Does it seem to you that every “innovation” baseball has come up with over the past decade or so has done us very little good? They realigned divisions in time to give us the endless Braves (who would've made for better company pre-1991 than the Cubs, Cards or Bucs did at precisely the wrong moments); […]

I wish you could've been inside my head last Saturday afternoon. For the first four innings before I left the house, I made so many in-game deals with the gods and censored so many between-pitches thoughts that you would've assumed I was carrying the fate of the free world in my consciousness. Or that the […]

Didja see the Mets game Tuesday night?

Yeah.

Who won?

Mets did.

Great! Who pitched?

Kaz…

Cuz I wanna know. Who pitched?

Kaz…

Like I said, cuz I wanna know.

You're not listening closely. Kaz!

Cuz I wanna know!

Kaz…he pitched.

Cuz who pitched?

Kaz!

Cuz without knowing who pitched, I don't really know what happened.

I know this is a stretch, but the pitcher's name was Kaz. Kaz Ishii.

Oh. […]

Don't stand pat. Look smart! Have the answer to any given problem. “Say, you know how our second baseman isn't quite up to snuff at the moment? I have the solution that isn't right in front of your nose!”

Thus the recurring theme of Bring Up Schmendrick! — or Keppinger or Bell or Wright or whoever […]

Conventional baseball wisdom has it that you can't take every single game serious as death. If you are a player or a manager or an executive or an owner, perhaps. Me, the überfan? I find it impossible to treat any of them as if there isn't something important going on. Blame my skewed priorities or […]

Maybe this kangaroo court thing is apropos after all. Justice Glavine ruled in favor of targeting and hitting the inside corner for once and then sentenced the Cardinals to an hour-and-a-half of futile flailing, with no time off for good behavior. It was gratifying to watch, even though I still find myself desperately rooting for […]

SERIES PREVIEW

Opponent: St. Louis Cardinals

Annoyance Level: High

Why: Because the St. Louis Cardinals used to be a divisional rival, a hot one. Now they're like visiting dignitaries with their one trip a year and all their good press.

Reputation: Oooh, it's the Cardinals. Oooh, they play in the best place ever. Oooh, they're so good.

Reality: They're very […]

Been thinking about Mets-Cubs games. Yesterday's was indeed typical of the type of game we tend to lose against them. But we do have our share that we tend to win, there and here.

This one really works better for an off-day.

or this one…

or this one…

or this one (if you like broken windows)…

or this one (a […]

A season is composed of the third you're gonna win, the third you're gonna lose and the other third. Wednesday's game had a real shot at being an avatar of where this season was going, stealing victory from defeat, sending the flight home via a higher strata of clouds. It was gonna be from the […]

Apparently there was something filtering through the air vents of the East School library in the early 1970s that infiltrated the kids' grudge receptors. As demonstrated the other day, I can still hold one that's more than thirty years old. And so can somebody else.

Since this has been a night for opposing viewpoints, it is […]