“It's kind of a culmination of thoughts. First, it's just the gratification of knowing you hit the ball well. Then, you realize that you broke up a no-hitter and it's your first homer and it's off Pedro Martinez. When I got into the dugout, I really kind of had to sit down for a second.”

— […]

MLB's schedule-makers — who may be a bunch of rats pressing levers in the dark, if Memorial Day is any indication — have started the second round of interleague play with a small slate: The Braves are playing the Angels, while the Phillies got stuck playing the lone lame NL-only game and got beat by […]

I think I've got the baseball equivalent of an ice-cream headache.

Seven hours is a long, long time to spend at Shea Stadium, even if it was a very pleasant time. We (me and Will, noted earlier in these pages for Cardinals fandom and being struck by legumes) were in the upper deck, but a remarkably […]

Edgardo Alfonzo vs. Roberto Hernandez, 8th inning. Alfonzo's the tying run, two outs, 1-2 count. Hernandez keeps trying to put him away; Alfonzo keeps fouling pitches away, waiting for Hernandez to miss with a pitch he can drive. And I'm wondering at my loyalties. I'd switched to the radio at that point, but I could […]

(The fans at Kaufmann Stadium are acting like they just won the World Series. It's nice to see. Hey, can you begin with a digression?)

Once in a while this game's just plain fun. Your ace torments a bunch of snakes. An ancient catcher gets waved around from first, with doom awaiting him at the […]

It's never the best PR move to spit the bit on the first game of a homestand after returning from an infuriatingly schizoid road trip after your city has been rendered baseball-less on the first national holiday of summer by a bizarre quirk in the schedule. It's particularly not a good PR move to spit […]

Seems there are some things we're not accustomed to.

Dae-Sung Koo is not accustomed to hitters swinging 3-0 — “In Korea and Japan, most players don't swing at 3-0. I wasn't expecting a swing on that.” That, of course, was the lifeless, string-straight fastball he threw to Carlos Delgado in much the same way a zookeeper […]

Middle-of-the-day greetings, as tonight's posting weather is Uncertain with a 60% chance of drunkenness.

Is it possible for a team up two games to zip in a key series with a division rival to have that sinking feeling? Why yes it is. Hear that basso growl, the one with a hint of a high-pitched whine atop […]

We've seen enough horrors in Whatever They're Calling It This Year Stadium over the years to know that the crown always sits uneasy going into the ninth. By now, showing me a ribbon of teal or a split-second snippet of bags of grass-care products against cinderblock walls is enough to make me scoot for an […]

So I knew we'd be fine tonight. No, not when it was 43-3. Earlier. Not when Benson singled up the middle. Earlier. Not when it stopped raining in Florida. Earlier.

No, I knew all would be well at around 10:30 am PDT, about a minute after I cleared security in the San Francisco airport. […]