History

If the Philadelphia Phillies' first game of the 2011 was a microcosm of how we expect the 2011 season to play out—shut-down starting pitching, clumsy bullpen and just enough offense to win the day—then the second game of the season was a true demonstration of this team's potential.  

The Texas Rangers head into what some could consider the most important season of the team's history.

In 2010, we saw a team that some would’ve said should have finished 3^rd, or on the bottom of the AL West.

By the end of the season the Rangers had a eight game lead when they added Cliff Lee for the playoffs.

Thinking about how well they did, and the fact all the off the field problems didn’t seem to distract or bury the mental focus of this team, is beyond amazing.

Mid-April of 2011 will mark the 35th anniversary of Mark Fydrich's MLB debut with the Detroit Tigers, and it will also mark the second anniversary of his death.

A few years before Larry Bird became a well-known sports figure, Fydrich was “The Bird,” the one and only original.  Like Dizzy Dean, he had a brief and luminous stellar season, marred by a freak injury.

It's been more than two decades since the New York Mets drafted a young right-hander by the name of Jason Isringhausen. Since that time, "Izzy" has almost 1,000 innings under his belt, with just under 300 saves. In 2011, Isringhausen, now 38, is back in Mets camp.

The Philadelphia Phillies have put together one of the best starting rotations on paper that MLB has seen in years.  Cole Hamels is listed as the number four starter in the rotation, but he has the talent to be a number one pitcher on most teams.  Here is a look back at the other great number four starters in MLB history.

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For the first time since Richard Nixon was president, no big league team will break spring training camp with a Ken Griffey on its roster—Senior or Junior.

Every April from 1974 through 2010, there was a Ken Griffey in the majors. First it was the original Griffey—Senior—who broke into the bigs with the Cincinnati Reds and who kept playing until his baby boy grew up and was old enough to be his teammate with the Seattle Mariners in 1990.

Power often is correlated with arrogance.

See Part 1, "More Story, Less Sabermetrics" / Part 2, "Understanding Baseball Through Its Mysterious, Magical Words"

Statistics are something of a fetish. 

The year is 1941. The world is at war. Battles are raging and have been for two years now since the beginning of World War II in 1939.

At this point, the United States has successfully managed to stay out of this international conflict and remain neutral. All of that was about to change.

At 6 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, six Japanese carriers with 423 planes took position in preparations to attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

America's favorite past-time evolved into the first major professional sports league in the United States—Major League Baseball.

The MLB was founded in 1869, and now has 30 teams, one of them in Canada.

The nicknames of these teams helped create the names of sports teams ever since. For those of you curious baseball fans and history buffs, here are the origins of each MLB team nickname.

Note: If you are also interested in NCAA, NFL, NBA, and NHL nicknames, check out my profile for the articles.