Kuzul

For many baseball fans, catching a glimpse of diamond heroes creates happy memories that are unshakable from the human psyche. Mine being the time I met Atlanta Braves hurler Steve Avery, I can only imagine what baseball fans fans are feeling after seeing recently released and rare video of pitching legend Satchel Paige on the hill in 1948.   According to NESN writer Zach Stoloff, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Film Archive discovered a 16mm video of Paige pitching in a 1948 exhibition game. This film, found on the estate of filmmaker Richard Brooks, was taken at a minor league field in Los Angeles. You can watch the video below. While footage of Paige in this film was in the twilight of his career, I wonder how great this must be for older generations (who were kids then) to see actual color footage of one of the most iconic hurlers ...

Hall of Fame season is fast descending upon us. The ballot for the 2013 was announced Wednesday, and writers are already mobilizing to build support for voting movements and ideologies. I think most people can agree that the Hall of Fame is facing several issues, both in this election and the upcoming ones, and people are always determined to come up with solutions to the problems. Ideas like letting the players and managers vote, introducing a limit on ballots a player can appear on and banning steroid users get thrown out with alarming frequency at this time of year.  So many of these fixes aren’t worth the trouble, though. The players and managers have a horrible track record in recognizing greatness in fellow players, whether it be All-Star Game backups or Gold Glove award winners. Limiting a player ignores the many deserving players who, for one reason or another, haven’t ...

They each took their turns, none lasting more than three years, sometimes less than a full season. Each had, in his own mind, a fantasy that he could be the man who would bring relevance back to baseball in Detroit. George “Sparky” Anderson left the Tigers after the 1995 season, the organization a shambles and the talent as thin as onion skin. Sparky wasn’t getting any help from the scouting guys as he steered the Tigers through the first half of the 1990s before retiring. The decision makers kept rolling the dice on draft day and those dice kept coming up snake eyes. By ’95, the Tigers’ farm system was bereft of Grade A, big league talent. So it was for the 10 years after Sparky left that the Tigers shuffled managers in and out of town. There was a revolving door at Metro Airport for the baseball skippers. Sparky ...

During the 1970s and 1980s, Bill James revolutionized baseball through his collection of Baseball Abstracts.  His unique perspective of evaluating players and discovering their true impact on their teams' chances of winning was the beginning of a movement that would shake the very foundation of the sport.       Since the last Baseball Abstract was published in 1988, baseball sabermetrics have only continued to become increasingly popular and crucial to the ways franchises construct their teams.  They even developed a presence in pop culture through the release of the Michael Lewis’ best-selling novel, and the later Hollywood film, Moneyball.        As sabermetrics have proved through the success of teams like the Oakland A’s to be effective in terms of evaluating the value of players, the precise statistics used have continued to evolve.  Over the last ten years, sabermetrics have moved from the days of Bill James’ Runs Created, Win Shares and ...

October is always unpredictable. Several events happen every fall that completely defy what the statistics predict, proving that nothing is ever guaranteed and that the baseball playoffs can provide some heart-racing entertainment.We've witnessed some great series and moments in the first round before: the Angels finally beating the Red Sox in 2009; road teams winning every game in the Texas-Tampa series in 2010; St. Louis shocking the Phillies in Philadelphia, and Nyjer Morgan's walk off in Game 5 for the Brewers in Milwaukee.This year, however, has been special.So many improbable things have happened in the past week, it is almost impossible to believe. Here's a list of these unbelievable moments which made this year's group of division series the best in history.Begin Slideshow

There are four teams that are still alive in the Major League Baseball postseason: the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals.These storied franchises combine for 93 pennants and 48 World Series titles. They have had a combined 175 Hall of Famers—over half of the players inducted into Cooperstown.Between 1922 and 2006, the four teams faced off in the World Series 15 times, with the Yankees and Giants meeting seven of those times (1922-24, 1936-37, 1951, 1962). The Yankees are 5-2 all-time against the Giants in the World Series .The Yankees and Cardinals have met five times, with St. Louis winning three of those. St. Louis has also beat the Detroit Tigers in two of the three World Series that they have faced off, the last one in 2006.The quest for the AL Pennant beings tonight at 8:30 when the New York Yankees take on the ...

With October baseball well underway and history already being, this is a good time to look at some of the greatest comebacks of all-time. A couple of this year’s comebacks even make the list. The list is not comprehensive and many didn’t make the cut. The teams that made the the list, however, strongly deserve to be there. They are teams who either little was expected of or that had to climb to improbable (nearly impossible) heights to bring a struggling team back to life. By mere coincidence, nine of the top 10 on the list involve–as either winners or losers–the four teams who remain in the Championship Series’. The New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers–four of the most storied franchises in all of baseball-have been on the giving or receiving end of many of baseball’s most monumental moments. Before we find out if ...

On October 5, the illustrious career of Larry "Chipper" Jones came to an end following the Atlanta Braves' disappointing loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2012 NL Wild Card Game.After 19 seasons, the 40-year-old Jones finished with a lifetime .303 average, 468 home runs and 1,623 RBI. He is without question going to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in a matter of years, and most likely in his first year of eligibility.Although the pitching of former teammates Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz gave the Braves of the 1990s and early 2000s their most prominent identity, Jones has been the team's offensive identity for his entire career. He spent every year he had with the Braves and was very successful, especially as a switch-hitter.With Jones' career now over, how would he compare to the greatest third basemen of all time? Here are the ...

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past, when a no-hitter in MLB was so infrequent that you could remember the names of the pitchers who tossed such gems over the past several years. The moments were recalled on the yellowed newspaper clippings of your memory. The no-hitters dotted recent history, delicious in their stubborn and insistent rarity of occurrence. You were sometimes lucky to see one a year. The no-hitter was Armageddon-type headline stuff for the newspapers. Part of the beauty, too, was how the no-hitter often plucked mediocre pitchers from virtual anonymity and shoved them under baseball’s spotlight, all because for one game, that guy with the losing record and the ERA of 4.86 put it all together. It’s part of my fascination with baseball—how the game has a wonderful way of occasionally making heroes out of the Walter Mittys who play it. The list of men who ...

MLB personnel moves are frequently prefaced by fan speculation, media probing or an executive announcement. Somebody usually spoils the surprise.This article celebrates 10 exceptions to that norm that were completed in 2012.The players involved ranged from future first-ballot Hall of Famers to lifetime reserves. The reasons for relocation varied, too.However, they all understand what it's like to be moved in a shocking trade.Let's review their experiences from the past year.Begin Slideshow