26 Innings

Like an avid mystery reader frustrated after finding the last two pages identifying the killer ripped out of a 600-page novel, so were the fans at Braves Field on May 1, 1920. There would be no closure for a game that went nearly triple the standard nine-inning...

Bowling, Tim Matheson, and “Dreamer”

“You just dream about something, that’s all it’s ever gonna be.  Just a dream.” So says Harold Nuttingham in the 1979 film Dreamer, a post-Watergate, feel-good movie with a down-to-earth vibe. Nuttingham dreams of being a bowling...

Lefty Grove, Ted Williams, and the 1941 Red Sox

They say the third time’s a charm.  And so it was with Lefty Grove’s 300th victory, which occurred on July 25, 1941, against the Cleveland Indians.  “Here the hundreds of fans who had been waiting for this moment ever since it became possible for...

Don Drysdale: Once a Bum, Almost a Pirate

Imagining Don Drysdale playing for a team other than the Dodgers is like imagining Hershey’s making products without chocolate.  Drysdale, he of the cannon disguised as a right arm firing baseballs through National League lineups in the 1950s and the 1960s,...

What If the Dodgers Had Stayed in Brooklyn?

What if the Dodgers had stayed in Brooklyn?  Further, what if migration in the modern era had never taken place, thereby forcing expansion in Kansas City, San Francisco, and other MLB cities. My paradigm assumes the following: Tampa, Toronto, Arizona, and Montreal do...