Circle Me Bert!

What is your favorite baseball nickname?  The Say Hey Kid for Willie Mays?  The Yankee Clipper for Joe DiMaggio?  Mr. Cub for Ernie Banks?  Tom Terrific for Tom Seaver? ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman christened a tongue-in-cheek nickname for Bert Blyleven with a play...

“Let Them Play!”

Baseball is a beautiful game, largely because it has no clock determining its end.  An NFL team has 45 seconds to execute an offensive play.  An NBA team, 24 seconds.  But baseball has no time limit. The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training illustrated this point with...

Mascot Power

Coal.  Logging.  Natural gas. West Virginia is more than a state rich with natural resources.  It is, in fact, a minor league baseball treasure. Charleston, the state capital, began its professional baseball résumé in 1910 with the Statesmen, a Class D team in the...

Sparky Anderson

Sparky Anderson is a Cincinnati legend.  He managed the Cincinnati Reds — the Big Red Machine — in the 1970s and delivered two World Series championships, four National League championships, and five National League East championships to Queen City.  And...

Harvard, Hearst, and Mudville

Next month, Casey at the Bat celebrates its 125th anniversary.  Penned by Ernest Thayer, the story might never have happened but for an Ivy League friendship with William Randolph Hearst. Thayer and Hearst knew each other from their days at Harvard.  Thayer was a...