The Game Begins In The Spring...

Here are some baseball links and other assorted things for those, like me, who are eagerly anticipating the end of Spring Training and the release of Major League Baseball 2k6.

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General Interest

The Science of Baseball

Baseball Reference

Dressed To The Nines: A History of the Baseball Uniform

Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame



Games

The Bullpen Blast Game

The Home Run Derby

The Scientific Slugger




Fantasy

What If Sports

Gifts

Caricature Collection

Magnetic White Board




Books

Baseball Between The Numbers

Game of Shadows

Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball’s Lunatic Fringe

The Mind of Bill James

Casey At The Bat


Writings

The Crowd At The Ball Game

Casey At The Bat (Road Game)

Poem On Lou Gehrig’s Trophy

Rules For Staying Young

The Green Fields Of The Mind

Quotes

…it's our game; that's the chief fact in connection with it; America's game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions; fits into them as significantly as our Constitution's laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.-Walt Whitman

Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young. -Roger Angell

Baseball’s time is seamless and invisible, a bubble within which players move at exactly the same pace and rhythms as all their predecessors.-Roger Angell

Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. –Crash Davis

People will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.-Field of Dreams

Sound Clips

People Will Come…

I Believe…

Are You Crying?

Fuck You, Joboo...

Who’s On First?