Baseball is a sport that -- perhaps more than any other -- brings with it a history that carries as much weight as its present. As an outsider stepping into that world, it can daunting, or charming; because there's a kernel of familarity that can be found in the juxtaposition of the immediately knowable and the initiates' prerogative. Also, Buck O'Neil and Spaceman Lee are pretty fun to watch.
The playoffs are here, which means Bronson Arroyo's singing face, a few extra between-cigarette cigarettes for Jim Leyland, and the freaking Cardinals and Yankees. It's a good thing. Let's talk about it.
Bandwagonning, though objectionable in theory, is often a necessary part of enjoying sports. But the responsible bandwagonner must pick the team for which he or she has the greatest natural affinity. Here is your guide to finding a spiritual match in record time.
With the sabermetric revolution, the value of the stats that encompass the Triple Crown has greatly diminished, but what does that mean the value of the Triple Crown itself?
It has now been 20 years since the Pittsburgh Pirates last finished above .500, and the season that mercifully ends today was one of the most wrenching in those two dark decades. How could any group of fans survive this? The same way fans survive everything.
In 1999, Major League Baseball and its umpires came to the brink of labor armageddon, with the vast majority of the game's veteran umpires threatening to retire en masse as the season came down the stretch. A decade and change later, it's all a distant memory—and both sides seem, belatedly and improbably, to have gotten what they wanted.
Keith Hernandez is many things: one of the better first basemen of his era, one of the better Seinfeld guest stars of any era, and an American original. First and foremost, though, Hernandez is a mustachioed man. Or was: before Thursday's game against the Mets, Hernandez shaved his mustache in front of CitiField, for charity. SNY's Ted Berg was there.
A writer travels across the world, only to find that baseball fans in Korea and Japan are every bit as excited about the game as their domestic counterparts. Although, to be fair, they're notably more on-point with their choreography and player-specific chanting, and are notably nicer to Lastings Milledge.
As a long season closes and the Baltimore Orioles continue to baffle and astound. Two men try to make sense of it all. Not terribly hard, and not terribly successfully. But trying is important, too. Let's all go get some ice cream!
He has squabbled with Barry Bonds in the dugout and T.J. Simers in a clubhouse, injured himself while "washing his car" and won a National League MVP. But by going on CBS' Survivor, Jeff Kent is entering a new universe of strangeness. Luckily, he is bringing his sunny attitude and mustache along with him.
