It was less a baseball game, by the sixth and seventh and eighth innings, than a conference-room presentation, with the pitches as bullet points and the batters walking to the plate and jogging back to the dugout, screen-left, like slideshow graphics. “Taking It For A Spin: The Outsized Efficacy of the Breaking Ball in the […]
In baseball, every year is an election year. On Tuesday at 6 p.m. EST, we’ll learn which players will be honored with induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer (hopefully with an in-person ceremony in the Hall’s hometown of Cooperstown, New York). But unfortunately for the 25 stars studding this year’s ballot, it’s […]
The 60-game 2020 MLB season — provided it can be completed — will be filled with all of the usual statistics baseball fans love. But if history is any guide, expect the sport to again be embroiled in a fierce debate over asterisks, a controversial record-book remedy since Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s home run […]
The Houston Astros came out of nowhere. Just two seasons after occupying the basement of the American League West, the Astros have returned to take the top spot. Their turnaround is so sizable and so swift that it’s historic. In 2014, the Astros finished fourth in the division, with a correspondingly putrid winning percentage of […]