki to get an offer to endorse Suzuki motorcycles — and turn it down in favor of a Harley-Davidson endorsement. (And why hasn’t Harley-Davidson thought of this, anyway?) I want the Giants to […]

Today will be the last day for a long time in which the first post of the day will be “Today at THT.” Why? ShysterBall readers who date back before last October know why: the return of “And That Happened,” this blog’s quaint little daily recap feature. It resumes with the ballgames come Monday morning. […]