Agent Palmer

There are two reasons I picked up Confessions of a Baseball Purist by Jon Miller with Mark Hyman. One, Jon Miller was the voice of the Baltimore Orioles during my formative years listening to games on the radio and two, he really knows his stuff.

The book originally released in 1998 and the updated edition from 2000 may appear dated, but it is not antiquated at all. In fact, more of his observations are proven out than those that aren’t in the 18 years since this text has last been touched.

I was there, in the beginning.

I watched Chase Utley’s uniquely unorthodox, seemingly three-quarters swing blast extra-base hits in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s cavernous copy of Veterans Stadium, the former Lackawanna County Stadium, for the Red Barons.

I wondered why he was still in Triple-A.

Bull Durham is one of my favorite sports movies. The dialog is almost as punchy as some of the characters, and it really does grasp the spirit of minor league baseball. There exist three types of players in the minors: talent working towards the majors, veterans just hanging on, and solid baseball guys that just enjoy playing the game but don’t have much hope of getting called up any higher. This game, though it focuses on the first two, really…

It’s almost time to “Play Ball!” And as a fan of not just the Baltimore Orioles but the game itself, I feel it’s time to address a few items before the first pitch is thrown, the first strike is called, and the first batter rounds first base.

It all stems from the changing, or more accurately, tweaking of the game because of rule changes, but I’m going to start by addressing some of the points from Rob Manfred’s letter to the fans, as the new Commissioner of Baseball, before I get into the changes themselves.

For some reason, February has been widely considered a wasteland in the American sports landscape. This is because most American sports fans look at February as a pause between the National Football League’s Super Bowl and Major League Baseball with a stopover in College Basketball for March Madness. But that is not the case, far from it. There is plenty of sport to go around in February for the American sports fan, even more for the worldly sports fan.

Below are 10 reasons February isn’t the sports wasteland that most seem to think it is. Because there are plenty of things for sports fans to get excited about.