One of the bigger surprises of this year’s Hall of Fame vote to me was the fact David Cone went one-and-out on the ballot. In my January 14 Hardball Times article Daze of whine and posers all I had to say on the subject was “David Cone (3.9%) … I thought he might hang around [...]

I love classic cars–besides the styling, my favourite thing are those old big block engines where size matters and you’re judged on your cubic inches; there’s just something about seeing eight old oil can sized pistons to set the ol’ heart a-flutter.
After I retire I want to modify a smaller, economy style car by [...]

Now what?
I was looking forward to doing a post-mortem with Jack Marshall when the decision in the Bonds collusion arbitration case came down however a wrench has been thrown into the works. MLB/MLBPA agreed to postpone the grievance until after the trial so what happens now that the trial has been delayed?
Let’s face it, absent [...]

Believe it or not, there is somebody on the players’ side of the baseball coin that has become almost indispensable to the New York Yankees.
Scott Boras.
To the casual observer it would seem it is the other way around–after all, with teams doing a lot of Selig-inspired belt tightening there appears to be only one club [...]

I haven’t written much about the WBC (except for last week’s SMSN column that I’ll provide a link for as soon as this week’s is up) but it isn’t from a lack of interest in the event.
For me, I haven’t gotten too worked up about Canada’s fortunes in all this–I’m too busy enjoying watching real [...]

About a month ago we discussed about the potential role player agents might have played in the whole steroid debacle. A quick refresher:
“There’s one guy we need to hear from in all this…
Scott Boras.
His agency does far more than represent professional athletes–he is also involved in the minutiae of his clients’ careers. He provides every [...]

Well, let’s get back to the fascinating stuff in “The Yankee Years.”
To begin with–how much do you think the commissioner of baseball is aware of the official goings-on at the annual baseball winter meetings? One would think the commander-and-chief of the sport should have a pretty good handle on the agenda and whatnot.
Rewind to 1998: [...]

Getting back to “The Yankee Years” I was struck with an odd epiphany: winning means different things to different players; in a perfect world, we would hope that all 25 players on our rooting interest’s roster all desperately want to win the World Series and that winning means winning games, winning series, winning playoff berths, [...]

Ugh.
Let’s give the chorus their happily ever after and imagine for a moment watching the evening news and watching Barry Bonds shackled at the wrists, clad in an orange jumpsuit heading for a vacation at the public’s expense.
The media orgasms and many have a warm glow. We hear plaudits about how the children have learned [...]

Well, I just finished the controversial Joe Torre/Tom Verducci screed and will be doing a formal review in the very near future. Regardless, it will provide fodder for a lot of columns and thoughts throughout the season.
To begin with, I think the initial rhetoric over the book was way over the top. I really didn’t [...]