So Willie let the music play. The Astros let another one get away.

Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled by our grit, vim 'n' vigor, moxie, or

whatever you want to call it. Speed never goes into a slump (though it

often does pop a hammy — did anyone else cringe when Reyes took off

for second in 45-degree […]

Why do I love 7:10 starts? Because my team can play an 11-inning grinder and it's not the middle of the night.

Great game — I kept expecting Harvey Haddix to walk out of a

cornfield, or Bambi Castillo to emerge from the dugout and win it.

(Remember that? The 80-degree day in March?) Was that really […]

When I was a kid, I liked chocolate ice cream. Because I liked chocolate ice cream, I was, as a matter of principle, against vanilla ice cream. Oh, vanilla ice cream was good, but giving it any credit would somehow take away from chocolate's status. As time went by, I found myself increasingly preferring vanilla […]

Greg, welcome to the other side. We were beginning to wonder if we’d ever see you in these parts, but we’re glad you’re here.

The description of Shea I offer curious baseball fans who’ve never been there is that it’s like a DMV with a ballgame somewhere inside it. A couple of years ago I had my pregame […]

So I hope it was fun. It sure sounded fun.

What a difference a double shot of some payroll love makes. Thanks to Pedro and Carlos, I wasn't nervous as today's game unfolded over the radio. Not as Pettitte kept throwing zeroes. Not when we somehow turned a pickoff into a stolen base despite the presence […]

During one of the many, many godforsaken Jets seasons in which I’ve entangled myself while waiting for baseball to return, I recall they lost four of their first six games after spending prodigiously to produce a more favorable ratio. One of their Hessians insisted they were much better than their record indicated, that they were, […]

The Germans have handy words for lots of complex emotional states, most notably Schadenfreude,

defined for 40-odd years now as “the feeling of pleasure when the

Yankees don't win the World Series.” Do our crafty German friends have

a word for “the giddy high that one doesn't want to hear is in fact not

a high, but merely a […]

Ol' Case had a pitcher named Karma at Worcester, his first managerial

posting, in 1926. Karma went through the order once but never again.

Turned out what would go around didn't come around. So much for Karma,

Stengel said.

So much for this pitching staff, too. Mr. Martinez notwithstanding,

it's enough to make one long for the days of Astacio, […]