Did you know that Hank Aaron wasn’t the fastest runner of them all? As a result, he hit only one inside-the-park home run during his career. That happened in 1967 in a game in Philadelphia, when he took on Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning. Aaron took a pitch to deep center field and “raced” around the…
Today, the baseball community mourns the passing of Hank Aaron. Besides the Dutch baseball community, not many know about the visit he once paid to the Netherlands. There is some footage (Kodak Super 8) about this visit. Back then in 1974, Hank Aaron visited the Netherlands as part of a promotion by Rob Muller, who…
Today, forty years ago, the Durham Bulls returned from a season-opening road trip to Durham Athletic Park for their home opener. But something was going on during that first home game of the 1980 season. As the team’s home uniforms were stolen two days prior to the season, Hank Aaron, the Braves’ Minor League director,…
It has been a while but in this episode of Ballparks around the World we pay attention to the home of the Québec Capitales (independent CanAm League), Stade Municipal in Québec, North America’s only walled city. In 1937, Canada suffered from the great depression, just as most other countries of the world. Prime Minister of…
Yesterday, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell were voted into the HOF. For the first time, a steroid user has been voted into the Walhalla of baseball. I had to let sink that in for a while. You can only wonder why a bunch of cheaters has been voted into the HOF. It all started…
Perhaps you have seen several HOF voting ballots on Facebook on Twitter lately. Several baseball writers and journalists, who are organized in the Baseball Writers Association of America, have put their ballot on the world wide web. For the first time, you can see a heavy shift towards voting for several PED users. Voting for PED…
Another post that merges a few short news items. The Nashville Sounds will add an exhibition about the Negro League past of Nashville. On the councourse, photos and artefacts will be displayed to show the fans what the history of Nashville baseball is about. That history covers a period of 130 years. But not only…
Remember when the Yankees robbed Alex Rodriguez away from the Red Sox back in 2003? The Red Sox were close in striking a deal with the Rangers when the Yankees made a better offer. Rodriguez was laureled as a new hero. How things can change. After serving a year of suspension after being accused of…
I love the pic shown above. It shows Hank Aaron on the left and Willie Mays on the right. This is a picture with some historic significance. It shows two players with uniforms of the towns they started their career at, but uniforms of two totally different clubs. The picture also shows something that I…
The picture shown above made me realize that many Europeans are not aware of the phenomenon barnstorming tour. The two players shown are Satchel Paige (left) and Dizzy Dean. Before Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in 1947, black and white players never could face each during regular season games. In first half of the…
