Almost Cooperstown

Send us Fan Mail Originally the 2nd incarnation of the Washington Senators, the Rangers moved to Texas in 1972 from D.C.  The Rangers are again a team that has never won the World Series.  There's only one more team we've yet to cover with a deep dive that has not won a WS. So you can guess the next one pretty easily.  We talk about the team history, success, lack of success, and the bes...

Send us Fan Mail Aaron Judge is 6'7" & 282 lbs. of baseball amazingness.  Shohei Ohtani might be the most outstanding player in baseball this season (again) but Judge was most valuable as without him the Yankees would be watching the playoffs on TV like 22 other MLB teams.   We put Judge's 2022 season up against some of the other greatest offensive seasons in MLB history and he...

Send us Fan Mail This is an extra episode since we will still drop our weekly Thursday episode tomorrow.  As we note in the podcast we needed to this as much for ourselves as for our listeners.  It's only been a couple of days since the Mets were booted out of the 2022 MLB Playoffs by the Padres.  While it was a really fun season to be a Met fan the disappointment of being ousted early will s...

Send us Fan Mail Here's the episode in which we come clean on who we picked before the season. We were right more than we were wrong but had a couple of huge swings and misses.  The 2022 MLB playoffs are at the ready and we both pick our World Series participants.  For we baseball fans it's truly the most wonderful time of the year!  Correction - Mark said that after the WC series there...

Send us Fan Mail With the addition of records from the Negro Leagues more than 23,000 have played Major League Baseball. What's the most common name for pitchers and hitters? Hint: it's not the same. How about the most successful pitcher last names?  And the most successful hitter last names?   There are only 3 Smiths in the HOF - two that you know quite well 1 pitcher and 1 hitter.   We...

Send us Fan Mail It's too easy to wait until the end of the regular season to pick our winners of this seasons MLB award winners. There is a new award for 'Super Utility Player' in each league. MVP, Cy Young, Rookie-of-the-Year, Manager-of-the-Year.  We talk about all of these and even a few more.  We're sure we will get some of the right. Hopefully.  Please subscribe to our po...

Send us Fan Mail As we were getting ready to record an episode about September roster expansions and how they've changed dramatically, the news about the MLB rule changes for 2023 came out. We could not ignore them as those rule changes are and will be significant!   If you've listened to this podcast you know we did not want to see the infield shift restricted. We've also talked ab...

Send us Fan Mail The Brewers have been around for more than 50 years but not always as the Brewers. We talk about the team's history, reason for being, its greatest players and most memorable seasons for this team which has unfortunately never brought a World Series win to its great fans.   It was Ben Ogilvie and Gorman Thomas combining for 73 home runs in 1982 - more than the entire Cardinal...

Send us Fan Mail What started as a way to pass time during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic has grown to be something that's bigger than we ever imagined.  We owe a huge thank you to all of our listeners!   Do we keep going?  Are there enough topics that can sustain another 100 episodes and beyond?  We think so and talk about how we got here from there.   Thanks again to our guests -...

Send us Fan Mail With the recent passing of Dodger announcer Vin Scully we lost one of the great voices of baseball - be it radio or television. We love to listen to baseball on the radio and once baseball on the radio began in 1921 it was the only way to follow pitch by pitch until baseball came to TV in 1939.  We talk about some of the great radio announcers and why listening to the game on radi...

Send us Fan Mail Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and a few others all are not enshrined in Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. But there is no way these are really 'Almost' guys. They were clearly not just great players, but were among the greatest players of their era as well as all-time.  Do they deserve to be members of the HOF? We think they do but even if...

Send us Fan Mail When a player scores 100 runs in a single season it's considered to be a significant achievement. Yet isn't scoring runs as derivative as stat as are RBI's?  Because, it depends - on the other players in the lineup.  Fantasy baseball team owners often have to try to pick the players who will score the most runs as one of the categories. Should it be a leadoff speedy...

Send us Fan Mail If it all it took to be successful only was as simple as changing a team's name that would be smart right? Well the Tampa Bay Devil Rays became the Tampa Bay Rays and they've been so much better ever since!  We talk about the franchise's history in this franchise's Silver Anniversary 25th season.  Who's the greatest Ray (or Devil Ray) of them all?  Listen...

Send us Fan Mail There were 8 new inductees into Cooperstown over the weekend.  The various committees finally enshrined Bud Fowler, Buck O'Neil, Minnie Minoso, Gil Hodges, Jim 'Kitty' Katt, Tony Oliva, David Ortiz  was voted in as a 1st ballot selection. We think that might have overdone it but agree Ortiz is a HOFer.  Please subscribe to our podcast and thanks for listening! If yo...

Send us Fan Mail Unlike many who offer predictions on who's going to be a playoff team, we divulge what we predicted BEFORE this 2022 season started.  We did pretty well by our own admission although we did have a big miss.  Listen to find out what we got right and what we got wrong in this fast moving summary of the unofficial 1st half of the season!   Please subscribe to our podcast and tha...

Send us Fan Mail We're fans of baseball and that includes all levels.  Driving past a Little League field seeing kids out there playing baseball makes us smile every time.  For nearly all major league players playing baseball starts in backyards, on streets, and wherever there's a ball, a glove, and even sometimes a bat.  Jean Fruth has been photographing baseball for many years.  As tea...

Send us Fan Mail Catching is hard and debilitating to the body.  The famed 'tools of ignorance' may be better than they were in the past but squatting for 150-200 MLB pitches a night is still incredibly difficult. There are only 19 catchers in Cooperstown.  In the past 30 years 'pitch framing' has been touted as a key skill for a receiver. With the advent of Robo-umps sometime...

Send us Fan Mail Already in this 2022 season 2 managers have been fired.   Joe Maddon and Joe Girardi.  There are no other Joe's managing in MLB so maybe everyone else's job is safe.  Why change managers in-season - early-mid-late season?   We talk about manager changes over the years - even the fairly recent one where the manager was fired with 12 games to go and his successor led the t...

Send us Fan Mail Many baseball fans still feel that Sandy Koufax is the GOAT.  At least as pitchers go. Despite his relatively short career, Sandy had a sustained period of excellence (6 years) that is unrivaled.  382K's in one season is incredible to think about.  But this in no way should sell Clayton Kershaw short.  He has done it for a long time and at times been as good if not better tha...

Send us Fan Mail Our second deep dive we turn to the Senior Circuit and one its more recent entrants the San Diego Padres.  There was a AAA team called the Padres in the 1940s.  The current Padres came as a result of the 1969 expansion and at the advent of two divisions for each league. The Padres got off to a poor start and well, it's been a rough 52 years only appearing in two WS never winn...

Send us Fan Mail All three are 'Almost' guys.  All played in different time frames - Bonds from 1968-81, Davis from 1984-2001, and Mauer played from 2004-1018.  All were All-Stars and won Gold Gloves.  We discussed their eras, how their careers look in retrospect, and if we'd push to have any or all voted into Cooperstown.   All had careers that are probably better than you might re...

Send us Fan Mail The Women's NCAA Softball World Series starts June 2.  Throwing from 43 feet, the pitchers often dominate but not always.  The spirit of the games, the camaradarie the players demonstrate all make for fast moving games that are worth watching.  Oklahoma is the favorite but there are several strong contenders.  The Men's CWS begins June 16 but the Super Regionals are also...

Send us Fan Mail Well we kind of did the Mets already but chances are at some point we will be compelled to do them again.  This is the first of 30 episodes dedicated to an individual team. It's history, great players, successes and failures. Who's the greatest Mariner of  all-time? You can probably come up with a couple of candidates but you'll have to listen to hear what we think!...

Send us Fan Mail Some teams are better at rebuilding their rosters in ways that allow them to get back to winning faster and more consistently than others.  Going all in to win a World Series is worth it and teams like the Royals and Nationals have shown that in recent years.   Wealthier ownership does help but it's far from a guarantee. Teams can and do spend unwisely.  Organizational approa...

Send us Fan Mail We're NL fans since we root for the Mets.  There used to be such a thing as 'National League' baseball. It had sacrifice bunts, pinch hitters, pitchers wearing jackets in July on the bases. All that is over now that the DH is in place for both the AL and NL.  We always favored the strategy behind working around the pitcher's turn in the batting order. But pitch...