Baseball
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1987 Baseball Replay: Mea Culpa (April 13)
On this, our first Monday of the season, Onix Concepcion, backup shortstop of Pittsburgh, goes to the injured list, and the Pirates promote Denny Gonzalez to take his spot on the roster. I’m actually a few days late on this – I didn’t get my Baseball Register till just last week – but, since Onix… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: Off the Schneid (April 12)
Your Gracie’s beloved Tigers are 2-3 after five games despite leading the American League in pitching, so perhaps you can discern where the trouble lies. That having been said, it’s extremely annoying to have to report that Alan Trammell, their most productive offensive player (though he hasn’t been too productive thus far in our replay),… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: Defending Chumps (April 11)
Blue Jays fans still lament the fact that they lost two of their best players – catcher Ernie Whitt and shortstop Tony Fernandez – to injury in the catastrophic (for them) final week of the 1987 season. And they have some grounds for doing so – particularly in the case of Fernandez, who was injured… Continue reading
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Monday Grab Bag: April 22, 2024
Ladies and gentlemen…boys and girls…cowpunchers, three-martini lunchers, and fellow CARPET mun…. well, never mind, but still. Yesterday Joe Spivey posted a fascinating video to his YouTube channel (“WHERE we discuss books and little else“), taking us through his process of penning a book review. The book in question was the new memoir by Liz Truss,… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: Cruzin’ (April 10)
We have our first waiver placement to evaluate today, and I’m going to let it go through. Jerry Reuss, the veteran lefthander, was released on this date by the Dodgers, the team for which, as recently as 1985, he’d been a mainstay, with fourteen wins and a 2.92 earned-run average. But he fell apart in… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: The Crew Waits for No Man (April 9)
The injury bug continues to bite your Gracie’s poor Tigers quite mercilessly. Kirk Gibson is already missing the first month or so of the season, and now the Detroiters will be without Willie Hernandez, their ace reliever, for most of the next two. In our replay, he had pitched one scoreless inning over the first… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: Into the Groove? (April 8)
Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd of Boston, Joaquin Andujar and Moose Haas of Oakland, Cecil Cooper of Milwaukee, Jorge Orta of Kansas City, Denny Walling of Houston, Mario Soto and Nick Esasky of Cincinnati, and (most devastatingly for your Gracie) Kirk Gibson of Detroit have all begun the season on the injured list, their services unavailable… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: Son of Opening Day (April 7)
We begin with a pair of transactions. The San Francisco Giants, who had released pitcher Jim Gott back in December of 1986, decided that they had rather liked having him around after all and re-signed him. Meanwhile, the Mets signed Bob Gibson. Unfortunately for the Mets, it wasn’t that Bob Gibson. And for those of… Continue reading
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1987 Baseball Replay: Opening Day (April 6)
NOTE: The “game engine” involved in this 1987 replay is Strat-O-Matic, the computer version, using super-advanced features (with the notable exception of the closer rule, which I have never used and never plan to). We begin with the actual Opening Day rosters, lineups, and starting rotations “as played.” Certain changes to lineups and pitching rotations… Continue reading
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Notes from a Down Cycle
As you perhaps will not need to be told, your Gracie is manic-depressive, and this past week has found her in an awful trough. When this happens, it doesn’t matter whether it’s tournament time in basketball or the beginning of league play in softball or that there might be several exciting new records and books… Continue reading
About Me
I write about what I find beautiful, interesting, or noble, particularly with respect to literature, music, and sport. I tend to fall in love a lot, not just with people, but with books, records, athletic achievements, etc., and if I’m in love I tend to want to tell the world about it. Hence this site. I’m not much into new analytics, conventional wisdom, or thralldom to presumptive expertise. Love is my motive force.