With the cold weather still lingering in many parts of the country, winter-weary baseball fans can take comfort in knowing that the action ramping up across ballparks in Florida and Arizona heralds the arrival of spring. But while the Grapefruit and Cactus League games have been an annual component […]
There’s a wonderful old commercial for Starting Lineup sports figures that features an unseen singer waxing about his childhood dream of becoming a big league baseball player, ending with the line, “And summer would go on forever.” Coincidentally, around that time summer did linger past its usual expiration date – […]
On January 21, members of the BBWAA will reveal the results of the 2025 Hall of Fame balloting. Because we here at Coffee & Box Scores didn’t receive official ballots (surely they got lost in the mail), I will reveal my own personal choices in this space, with Roger to […]
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, […]
With the 2024 World Series in the books and its immediate highs and lows receding into the past, it’s time for all of us to take a collective breath and remember some of the non-baseball activities we may have overlooked since the postseason began. Just kidding! After all, we […]