Bill Gutman | Baseball History Comes Alive

New Blog Topic: YET ANOTHER CHEATING SCANDAL

Here we go again. Baseball has been hit with another scandal, undoubtedly the biggest since the so-called Steroid Era...

Posted on: June 9, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 27 Comments

New Blog Topic: BASEBALL’S INJURY EPIDEMIC

Unlike many of today's players, yesterday's sluggers, including Ted Williams, were not musclebound. But they still did pretty well...

Posted on: June 5, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 14 Comments

New Blog Topic: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO HITTING?

Editor's Note: If you're concerned about the trend today's game is on, I urge you to read Bill Gutman's blog post today. What Bill has uncovered in his research is unsettling and a cause for concern for all of us who love the game...

Posted on: May 25, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 12 Comments

New Blog Topic: CURT FLOOD AND THE HALL OF FAME

On numbers alone, former Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood does not belong in the Hall of Fame. It's true that Flood was an excellent ballplayer...

Posted on: May 18, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 20 Comments

New Blog Topic: WHO’S THE GREATEST?

As the great Willie Mays celebrated his 90th birthday last Thursday, the tributes and accolades rolled in from everywhere...

Posted on: May 11, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 19 Comments

New Blog Topic: HERE COMES THE HOME RUN DERBY

The one would almost be funny if it wasn't so frightening...

Posted on: May 4, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 5 Comments

New Blog Topic: STRIKEOUTS CONTINUE TO SKYROCKET

It's really an open secret, one that Major League Baseball seems to ignore. But for how long?...

Posted on: April 27, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 13 Comments

New Blog Topic: BRING ON A KNUCKLEBALLER

Please note: As we compose new blog entries, we will now send each one out to all our subscribers as…

Posted on: April 25, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 8 Comments

New Blog Topic: MLB EXPERIMENTING WITH MORE RULE CHANGES

Well, they're at it again. While Major League baseball continues to be fixated on speeding up the game, they're also finally taking heed about the lack of action...

Posted on: April 19, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 14 Comments

New Blog Topic: WILL WE EVER SEE THE RETURN OF THE ROUTE-GOING ACE

Just recently, I wrote about baseball's attempt to limit the length of extra-inning games by implementing the rather un-baseball-like rule of putting a runner on second base to begin the tenth inning..

Posted on: April 11, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 9 Comments

New Blog Topic: WHAT DOES MLB HAVE AGAINST EXTRA-INNING GAMES

When we were kids we always got excited when a ballgame went into extra innings. And why not?...

Posted on: April 7, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 16 Comments

New Blog Topic: THE .400 HITTER – GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

It's one of baseball's magical, yet elusive numbers. So elusive that it hasn't been achieved in 80 years, not since the great Ted Williams finished the 1941 season with a .406 batting average...

Posted on: March 30, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 20 Comments

New Blog Topic: BECOMING A BASEBALL FAN IN THE 1950s

All longtime baseball fans have vivid memories of how it all started, whether it be collecting baseball cards, watching games on television, playing ball with your friends,

Posted on: March 23, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 11 Comments

New Blog Topic: ARE THE HITTERS BEGINNING TO LOOK DIFFERENTLY AT THE SHIFT

There has been a lot of talk about the shift in baseball this spring, including here in these pages. Some feel it should be banned, others vote for modifying it,

Posted on: March 21, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 2 Comments

New Blog Topic: MLB EXPERIMENTING WITH MORE RULE CHANGES

Well, they're at it again. While Major League Baseball continues to be fixated on speeding up the game, they're also finally taking heed about the lack of action caused by fewer balls being put in play during a ballgame...

Posted on: March 16, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 24 Comments

New Blog Topic: HAPPY FELTON’S KNOTHOLE GANG

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a pre-game baseball show that actually brought young baseball players of Little League age to the ballpark...

Posted on: March 11, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 7 Comments

New Blog Topic: HIGH VELOCITY PITCHING – BLESSING OR CURSE

Just recently, a friend forwarded me a story that appeared in the Washington Post back in May of 2019...

Posted on: March 6, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 5 Comments

New Blog Topic: SOME VERY STRANGE BASEBALL RULES

For as long as most of us can remember, the basic rules of baseball haven't really changed much since we discovered the game...

Posted on: March 3, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 4 Comments

New Blog Topic: WHERE HAVE ALL THE GREAT BASEBALL NICKNAMES GONE?

Here we see "Double-X" teasing "The Splendid Splinter" about his scrawny biceps. There was a time when many baseball players had colorful nicknames that followed them their entire careers. Some of them weren't exactly flattering, but they stuck.

Posted on: February 27, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 18 Comments

New Blog Topic: WHAT GAME ARE WE WATCHING?

For longtime baseball fans like us, the game has always meant a great deal and we've been watching it for as long as we can remember...

Posted on: February 22, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 12 Comments

New Blog Topic: THE MUSIC OF BASEBALL, PART TWO

It started when I wrote a blog about baseball’s National Anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” I followed it with another blog, highlighting the Music of Baseball, four classic tunes about our great game...

Posted on: February 18, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 7 Comments

New Blog Topic: MLB CONTINUES TO POISON REAL BASEBALL

As Yogi would say, it's deja view all over again. Another season is arriving and we will be presented with a game that is called baseball, but one that is increasingly foreign to longtime fans...

Posted on: February 13, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 21 Comments

New Blog Topic: Records that Will Never Be Broken

To most longtime fans, baseball is still the greatest game every invented. Not only do we relish what happens between the lines, but we've always loved the numbers – the stats and the records...

Posted on: February 8, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 12 Comments

New Blog Topic: MLB VS. THE PLAYERS’ ASSOCIATION

I don't think any of you will dispute the fact that baseball today is just as much – or maybe more – about the money as it is about the game on the field...

Posted on: February 4, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 6 Comments

Fun With Old Baseball Ads, Part Two

As promised, here's Part Two of my feature on "Old Baseball Ads." We had a lot of fun with Part One, with some of the readers sending me ads that they found themselves....

Posted on: January 6, 2021
By: Bill Gutman
With: 3 Comments