Forty years ago today, one of the most famous home runs in baseball was hit. It’s also one of the most famous blooper reel moments in history. On May 17, 1971, in the bottom of the fourth inning, veteran Washington Senators infielder Tommy McCraw hit a pop fly to shallow left-center, causing left fielder John […]

Forecasts experienced technical difficulties yesterday, and as a result, the Forecasts site was unavailable for several hours. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I’m pleased to announce a new Hardball Times publication: Third Base: The Crossroads. This is something new for us, an electronic book that you can read on your Kindle. Several years ago, Steve Treder wrote a terrific series of articles that examined the reasons for the relative scarcity of Hall of Fame third basemen. His […]

Blue Jays 11, Twins 3:  Jose Bautista is not a man. He’s a machine. A Terminator. A Cyberdyne Systems Model 101. Not a robot. A cyborg. A cybernetic organism (3 for 5 3 HR, 4 RBI). Braves 3, Phillies 2: The second straight complete game loss for Roy Halladay.  How the Braves manage to take […]

20,000 days ago, the White Sox passed one of those invisible lines that no one really notices, but tells you something about the franchise as a whole. 20,000 days ago, the White Sox passed one of those invisible lines that no one really notices, but tells you something about the franchise as a whole. On […]

Welcome to the sixth installment of Top games of the week. Last week one reader asked that I include the scores, so the games are easier to remember; or at least link to the box score. I’m going with the latter. I can imagine (and that’s exactly what I had in mind when I began […]

Based on the courageous comments from Harmon Killebrew regarding the end of his fight with esophageal cancer, we can assume that it is just a matter of weeks, or perhaps even days, before we lose him entirely. This is sad news for any baseball fan, but especially for those who have had the pleasure of […]

A hundred years ago, the earth split apart underneath the city of Cleveland and swallowed it whole, deservedly sending the city full of sinners to the hellfire below. What’s that? You mean it didn’t happen. Huh. Well, it was supposed to anyway—or at least that’s what some of the righteous good people of the earth […]

Indians 3, Blue Jays 0: Amazing! A perfect game for Len Barker! It was cold and damp at Municipal Stadium last night, so it must have been hard to hit anyway, but regardless, Barker’s stuff was incredible.  He never even reached ball three against any Blue Jay hitter.  This Barker looks so fantastic that I’d […]

After my post about a walk-off catcher interference, there was quite a bit of speculation about how games can end with specific types of events. The intentional base-on-balls is a good example. Quite a few people are confused when I present this type of data. Now, once I give the answer you’ll probably smack your […]