The Night Belongs to the “Sandman”

Everyone hates the Yankees. That’s not a secret. What’s not a secret is that, even for Yankees haters, Mariano Rivera is the best closer in baseball, in my generation, and is universally respected. He carries himself without bombastic flair. Simply grace and class. He comes out of the bullpen, takes the mound, unleashes that feared…

Opening Day

There is nothing like Opening Day in Major League Baseball.  This annual gathering of a community, bonded by a game that signals a start of a new year, the blooming of spring, and hopes of someone’s favorite team winning the World Series in the fall.  Paul Yeager, Becky Mollenkamp, Nick Renkoski, Liz Lidgett, Jason Gavin,…

News and Sports Links – June 2, 2011

It’s a short work week, but the summer swings into full gear with vacations, dips in the pool, and finally getting around to those books you have put off reading. I know you won’t put off reading some links that flew under the radar over the past few days.  Let’s get to the business at…

Opening Day

  It doesn’t feel right at all this morning to be thinking of Opening Day. It’s Thursday for crying out loud! Baseball’s Opening Day was reserved for the first Monday in April.  The traditional first game in Cincinnati, the ceremonial first pitch by the President in Washington, and the Cubs and the Mets being “mathematically…

Rites of Spring

The four most famous words in baseball is “pitchers and catchers report.”  How fitting that the temperatures here in Iowa will reach the 50’s for most of the week as spring training 2011 begin in earnest today.  I could go on by waxing poetically about the grand old game that we call baseball.  But why…