My Favorite Things

Greg Brady getting selected to be the next “Johnny Bravo” because he “fit the suit” on The Brady Bunch. Jimmy McNulty on The Wire. Any Seinfeld episode involving Frank Constanza or David Puddy. Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football. The theme...

What If Herman Munster Played for the Dodgers?

In 1965, the Los Angeles Dodgers boasted a record of 97-65, attracted more than 2.5 million people to Dodger Stadium, and won the World Series against the Minnesota Twins in seven games. The Dodgers might have gone 162-0, sold out every game at Dodger Stadium, and won...

Three Men On a Base

When Charles Ebbets died in 1925, Ebbets Field remained as an emblem of his dedication to bring high-quality baseball to Brooklyn.  The play on the field, less so. Hitting a one-in-a-million line drive to a second baseman that fuels an unassisted triple play in the...

FDR’s “Green Light” Letter

By the time 1941 turned into 1942, the exclamation point in the phrase “Play Ball!” became a question mark with the nation at war in two theatres, European and Pacific.  Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis sought counsel from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt...

How Did the Giants Win the Pennant, Anyway?

1951 was supposed to be the Dodgers’ year, a vengeance-filled riposte of burgeoning against the baseball fates that determined the previous year’s National League pennant go to the Philadelphia Phillies on the last day of the 1950 season.  The paradigm repeated as...