Baseball’s Great Expectations: Candid Stories of Ballplayers Who Didn’t Live Up to the Hype
An excerpt from Patrick Montgomery’s new book, Baseball’s Great Expectations: Candid Stories of Ballplayers Who Didn’t Live Up to the Hype
New York Yankees
Baseball Nivrana
I’ve been a collector for my entire life. You never know when you may need a 37-year-old pocket schedule and I don’t want to be unprepared. So I packed up my sons and headed to Chicago for the Fanatics Authentic Sports Spectacular. One of the big draws of shows like this is the autograph pavilion. There …
George Brett: The Pine Tar Game
Note: This is a guest post from Rocco Constantino July 24, 1983 The old baseball cliché is that you see something new at the ballpark every time you go to a game. It could be something as simple as a player recording his first major-league hit or achieving a team record; however, sometimes something so …
Reggie Jackson Cheated Death in 1980… Twice
Reggie Jackson had a pretty good year in 1980. He hit .300 for the only time in his career, led the AL in homers, including the 400th of his Hall of Fame career, finished 2nd in the MVP balloting and led his team to the playoffs. He also almost died. Twice. Nothing Good Happens After …
The 1980s were a Rough Decade for the Yankees
Note: This is a guest post from Eric Kabakoff I first started following baseball in 1985, shortly after that year’s midseason players’ strike. My father was a lifelong Yankees fan who’d grown up watching Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford and their teammates dominate baseball for years, and I settled in to watching games …
Reggie vs. Koosman
Reggie Jackson may have been the straw that stirred the drink, but it took a few years after his arrival in New York for the drink to be served. By 1980, Billy Martin was gone, as was Chris Chambliss, Mickey Rivers and, tragically, Thurman Munson. The Yankees were finally Reggie’s team and Jerry Koosman may …
