Fifty years ago, a big moment in the history of sports stadiums occurred. On Jan. 3, 1962, the groundbreaking occurred for the Astrodome in Houston. It famously would become the first domed stadium in baseball. Nicknamed the eighth wonder of the world, the stadium would be the first to play baseball indoors and protect the […]

In 1997, the Florida (now Miami) Marlins won the World Series, bringing joy and enthusiasm to the team and its fan base. Days later, the destruction of the team began as management shipped off nearly every high-priced veteran it could to save money. The excuse was that the team couldn’t afford such a large payroll […]

10,000 days ago (a “day-versary” I call it), baseball witnessed its nastiest and ugliest beanball war in memory. It led to over a dozen ejections, multiple bench clearing brawls, and ended with police in riot gear stationed by each dugout. It was Aug. 12, 1984, and the fun began on the very first pitch of […]

I vaguely remember Gary Gaetti playing for the California Angels. He also played for the Royals, Cardinals, and Cubs as he lingered aimlessly on the major league scene throughout the 1990s, far past his prime seasons of 1986, ‘87 and ‘88 with the Twins. But I have absolutely no recollection of Gaetti playing five games […]

The Nationals’ acquisition of Gio Gonzalez gives them six major-league pitchers vying for five spots in the 2012 rotation. Gonzalez joins a crew of starters that includes Jordan Zimmermann, Stephen Strasburg, John Lannan, Ross Detwiler, and veteran Chien-Ming Wang, who is returning to Washington on a one-year contract. In a conference call on Friday, Nationals’ […]

Man, this is a terrific card. It’s part of the iconic 1973 Topps set, depicts a Hall of Fame player in his prime, and shows him attempting to make a fine running catch near the opposition’s dugout. Johnny Bench is the best defensive catcher I’ve ever seen. Keep in mind that I never saw defensive […]

Today marks the 100th birthday of one of the most famous players never to play major league baseball: Josh Gibson. Gibson was a leading slugger in the Negro Leagues, but you probably already knew that. With the exception of Satchel Paige, no name is more closely associated with the Negro Leagues than that of Gibson. […]

25,000 days was one of the roughest moments Leo Durocher ever had in major league baseball. His team mutinied on him, and it took the intervention of the general manager to quell it. The incident was so nasty, and it made Durocher look so bad, that he didn’t even mention it in his autobiography, Nice […]

On July 6, 1943, 25,000 days ago, the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Phillies 4-0 for the second victory in what turned out to be a six-game winning streak for the Cardinals. In and of itself, the game was nothing important. The big series for St. Louis came just before this, when the Cards swept […]

One hundred years ago today, the lords of baseball decided to adopt a new statistic officially: earned run average. Of all the traditional stats, this might be the best, or at least the most sabermetrically-friendly. In fact, there is solid evidence for that. In his 1987 Baseball Abstract, Bill James had a section ranking normal […]