Heroes of Baseball

Baseball’s 3,000 hit club is as sacred as its 500 home run club. Only 31 players have ever reached 3,000 hits in Major League Baseball. The most recent were Adrián Beltré and Ichiro Suzuki. Let me talk about Ichiro for a moment. What makes Ichiro’s accomplishment more impressive is that he did it all after age […]

In the baseball card business, big money often goes to unproven prospects simply because of their seemingly boundless potential.  However, collectors often overlook the players who have already proven their worth over a long career and have already entered the Hall of Fame.  These are players who will never be forgotten by baseball.  They have […]

I completed an analysis of every major league baseball player ever.  With the All-Star Game still fresh in our minds, I’ll save my methodology for a later post and give the results right now.  Here is what the All-Time Baseball All-Star team looks like: Starting Lineup *Note: I believe Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb to […]

Batting average, earned run average, on-base percentage, strikeouts per nine innings, wins above replacement, walks plus hits per innings pitched… Baseball is the sport for statisticians. Statisticians design each new measure of baseball prowess to prove that good players are actually good, and it wasn’t all just luck. The holy grail for baseball stats has […]

  One of the most often cited problems in the baseball card collecting hobby is “Junk Wax.” Back in the 1980’s, baseball cards got so popular that the card companies cranked up production to unsustainable levels. It seems like everyone who was a kid in the 1980’s has a vast collection of baseball cards sitting […]

Like in every game, there is a lot of luck involved in baseball.  Skill is not the only determinant of whether you win or lose. One thing that has always fascinated me is the relationship between Earned Run Average (ERA) and winning.  The ERA is a pitching stat calculated by dividing the number of earned […]