Developed by four former Major League Baseball employees, Coffee & Box Scores is the home for a unique brand of baseball content, where the present connects to the past in a celebratory, fun and thought-provoking style. Producing game notes, essays and artwork throughout the 2024 MLB postseason, Coffee & Box Scores will be a go-to destination for baseball fans seeking creative and stimulating content.
In 1927, Lou Gehrig produced an 11.4 oWAR (this is bWAR, with the defensive element removed). This explosive display is the showcase of all showcases for first basemen, the unsurpassed mark for the position. And thus, Gehrig gets us started on a fun offensive dream team, one made up by […]
Following this opening, there’s a little more than a thousand words devoted to connecting the three AL MVP finalists from 2024 to the past. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are going to be referenced, as will Honus Wagner and Rogers Hornsby. Ted Williams and Stan Musial are brought up, as […]
For his efforts during the 1999 season, Pedro Martínez was the unanimous winner of the AL Cy Young Award. “Efforts” is probably the most mundane, vanilla, blah descriptive ever for the right-hander’s season, for it was a supernova display, a realization of a magician and genius at the height of […]
Thanks to a pair of Triple Crown winners, the 2024 Cy Young Award races appear to hold little drama for the unveiling. Since the award has been bestowed on an ace or aces of the season (1956), a Triple Crown winner has now emerged to tilt the balance 16 times. […]
Rookies can be like Spring Training: opportunities for optimism and rosy considerations of what could be, magnets for raising ceilings rather than lowering floors. A rookie who is in his very first season and who is notably young can magnify this hope, personifying a launchpad for imagined awe and splendor. […]
This century, 89 rookies have splashed onto the scene with at least 50 extra-base hits. From the start, Orioles newcomers were conspicuously absent from the assemblage, failing to post a representative until Trey Mancini delivered 54 in 2017. This decade, Baltimore’s beginners have been more of a wave rather than […]
In his recent article about Carlos González, my colleague Roger highlighted Car-Go’s 2010 numbers as an example of a Hall-of-Fame-type campaign from a player who stands little to no chance of earning a plaque of his own. He also took the fun step of revealing an all-time starting nine of […]
Sometimes, when thinking back to my childhood in the early 1980s, I try to remember how a young baseball fan followed the sport’s top athletes in those pre-cable, pre-internet days. Magazines like Sports Illustrated kept us in the loop, along with NBC’s nationally televised Game of the Week and […]
A recent look through a Today in Baseball History database revealed this tidbit for December 17: The AL votes to allow pitchers who used the spitball in 1920 to continue using it as long as they are in the league. The NL will do the same. There will be […]
While the baseball world waits to see if Ichiro Suzuki becomes just the second player to earn unanimous induction to the Hall of Fame on the 2025 BBWAA ballot, another crop of Hall hopefuls is ready to hear the results of the semi-regular, often renamed Classic Baseball Era Committee. […]
With the Hall of Fame ballot available for assigned voters to muse over, I’m reminded of the thought I had at this time last year: This process is getting harder. That isn’t even taking into account the lingering issue of whether to vote for players with the stigma of […]
We’re all guilty of overestimating the capabilities of young players, particularly after they deliver a strong rookie season. After all, if they already show they can more than handle their own over the first extended look at the sport’s highest level, then surely they’ll be even better with more experience, […]
It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. During the 2001 season … Barry Bonds reached 500 homers on his way to establishing a single-season record with 73 big flies. Rickey Henderson […]
It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. In terms of run production, few players – just a dozen – produced a more impactful imprint on a per game basis than Manny […]
It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. Currently, there are 275 men who have been elected to the Hall of Fame as a “Player” (in contrast to “Manager” or “Pioneer/Executive” or […]
It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. Years and years ago, when Baseball Reference hit the scene and afforded us much easier ways to design clubs of personal choice, I […]
It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. From July 8 through September 28, the 2008 Brewers played 73 games and won 41 of them, a .562 clip of success. The endpoints […]
It’s Hall of Fame consideration season. Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. Let’s make a lineup … C Thurman Munson 1B Don Mattingly 2B Lou Whitaker 3B Stan Hack SS Dave Concepción LF Roy […]
Since launching Coffee & Box Scores in October, we’ve seen and heard enough of a response that makes us believe we have something worth pursuing – a full roll-out for the 2025 season in which Game Notes will be produced daily and will be accompanied by a steady complement of Connections and Recollections essays. In order to make that happen, we need your support. We’re asking for contributions to our campaign, whatever you might be able to provide, with the hopes that we hit our $ goal and with it, an opportunity to keep delivering content. Thank you!