The baseball-free months of the year are always the hardest on me, but I think I did pretty well this off-season. Now I'm reaping the rewards of my patience: I'm listening to the Nationals first spring training game versus the Dodgers! As soon as the broadcast was pouring out of my speakers, I had to get up and do a … Read more »

Sean Forman and Baseball-Reference are on a roll! On the heels of launching the Play Index back in January, BB-Ref has just announced several new features for the tool, including:Batting and Pitching Season Finders: Search through full-season data for custom leaderboards. This tool is on a free preview through March 5th.Event Finder … Read more »

I didn't follow the Rockies in Vinny Castilla's heyday, but I got to know him a little on the field in his sole year as a Washington National, and I loved his fierce attitude. His skills had declined in the past couple of years, so it's not surprising that Castilla retired this week after … Read more »

I've never heard Ben Maller on the radio, but I do read his blog. Maller seems to have a solid grip on the world of baseball and his finger firmly on the pulse of the latest rumors, but he writes abysmal headlines! With so much knowledge of the game, why does he feel it necessary to write most … Read more »

Did the Blue Jays ever release confirmed details about the nature Alex Rios' staph infection last season? It sounds like it might have been the same bug that the CBC is referring to in this story: Superbug at Canada's doorstep. If this is the case, we might start hearing about more players going down with this … Read more »

Baseball-Reference's new Play Index provides a handful of useful data mining tools for baseball stats freaks. The Event Finder locates all of a player's hits, doubles, outs, home runs, and more. You can view a detailed summary, or the complete list of every play including opposing batter or pitcher, opponent, inning, score, runners on base, and a play … Read more »

 With the Winter Meetings having occupied the minds of most baseball bloggers this week, I thought it might be nice to post something totally unserious just to remind ourselves that at it's heart, baseball's best quality is that it's fun. With no futher ado, I present The Fenway Bird, a funny series of photos from a Boston game … Read more »

Hanley Ramirez has emerged as the winner of the NL Rookie of the Year award, narrowly beating the Nationals' Ryan Zimmerman by just 4 points. It was one of the tightest races in the history of the award, highlighted by the presence of three Marlins in the top 4 (Ramirez, Dan Uggla and Josh Johnson). Read more »

I have been a Gameday Audio subscriber since MLB.com first introduced the service. As I live in a somewhat remote location without cable or satellite TV, Gameday Audio is my link to the game. I remember a couple of years ago when MLB.com tried to charge an additional fee to listen to post-season games. After a public outcry, they wisely … Read more »

In my view, when I listen to a ballgame radio broadcast, it should be plainly obvious which team the announcers are with. In fact, I have formed my team loyalties in recent years largely based on the charisma and enthusiasm of the broadcasting team. For example, the Padres, Nationals and Astros all have announcers who go crazy on a great … Read more »