Here's Some Proof

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about how the new Yankee Stadium would not have the same appeal to baseball fans, because it lacks the history that the old Yankee Stadium had. I was looking at some videos online today and found this one. Despite the fact that I am not a Yankee's fan, some of these clips brought a tear to my eye.

I could not embed the video on this site so here is the link to NY Yankees Greatest Moments.

One Grand Year

I was doing my daily check of my favorite websites today and came across this article. It is the type of information that I would write about, but it looks like MLB.com beat me to it. It is a good article and has some good historic information in it.

One Thing That Bugs Me

If there is one thing that bugs me about Major League Baseball, it is the All-Star Game. The fact that there is an All-Star Game is not what bugs me, but rather when voting starts for players to go the All-Star Game. I don't personally have a problem with fans voting for players they want to see in the game, but I do not like that fan voting begins about the third week of baseball season.

Is three weeks enough to determine if a player is deserving of an All-Star vote. I don't think so. I realize that voting is open until the end of June, but do we really need over two months of voting to figure out who the best players are.

I think a solution to this would be to have a week of voting towards the end of June. If Major League Baseball would do this, I believe that interest in voting and the All-Star Game would increase. Going with this method has several advantages to it.

First, it gives more time to see which players are deserving of an All-Star vote. The currents system makes the All-Star Game more of a long-term popularity contest. If the voting time was shortened and moved to a later time in the season, it would likely make voting much closer and realistic as to who gets to start in the game.

Secondly I think this approach would increase interest in the game itself. Currently the reason why the All-Star game is a "must-watch" is because home-field advantage in the World Series is determined by the winner (For the record, I do not like home-field advantage to be determined by an exhibition game. It should go to the team with the better record.). If the voting was condensed into a shorter amount of time, I think that people would be more interested in who is going to be playing and therefore more interested in watching the game.

I don't think that Major League Baseball will ever change to this type of system, because they really have no reason to change it. Regardless of how voting is done, there will still be plenty of good players in the game that make the game well worth watching, which I will still do.

New Yankee Stadium

Today was the Yankees home opener at their bran new field, Yankee Stadium. While it is the same name and from the pictures that I have seen looks very similar to the old Yankee Stadium, it is still in fact a new ballpark.

When I first heard of the Yankees building a new stadium, I was upset. In my opinion there were three baseball stadiums that should never be replaced - Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Yankee Stadium. All three of these ballparks are very historic and nee to have baseball played in them no matter how old they may be. The Cubs and the Red Sox have done the right thing with there stadiums, which is trying to keep the ballparks in running order and expanding seating capacity.

The Yankees, however, did what they should not have done, build a new stadium. Sure it is high-tech and top of the line, but there is no history in the stadium. What made the old Yankee Stadium special was knowing what happened there and who played there. Future generations can no longer say, I was in the stadium where Babe Ruth set records, or where Aaron Boone hit a walk-off home run in Game 7 of the League Championship Series, or where the Red Sox came from behind in a 7 game series to beat the Yankees before winning the World Series.

Might there be some great historic moments at the new stadium? Maybe, but I am upset as a basaball fan that I will never set foot in the "House that Ruth Built." So on this day that the Yankees open a new park, a good portion of me is happy that they are getting blown out.

Career Cut Short

Just hours after his fourth Major League Start Angels' pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed in a car accident.

I find this the most difficult post I have ever done. Although I had never heard of him until I saw the story posted on ESPN, stories like this still hit close to home. About a year and a half ago I had an uncle die in a motorcycle accident, and any time I hear of anything similar I am reminded of the feelings that I felt on that day.

Stories like this remind us that baseball players are normal people like you and I. We as fans tend to elevate them to "Superman" status and think that nothing bad can happen to them only to be hit with reality that they face the same dangers that we do.

Nick's father had flown from Baltimore to watch his son pitch last night. His performance was stellar, throwing for six scoreless innings in his fourth and final start of his career.

Let us all remember to be praying for Nick's family, friends, and teammates as they mourn the loss of a friend.

IT’S ALMOST HERE!!!

After a long off-season, it is nearly the first day of baseball season. This is the best time of year for any baseball fan. On opening day every fan can still be optimistic about his teams chances. Other than the All-Star Game and World Series, opening day is probably the most hyped event in baseball all year.

Throughout the years there have been interesting events that have happened on opening day and I would like to share some of them with you here.

1. The only no-hitter in opening day history was thrown by Bob Feller in 1940.

2. In 1974, Hank Aaron hit his 714th career home run which tied him with Babe Ruth.

3. Greg Maddux is 6-0 in seven career opening day starts.

4. Frank Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr. each have hit eight career opening day home runs

5. The longest opening day game in history was a 15 inning game between the Tigers and Indians in 1960.

6. Several times games have been delayed or cancelled due to snow on opening day. One of the most famous happened occurrences of this was in 1907.

What to Do When You Can't Watch the Game

Baseball Traditions

Throughout the years many different traditions have been started in the game of baseball. Many traditions have nothing to do with the game itself, but if we went to a game without them we would feel like something was missing. Here are some pictures of three different baseball traditions. The first is the ceremonial first pitch. Second is the 7th inning stretch. Last, but not least, is fireworks. I realize that not every game has fireworks, but most teams have fireworks nights several times throughout the season.

Baseball Traditions

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This Week In Baseball History

Just about anyone would agree with me if I said that athletes are extremely overpaid. I am not sure that I would get much disagreement if I left it at that, but I won’t.

This last week Manny Ramirez signed a two-year $45 million dollar contract. That is over $20 million dollars a year!! Do athletes even need this much money.

Consider the fact that on March 6, 1922, Babe Ruth signed a three-year $52,000 contract, a mere, $17,000 per year.

Manny Ramirez’s contract is over 1,000% higher than Babe Ruth’s.

I realize that the cost of living does affect these numbers quite a bit, but I am pretty sure that 1,000% is a little high.

That is one way to look at the numbers, but I do not think that it gives either player justice to how much money they were getting payed compared to other players of the same era.

Manny’s contract is nothing compared to Alex Rodriguez’s ten-year $275 million dollar contract, which he signed last year.

Babe Ruth’s three-year $52,000 contract is staggering when you consider that the next highest payed player at that time had a contract worth $16,000 total. Babe Ruth was making more money in one year than the next highest player made in the life of his contract.

Is Manny Ramirez being overpayed? Probably, but at least he is keeping his salary around the league average of players of his caliber.

10 Baseball Stadiums I Want to see before I Die

It's finally here!!!! It is baseball season!!! The first spring training games of the year started yesterday afternoon. As a baseball fan I am very excited about this. As I was thinking about baseball season, I realized that there are many ballparks that I have not been to that I would like to visit before I die.

I did make a couple of rules though. First, it cannot be a ballpark that I have visited before. Although there are a few of those that I would love to visit again. Secondly, the ballpark must still be actively used by a Major League Baseball Team. I realize that there are still a couple of ballparks still around that teams used to use, but those will not count. Sorry Yankee Stadium.




The ballparks pictured above in no particular order are Camden Yards, Fenway Park, Progressive Field, Petco Park, Chase Field, Wrigley Field, Busch Stadium, Nationals Park, Citizens Bank Park, and PNC Park.

My Chat with a Beat Writer

Today I had the privilege of sitting down with Mr. Andrew Call, former Cleveland Indians beat writer for The Repository in Canton, Ohio. Mr. Call covered the Indians from 1995 until May 2008. During his time covering the Indians, he was able to see some of great baseball teams and players.

When I asked him who his favorite baseball team was when he was growing up, I got an answer that I was not expecting. Mr. Call said that he rarely, if ever watched baseball as a young person. His school did not offer baseball either, so his exposure to baseball before becoming a sports writer was minimal.

Knowing that Mr. Call covered some good teams and players during his time in Cleveland, I asked him who his favorite players to watch were. I was not quite as surprised with his answers to this question. He said that his favorite hitters to watch were Albert Belle and Manny Ramirez. Belle was one of his favorites because he was a greatly feared hitter who had amazing power. Mr. Call liked watching Manny Ramirez because he was the best pure hitter that he watched.

Before I had time to ask my next question, Mr. Call answered it. Being a Giants fan, I wanted to ask him what he thought about Omar Vizquel. He said that Omar was his favorite defensive player to watch. I completely agree with him on that statement after having the pleasure of watching Omar play for a couple years in San Francisco.

During my chat with Mr. Call, I asked him about the greatest moment he was able to witness in baseball. The moment he mentioned is not necessarily a famous baseball moment, but having been in similar situations I was able to understand where he was coming from. The moment he mentioned was the the first game of the playoffs in 1995. This was the first time the Indians had been to the playoffs since losing to the New York Giants in the 1954 World Series. This moment stood out in his mind because of the electricity that was running through the crowd in that game.

Talking with someone who followed the game closely for several years was a great pleasure for me. I was able to ask Mr. Call many other questions about baseball, but didn’t write it all down this time.

Don’t be discouraged, winter is almost over and Spring Training Games are just around the corner!!!

Steroid Era*

A few days ago another Major League Baseball superstar, Alex Rodriguez, admitted to using steroids. I am not going to bash A-Rod, after all I am a fan of the Giants which had the most famous steroid user so far. Because of steroid use there are people that want to put an asterisk next to records that were set by people who used steroids. While I do not think that it was right for players to use steroids, I do not think that an asterisk should be put by there names. Instead of putting asterisks by names, we need to name this era like we have named past eras in baseball. We have had the live ball, the dead ball, integration, and free agency eras. You may be thinking that this would not be fair to all of the players that did not take steroids though. I would disagree with that statement. Even players that have not used steroids have been effected by steroid use because they were playing against players that did take steroids. If the players that took steroids had inflated statistics, then it would make sense that players that did not take steroids would have deflated statistics. In the end is naming the era going to effect how we view certain players? Probably not, but it will explain why players stats are the way they are during this time. As far as Major League Baseball is concerned, they do not need to worry about asterisks or eras. They need to focus on cleaning the game of steroids so that we can start a new era.

Welcome to Dan's View

Welcome to Dan's view from the bleachers. I am a big baseball fan and love how the history of the game is still important to the sport today. I grew up in San Francisco watching the Giants play every day on TV or at the ballpark. As a Giants fan, I have much history with my franchise to be proud of and am reminded of this history whenever I go to a game and see statues of some of baseball's greatest players like Willie Mays. Although I am a Giants fan and love their history, I love the history of the game itself with all of its great players. I think that many times people forget about history, so they do not fully understand what is happening in the sport today. I want this blog to link today's games with yesterday's history that way we can have a greater understanding and love for America's Pastime.