I have been thinking about the Dodgers this week signing left-hander Rich Hill, who will be 37 ahead of the 2017 season, to a three-year, $48 million contract. I endorsed the decision. The Dodgers need a strong No. 2 and the Rich Hill baseball saw the past year-and-change looks like he can handle the job. […]

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Can’t say the Dodgers didn’t learn a thing or three during the 2016 season. No, Clayton Kershaw cannot pitch every every fourth day, let alone every third, despite how the Dodgers used him in the playoffs this fall. He’s the planet’s best, but he’s not quite a machine. Meanwhile, Scott Kazmir is not a No. […]

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I always have had a fondness for professional athletes who were good at what they did despite having something less than the ideal physique. Terry Forster, a Los Angeles Dodgers reliever circa 1980, was one of them. He knew he was on the “stout” end of the size spectrum and famously said of his weight […]

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I was never in the same room as Fidel Castro, but I was in the same stadium. It was the opening ceremonies for the 1991 Pan American Games and Castro’s Cuba was the host nation. A team of reporters had been assembled by Gannett News Service and USA Today and sent down to Havana on […]

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Mike Trout was voted Most Valuable Player of the American League, it was announced today, and how about an “it’s about time!” for the Angels center fielder. This was his second MVP award, but it could have been his fifth, given that he has led the league in one of the most important metrics, Wins […]

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For nearly a month, I burned the midnight oil. Or, actually, more like the 3-5 a.m. oil. That is what comes from watching (live), from the other side of the Atlantic, the latter stages of the 2016 baseball playoffs and World Series. All but a handful of games I watched had 8:08 p.m (EDT) starts. […]

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It wasn’t enough for the Chicago Cubs to win a World Series for the first time in 108 years. At least one prominent but overexcited journalist decided their 8-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians in 10 innings tonight also constituted the greatest World Series Game 7 ever played. It was an interesting game, no question. […]

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The Chicago Cubs, World Series champions. Alas, this seems all but inevitable. Or, as Cubs fans have liked to say, via posters: “It’s happening.” I have done all I can, from the other side of the Atlantic, to stop this development. First, outlining why we ought to contribute our mental energy to stopping the Cubs […]

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Cleveland Indians. No championships since 1948. Chicago Cubs. No championships since 1908. That makes for a long (and very, very long) history of failure for these ballclubs. But they are playing each other in the current World Series, and somebody has to win. Even if the DNA of both clubs suggests ways to lose it […]

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I like statistics as much as the next baseball fan. They were an important part of the stories I wrote whenever I covered the sport as a journalist. Once upon a time, it was up to individual reporters to come up with special statistics. Then teams got involved … then stat services got involved. And […]

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