Blog Topics | Baseball History Comes Alive

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: Some Thoughts About Infield Shifts

My friend Bill Gutman and I are both old-school baseball purists, so you can imagine how we feel about some of the new analytics such as “launch angle,” WAR, Win Shares, and others we can’t even pronounce...

Posted on: March 18, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 18 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: Time for Another Quiz!

My quiz from last week about the "Mystery Person" in the Polo rounds Clubhouse while Willie Mays made his famous catch (it was Jeo Garagiola), that I'm back for more this week!

Posted on: March 9, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 0 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: The Best Catchers Of All Time – In Terms of Throwing Out Base Stealers

While doing the research about great catchers, one of the interesting stats I uncovered was that Roy Campanella has the highest “caught stealing” percentage in major league history...

Posted on: March 1, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 6 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: “Who is the Mystery Person”?

Check out this neat color photo of Willie Mays’ great catch in the 1954 World Series off the bat of Vic Wertz. It's from Game One, played at the Polo Grounds on September 28, 1954...

Posted on: February 24, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 14 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: Let’s Have Some Fun on President’s Day, 2021

Since I’m always looking for ways to connect baseball history with national holidays, the thought occurred to me that maybe we could have some fun even with Presidents’ day...

Posted on: February 15, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 11 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: Thoughts About Leo, Jackie, and Willie

It’s really a shame Leo Durocher wasn’t around to run interference for Jackie Robinson in 1947...

Posted on: February 11, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 7 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

New Blog Topic: THE SHORT CAREER HALL CALL

Just recently, a colleague of mine wrote an excellent essay on former Yankee first baseman and current Miami Marlins manager, Don Mattingly...

Posted on: February 2, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 26 Comments

New Blog Topic: THE MUSIC OF BASEBALL

Just recently I [Bill Gutman] wrote a blog about Take Me Out to the Ballgame, calling it the National Anthem of baseball. It still is...

Posted on: January 29, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 6 Comments

New Blog Topic: A YOUNG KID MEETS ROGERS HORNSBY!

The story dates back to July, 1960. That’s the month my widowed grandfather, Lou Livacari, moved in to my family’s home in Lincolnwood, Illinois...

Posted on: January 27, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 5 Comments

New Blog Topic: SAYING GOODBYE TO OUR HEROES

The death of Hank Aaron caused a ripple effect throughout not only the baseball world, but in many other quarters as well...

Posted on: January 26, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 11 Comments

New Blog Topic: BASEBALL’S HOT STOVE LEAGUE

All baseball fans know just what the Hot Stove League is. Theoretically, it can be applied to any baseball talk or discussion during the offseason...

Posted on: January 23, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 3 Comments

New Blog Topic: “Baseball’s Eccentrics and Zany Characters”

“The trouble with Bordagaray is that he thinks he’s a Babe Ruth and wants to be paid accordingly…trouble is, he’s not Babe Ruth, not by a mile”...

Posted on: January 21, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 5 Comments

NEW BLOG TOPIC: THE LOUISVILLE SLUGGER

Please note: As we compose new blog entries, we will now send each one out to all our subscribers as we post them. -GL

Posted on: January 19, 2021
By: Gary Livacari
With: 12 Comments

BASEBALL HISTORY COMES ALIVE BLOG ARCHIVE PAGE

As I mentioned to you the other day, we're starting a new blog page feature on our Baseball History Comes Alive website.

Posted on: December 23, 2020
By: Gary Livacari
With: 15 Comments

Latest Blog Topic: Random Musings of A Life-Long Baseball Fan, and Check out those linen ties!

We all know baseball has seen numerous changes to its basic structure and rules over the years. But here’s something I thought you might get a kick out of. It happened a long time ago...

Posted on: January 3, 2017
By: Gary Livacari
With: 0 Comments