This must be love, fits like a glove.  Well it must be love, it must be love – fits like a glove – fits like a glove.  -Kiss

Shhhhh.  It’s around the corner.  Baseball’s around the corner.  Smell it?  Hooray baseball!  I love baseball.  I’m Like Carl Yastrzemski:  “I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning.   I think about it all day and I dream about it at night.  The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m playing it.”  And considering I don’t play much of it anymore, I’m thinking about it all the time.  Today I’m thinking about the best defensive players in the game today.  What’s glove got to do with it, got to do with it?  Everything.  Always has.  Always will. Read More »

Guard your grill, knuckle up. I ain’t the type to give up. Guard your grill, knuckle up. Put ‘em up, you ain’t tough. Guard your grill, knuckle up! -Naughty By Nature

Word out of Fort Myers is that knuckleballer Tim Wakefield is fighting to earn a spot on the Red Sox roster.  I for one am rooting for him.  Willie Stargell once said, “Throwing a knuckleball for a strike is like throwing a butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor’s mailbox.”  I wasn’t around when Lew “Hicks” Moren invented it.  I never saw Hoyt Wilhelm.  I barely remember Phil Niekro and Charlie Hough.  Wilbur Wood is from my hometown but he was before my time.  I’ve seen Tim Wakefield though.  I’ve seen Tim Wakefield pitch for a lot of innings.  A plethora of innings.  A gaggle of innings.  A slew of innings.  Sixteen years worth of innings.  Sixteen years worth of knuckleballs.        Read More »

Okay, if knowledge is the key then just show me the lock. Got the scrawny legs but I move just like Lou Brock. With speed, I’m agile plus I’m worth your while. One hundred percent intelligent black child. -Tribe Called Quest

Here it comes.  Here comes baseball.  Like my main man Joe DiMaggio always says:  “You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid.  You think something wonderful is going to happen.”  I’m looking forward to it.  I think something wonderful is going to happen.  I live for this!  What’s crack-a-lacking sports fans?  I loved Lou Brock.  Put you in shock.  Stealing bases around the clock.  A virtuoso like my main man Johan Sebastian Bach.  I loved Willie Wilson.  Looking good in those baby blues.  Faster than Deja Vu.  Quicker than any cheetah in any zoo.   I loved Rickey Henderson.  Probably the best lead-off hitter I’ve ever seen.  The best base stealer there’s ever been.  I loved Tommy Harper, Rock Raines, Firecracker Vince Coleman.  I loved them all, they’re the stolen base kings of the game we call baseball.  Joe Morgan once said:  “A good base stealer should make the whole infield jumpy.”   So that’s what we want to know.  Who in 2011 makes the whole infield jumpy?         Read More »

What does it take to be number one?  Two is not a winner and three nobody remembers.  What does it take to be number one?  Hey hey hey hey..  -Nelly

Opening day is just two weeks away.  Ahhhh, baseball.  The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.  America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers.  It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.  But baseball has marked the time.  I know it’s a little early.  I know what Bill Veeck said.  I know he said, “This is a game to be savored, not gulped.  There’s time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings.”  I don’t care.  I want it all.  I want it now.  I want to know what the Big Fundamental wants to know.  “Good, better, best.  Never let it rest.  Until your good is better and your better is best.”  Who’s good?  Who’s the best?  Today we will discuss who’s the best.  We’ll discuss who’s the worst.  And we’ll discuss everything in between.  So, without further ado, let’s hand out the hardware:          Read More »

One lonely Beastie I be.  All by myself, with nobody.  The sun is beating down on my baseball hat.  The air is gettin’ hot, the beer is getting flat.  -Besatie Boys

Public Service Announcement:  Ahhh the baseball cap.  At one time, the baseball cap was worn only by ballplayers for their functionality.  For instance, because all pro baseball games were played in the afternoons, the visors grew steadily longer in the early decades of the 20th century.  But today, the baseball cap has evolved to the point that they are no longer worn only by ball players.  Today they’re worn by celebrities, presidents, teens and truckers alike.  Today they are the staple hat of the American people.  Power to the people!  In light of this, let’s have a look at 10 best baseball caps of all time.  Shall we?  Sure we shall: Read More »

And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house!  And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife!  Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was.  -Talking Heads

Just a quick one today.  Quick as a licorice stick one today.  Quick as a mouse click one today.  Today, the good folks over at Ed The Sports Fan posted a lamentation entitled When Your Favorite Player Gets Traded.  He said stuff like, “There’s nothing worse that can happen to a fan than when that fan’s favorite player…gets traded.”  In light of this, and in light of the recent moves that sent Melo to the Knicks and Deron Williams to the Nets, I got to thinking.  I got to thinking  that so many times in sports, guys have ended up in uniforms they just don’t belong in.  Uniforms they just look wrong in.  Here are a few that I never got used to:           Read More »

You gotta go go go go, goodbye!  Glad to see you go go go go, goodbye!  Goodbye!  -Ramones

Andy Pettitte, the man who has started and won more postseason games than any pitcher in baseball history, has decided to retire after 16 major league seasons.  You know what that means boys and girls?  Huh?  Do ya?  Sure you do.  It means, follow the bouncing ball, it means:  Happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again.  So let’s sing a song of cheer again, happy days are here again!  Yes they are sports fans, yes they are.  Without Pettitte, the Yankees rotation is like the 1948 Atlanta Braves rotation.  You remember the 1948 Braves rotation. It wen a little something like this: First we’ll use Spahn, then we’ll use Sain, then an off day followed by rain. Back will come Spahn followed by Sain, and followed we hope, by two days of rain.  Substitute Spahn with Sabathia.  Substitute Sain with Hughes.  Substitute me for him.  Substitute my coke for gin.  Substitute them there, and there you have it.  There you golden calf it.  There’s one weak staff it.       Read More »

See the rest at imgur

Peace out Adrian.  Six two and even!

Is she really going out with him?  Is she really gonna take him home tonight?  Is she really going out with him?  ‘Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me, there’s something going wrong around here.  -Joe Jackson

Holy schnikies!  I should have known something was up.  I should have known it  when Billy Buckner returned to the Red Sox in 1990 and received a rousing standing ovation from the Fenway Faithful.  I should have known it when Billy Goat threw out the first pitch to Dewey Evans at the Sox home opener as they unfurled their 2007 World Series Championship Banner and received yet another rousing standing ovation from the Fenway Faithful.  I should have.  I didn’t.  I certainly didn’t see this coming.  I didn’t see Buckner being hired to manage the Brockton (Mass.) Rox, a team in the independent Can-Am League.  Bill Buckner played for over twenty years in the bigs.  Bill Buckner accumulated over 2700 career hits.  In one fateful moment Bill Buckner ruined my life forever.  Or at least until 2004.  And now this?  Now he’s the manager of a local ball club?  Why it’s a travesty.  It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.  What’s next?   Read More »

You gotta run, run, run, run, run, take a drag or two.  Run, run, run, run, run, Gypsy Death and you.  Tell you whatcha do.  -Velvet Underground

Public Service Announcement:  It should be no shock that over here at JQP Productions, we are backing the Texas Rangers in this here ALCS.  Like my main man Bullet Bob Feller always says, “I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.”  Well, if the Rangers want to beat the Yankees regularly in these playoffs, they better hit the ground running.  Run Forrest, Run!  Run like the wind.  Run like people are chasing them.  Run like the Red Sox ran on them in the last Yankees-Sox series at the Stadium.  You remember, don’t you?  Not only did the Red Sox have four ninth inning stolen bases off Jorge Posada in that series, but they also had two double steals off him in the season finale.  That’s right, two double steals that included Boston’s first steal of home since Jacoby Ellsbury did it against Posada and the Yankees last year.              Read More »