Category Archives: Baseball the Teacher

The Noble Hearts Ache

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Eric

Today is the first day since the World Series ended that I have felt a compulsion to write about baseball. It’s a good feeling, this impulse, and I was beginning to worry it would never return. But really I should … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Who’s Our Daddy? A Roger Angell Appreciation

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Eric

Roger Angell is 89 years old. He was born in 1920. To put that in perspective, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were born in 1931. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were born in 1924. What I’m saying is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

When Life Throws You Curveballs, You Take Them The Other Way

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Eric

In a literary sense, I sort of like clichés. Before they become hackneyed and mundane, they are tight exceptional metaphors and similes. The first time somebody compared his lover’s eyes to a glowing moon, or her beauty to a red … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Conventional Wisdom, Meta, Thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Nate McLouth And The Modern Indentured Servitude

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Eric

When I was young and green and full of vigor, I read the sports page every day before school. And by read I mean read through; I looked at the standings, the box scores, a few columns or articles, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Conventional Wisdom, Thinking | 2 Comments

The Mulder Collective

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Eric

Something really weird happened to me this afternoon. I got all nostalgic about Mark Mulder. I was thinking about pitching, preparing to write a post about the rise of a new wave of aces, when all of a sudden there … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Features | 4 Comments

Fandom & Identity: Reflections In A Cloudy Stadium Bathroom Mirror

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Eric

There is a video making its way around the internet of some American Jewish kids on vacation in Jerusalem spewing a bunch of racist garbage, mostly about Barack Obama. . The kids are drunk, probably from some wealthy yeshiva in … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Politics, Thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Keith Hernandez Meets A Tenor

Posted on April 13, 2009 by Eric

(yet another thing to love about KH) Keith Hernandez espouses on his arrival in New York (in New York Mag) and on meeting Placido Domingo: And you’d be a fool to live here and not take advantage of the cultural … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Spring Training | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Alex Rodriguez: Tragic Hero? (Part II)

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Eric

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” – The Witches of Macbeth This started as an essay called Alex Rodriguez: Tragic Hero. I had noble intensions for it; I was going to compare A-Rod to Macbeth. I would have matched … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Books, Features, Thinking | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Alex Rodriguez: Tragic Hero? (Part I)

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Eric

When I was younger I wanted to be a baseball player. But I can’t remember whether I loved baseball, or whether I just wanted everyone to love me. A confession, then: I still want everyone to love me—blindly, entirely, without … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball the Teacher, Memoir, Thinking | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Barry Bonds: Guilty Or Guilty?

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Eric

Dayn Perry had an excellent post this morning, “The Case Against the Case Against Barry Bonds.” In terms easy for a legal novice like me to understand, he explains the main elements of the federal case and simultaneously cuts it … Continue reading →

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