And it just ended. Already I’m feeling it. Even with four rounds of playoffs going on. I like baseball’s long season. As a fan. Not as a reporter or sports editor. Several upsides to it.

[Read more →]

The Associated Press has found a school in Maine that offers three units for a history class about baseball. About Boston Red Sox baseball, in particular, but I could stand that. Name of the Bates College class: Red Sox Nation: Baseball and American Culture.” Where was this class when I was going to school?

[Read more →]

We know what we would like, here in Southern California. A Freeway Series. Finally. We won’t get it. But it could be fun, anyway. Here’s how I see things unfolding, the next four weeks: (And this is the updated/corrected version; you’d think I was hurrying to get to an airport, or something.)

[Read more →]

This would seem to qualify as a “Well, duh,” moment. The Associated Press did its annual “roundup for league leaders story,” with the baseball regular-season ending … and Torii Hunter of the Angels was frank enough to suggest that the lowest homer pace since 1993 was about steroids being (mostly, it would seem) driven out […]

[Read more →]

This is sort of the Holy Grail of Southland big-league baseball. The Dodgers vs. the Angels in the World Series. SoCal print journalists have been writing about this concept almost from the minute the Angels were created, in 1961. And it’s never come close to happening. I can remember a dozen times when we did […]

[Read more →]

While sitting in press row at Dodger Stadium … –Who pays for the cleanup of a clubhouse when a team clinches on the road? If they don’t collapse here, the Dodgers likely will clinch the National League West this weekend in San Francisco. Where Giants officials have to be less-than-enthused about the champagne/beer dousing their […]

[Read more →]

I haven’t done one of these already, have I? An Angels top 10? I’m confident I have not. To the point that I’m not going to search my own blog. The Angels. Hmmm. The deal with them? I saw them play, a lot, when I was a teen. Once I got a driver’s license, and […]

[Read more →]

I was about to suggest that it’s interesting, what moments you remember in a three-decade career. Then I considered that we’re talking about a middle-of-the-lineup Angels hitter being shot dead on the streets of Gary, Indiana, and, yes, that probably ought to make for a memorable moment. Doesn’t happen every day. Anyway, that quote came […]

[Read more →]

The Angels don’t have to play all the regulars every day, these final 11 days of the season. But they should play enough of them, often enough, that they have a real shot at winning 100 games. A couple of good reasons to aim high:

[Read more →]

The Angels middle infield situation is a train wreck. Maicer Izturis, out for the season with a torn tendon. Erick Aybar and Howie Kendrick, out of Wednesday’s game early with left-hamstring issues. Potential middle-infield backup Chone Figgins held out of Wednesday’s game with a sore toe. The Angels ended their 6-5 loss Wednesday with Sean […]

[Read more →]