Back in the Saddle

Things have been quiet around here, but that isn’t because the baseball world has been quiet.

Sometimes the day job gets in the way.  The only hope I have is that it doesn’t happen too often.  The reader is obviously backed up beyond belief — there’ll be massive amount of “link dumps” in the coming days and hours. 

In the meantime, Brandon Isleib at THT posted an interesting thought on the Pythagorean Run Theory.

Filed under: Uncategorized, pythagorean wins and losses, THT

I came back to the BaseballJeremiad household to find Mountain Frank raising goats on the infield grass and DC Matt being forced to watch Kevin Mass at-bats over and over again by Uncle Sam.

In other words, some housekeeping is needed.

Now that we’re over the first-month jitters of these pages, look for some changes in features, formats and articles.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Ubaldo in the Spotlight, Harwell Tributes Abound

Ubaldo Jimenez leads the bigs in wins and ERA, and he’s now getting some attention from the New York Times. The article mentions that he was first scouted by the New York Mets, but they failed to land him.

Why? That story is explored more in today’s Denver Post, which has a Mother’s Day-themed story on Jimenez and his mom, who still fixes his lunch every day. The story describes how she and her husband wouldn’t allow Ubaldo to sign with the Mets until he finished school, and that only when the Rockies promised to let him finish and to pay for his medical school bills if he didn’t make it in baseball did they let him sign.

I wonder how Jersey Matt feels about that…

It’s hard to turn on the internets today and not see tributes to the late Ernie Harwell, the long time radio voice of the Detroit Tigers. Unsurprisingly, the two best are penned by Mitch Albom and Joe Posnanski. Posnanski links to the video below, which is certainly worth a couple minutes.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Harwell, Jimenez, Mets, Mothers, Rockies

Between Americans

I doubt many of our readers in the Washington, DC-area are familiar with Ed Walker’s The Big Broadcast, which I’m going to do my small part to change. Every Sunday night starting at 7PM, Mr. Walker plays three hours worth of old-time radio shows, with particular emphasis on the radio dramas like “Dragnet” and “Johnny Dollar.” I don’t usually go out of my way to listen, but if I’m in the car on Sunday nights I always tune in, even for the “crummy commercials.”

Last night, Ed selected a recording of Orson Welles reading a piece written by Norman Corwin entitled “Between Americans.” The broadcast aired on December 7, 1941, a day that all Americans were doing a great deal of thinking about the uncertain future of the nation.

It’s not really about baseball, but around the 7:30 mark of the first clip below there’s a real gem. I’ve posted all three parts of the clip, I encourage you to take a little time to listen and start your week off with a little reflection on where we’ve all been and what may be ahead.

Part 1:

Filed under: Uncategorized

Sunday Links, with NL West Flavor

Nice weekend weather is going to prevent a lot of blogging, but here are some Sunday links to get you through until Monday:

Adversity Hits Rockies– Troy Renck of the Denver Post charts the path forward for Colorado after injuries, bullpen struggles, and the untimely passing of club president Keli McGregor.

Tracy Ringolsby and Henry Schulman look at a resurgent Barry Zito.

Jon Heyman of SI looks at the “soap opera” that is wrecking LA’s start. Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports offers a bit more upbeat take on Dodgertown.

Enjoy the links and the nice weather, if you’re so fortunate.

Filed under: Uncategorized