September baseball is the time to meaningfully count – up and down. With each contest that marches upward toward the 162nd, postseason pursuers can focus on a magic number, counting down toward the desired zero that translates to October baseball. With each day moving a player closer to his final […]
The 1904 Athletics – pitching staff residence for a trio of Hall of Famers – saw their starters average 5.93 strikeouts per nine innings. Under the lights shining on the current environment, that figure may look, feel, sound … anemic, blah, laughable, but for the era, it was anything but. […]
As part – an immense, electrifying part – of the 1971 Giants push to an NL West crown, Bobby Bonds made his first All-Star Game, picked up his first Gold Glove and finished fourth in MVP voting. The 25-year-old also finished in the top-seven in the NL in both home […]
Another day, another dinger. Of course, Cal Raleigh hasn’t been that productive, going homerless in 39 games this season. But he has gone yard in 19 of them, 19 contests that have been a little extra elevated by the humming, building consideration of how high, how far the 28-year-old backstop […]
For all the enjoyment a Major League ballgame can provide when its young stars showcase their extraordinary physical gifts – those unimaginable blends and demonstrations of reflex and reaction time and flexibility and adjustment – the opportunity to savor something with a different profile can be equally alluring. Historically, this […]
There are 1,197 players who’ve accumulated at least 4,000 plate appearances through their first 10 big league seasons. Imagine this immense gathering, where the head table is reserved for the top 10 in OPS+. You’ll have heard of these guys. Ted Williams commands the table, with a 190 through his […]
When it comes to Dodgers kapowing a ballgame with a walk-off home run over the last half century, Andre Ethier is king. 2008 saw the first example of this flair, kind of a supporting role in the team’s drama that season. The following year, the 27-year-old grabbed hold of the […]