"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." — Tommy Edison
Author: fartheroffthewall
Tom Hoffarth is a sports journalist in Los Angeles, born and raised (reared is the correct phrase, but it just sounds wrong) and specializing in the sports media business. A USC graduate from the School of Journalism (it still exists, somewhat) in 1984, he is also available for service at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhoffarth/
Technically, it was an illogical technological clustermess that nearly short-circuited the ebbs and flow and safety of all concerned in a Dodgers-Mets contest this week:
Fourth inning: Mets reliever Craig Kimbrel does his crab-like glare into catcher Francisco Alvarez for a sign — even though we assume he’s hearing it through a small speaker in his cap with the new-fangled PitchCom device. That was put into the game to speed it up and prevent sign stealing. Now we see some unintended consequences.
As Alvarez realizes the pitch clock is winding down to the final two seconds, has a panic attack. Rather than allow Kimbrel to be flagged as a violator, and the count to the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani to go to 3-2, the catcher leaps out from behind the plate, sidesteps Ohtani (just as he’s coiling to what he anticipates is a ball coming at him), seems to ask for a timeout amidst his arm flailing, lurches toward the mound and plants himself in front of the plate on the grass like a school crossing guard trying to stop an oncoming e-bike.
Kimbrel, head down, doesn’t notice all this happening. So when he leaps into his jerky windup, he suddenly realizes Alvarez is an object in his peripheral vision closer than he actually appears.
And Ohtani freaks out.
Already been hit by a pitch in his first at-bat and still feeling its affect, and already startled by Alvarez moments earlier when the catcher tried to make a back-pick of Dodgers runner Miguel Rojas at first base, Ohtani spins away to his right in some kind of self preservation mode.
Homeplate umpire Nic Lentz does his own ballet leap to his left. Did he agree to Alvarez’s time-out call? We’re not all that sure as Lentz is still trying to keep some integrity of the game.
Kimbrel almost falls down.
The Dodgers’ broadcasters gasp as well. What just happened?
Unbelievable.
Now we’re being technologically challenged in the ninth inning with the Dodgers putting the final touches on a 4-0 victory. Gotta use those unused Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System head-taps, because they don’t carry over.
Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott pitches to Mets’ No 9 hitter Tyrone Taylor with a 1-1 count. It it called a ball by Lentz. Dodgers catcher Will Smith wants a review. The ABS graphic shows that a sliver of the ball hit the side of the gray screen box graphic. The call is overturned. It’s a 1-2 count now instead of 2-1.
“That’s ridiculous,” says Dodgers TV analyst Eric Karros. “You gotta give me more than a seam on that part of the plate (to change it from a ball to a strike). I mean … you gotta give me half a ball or something.”
Undeniable.
And all there for the fans left in the expensive seats to capture on their iPhones to share later.
For all of today’s umpires — including C.B. Bucknor — are already flinching on calling runners safe or out on the basepaths, since instant replay continues to add more nuanced layers of challenge-able calls but also refuses others like a foul tip that make it seem rather arbitrary — this technology seems to add to this pursuit of perfection that will never be attained.
“MLB doesn’t really know in what direction they want the game to go,” Joe Posnanski has written about this on an almost daily basis since the 2026 season started, and before. “They know — they HAVE to know — that the Day of the Umpire has passed, and that the game will be officiated very differently in the years ahead. And I have been saying for a while now that ABS for every pitch is coming.”
Unacceptable.
Just went on CNN to talk about my book Unhittable—how technology is making pitchers nastier than ever… and also what robo umps could mean for both pitchers & hitters.
Amidst CNN’s March 25 broadcasting day, there was Phil Mattingly, the network’s chief domestic correspondent filling in for Jake Tapper on “The Lead” (and apparently no relation to Don Mattingly), trying to navigate that hour’s worth of more bizzaro news coverage. He found a way to segue from the Strait of Hormuz straight to Friedman toward the end of the show so Friedman’s new book could be discussed completely out of context before “Erin Burnett Outfront” comes on.
Mattingly: I do want to start with ABS. What do you think of this? What does this change? Friedman: So, it changes a lot. It’s going to change things like framing. It’s going to change what you’re seeing on the on the screen because some pitches, you know, you see those curve balls that barely clip the zone that umpires give up on, hitters give up on, and now they can be challenged and be a strike. There’s a whole level of strategy that comes to be now with robo umps. Mattingly: Does this benefit pitchers? Friedman: That’s a great question. I think that’s heavily debated. … There are hitters that say it favors them because the strike zone will be smaller and they can’t expand the zone. But there are pitchers that say they’re just going to clip the zone with breaking stuff, east to west, north to south. And hitters are going to be helpless against it. So, I’m curious to see what happens. Mattingly: Yeah, it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.
How unseemly. Unsuitable. Unbefitting for all.
And wait’ll next year when the automated check-swing review process is introduced.
We’re trying to get a grip on some of this, so we’re asked to turn to a guy who calls himself the Pitching Ninja — aka, Friedman — with a new explanation of how he, and many others, have entangled technology with the national pastime that allows those who throw a baseball from 60-feet, 6-inches away into an electrified strike zone box have become more and more efficient at their craft.
And all of this getting ahead of the curve for game-strategy freaks, geeks and technique-tweekers excite them to no end. Just look at how amped MLB Network host Brian Kenny is during his conversation with frequent network contributor Friedman:
As Friedman demonstrated as well back in his CNN plug, getting caught up in this so-called pitching renaissance of nastiness is tough to tamp down for the common consumer.
Mattingly: The dominance of pitchers right now, it’s a fascinating story. Short- handed for normal people. Friedman: So, what — what — what’s happened is pitchers have been engineered to throw harder. It used to be you were taught that either throw harder. You don’t, you throw strikes. You don’t. You can spin it or you can’t. And now, we’ve taught been able to teach pitchers through a bunch of different things. Biomechanics, weight training things like Rapsodo, things that slowed down pitchers as they leave your hands so you can see exactly how it’s leaving your hand and you can design different pitches, you know how it’s going to move, and you can now attack hitters whole different ways.
From Driveline using particle image velocimetry to Seam-Shifted Wake to the Magus Effect to AI-powered analytics, we’ve been misdirected into a CalTech advanced physics class when we were hoping for a 101-intro-level “For Dummys” sherpa-led excursion.
Friedman does use the first five chapters to soft-toss how the art of pitching know-how has ebbed and flowed through gurus like Tom House. But then it becomes a rather untenable ask for the casual reader to keep things straight.
Chapter 6 lures you in by explaining how the Dodgers benefited from using biomechanics to protect their investments — resulting in World Series titles in 2020 and 2024 (the book’s deadline must have missed 2025).
“Their ability to stay ahead of the competition stems from a forward-thinking approach that leverages biomechanics, advanced analytics and cutting-edge technology to optimize player development,” Friedman writes on page 45.
Now, be careful what more you want to know behind the curtain. It may take the fun out of knowing how the illusion is created. Its far more technical and less enjoyable than Tyler Kempner’s 2019 gem: “K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches.” This is more textbook than travelogue.
If this begat that, and spin seams is a result of velo, and Trevor Bauer is somehow mixed into this scholastic advancement, we’re hoping to be automatically told to go to first base on an intentional walk rather than fast four wide ones — again, to speed things up.
How about slowing things down at some point?
To the end, Friedman’s premise is that, considering the game’s history, technology will allow hitters to catch up. It doesn’t seem plausible. They’re not in control of the pitch. They can only try to see it first, then react, then realize it has spin far past their piece of wood. Unless more rules are changed — whether it’s to influence the time-of-game experience or not — there’ll be the inclination to use up to six throwers a game, generating spin and speed at the peak of their abilities, giving hitters fewer and fewer chances to succeed.
They can’t lower the mound any more, can they? Or elevate the batter’s box?
How it goes in the scorebook: WP.
Not to indicate there’s a winning pitcher after all this whiteboard hijinx, but the wild pitch will be marked to reflect the nature of this beast.
Bordering on unbearable. Unlikable. Maybe, in some ways, a bit unnecessary.
How he became linked to FanDuel in the action of betting on pitching props is a problematic crossover promotion. Unbearable.
So this book is definitely best for the brand, the next step past the podcast. A nice sign-able item/business card for his Ninja clients already merched up with T-shirts and other gear on his website. Understandable.
Until we’re all caught with our underwear down.
More to followup:
== Joe Eisenmann writes on his Ironman Performance substack why he plans to plow through this book quicker than usual. Hint: He’s energized.
“Royal Treatment: Jackie Robinson, Montreal, and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Barrier”
The author: Sean J. McLaughlin The details: University of Nebraska Press, 296 pages, $36.95, released April 1, ’26 The links:Publishers website, Bookshop.org
A Jack Robinson Day preamble
Only a year ago, as we rounded up the book reviews for Jack Robinson MLB Appreciation Day — or however they’re selling it — the disgust over crude governmental redaction of all things DEI was front and center. It may seem like such a long time has passed. But it’s still lingering.
What would Jack Robinson had done if he was invited with the Dodgers’ championship team to be vetted in the Trump White House? What would his reaction be if he saw that a bio on his World War II military requirement that’s heralding him on the U.S. Department of Defense’s website had been taken down “by mistake” during a Trump-mandated cleansing history.
What could the Dodgers players do, as they were being “honored” for their 2024 World Series triumph, in protest to mark the occasion — all wear No. 42 jerseys? Give Trump a 42 jersey?
It was all the wishy-washy white washing that was abhorrent, and called out.
The irony of this public service announcement is positioning Jackie Robinson next to Bob Feller. In 1947, Feller, an established star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, publicly expressed skepticism about Robinson’s ability to succeed in the major leagues, predicting he would not be able to hit elite pitching. Feller later observed Robinson with admiration for his courage and composure under extreme pressure, acknowledging his tremendous impact on the game. They were inducted together in the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 1962.
When the Dodgers were recently in DC-adjacent territory over the Easter weekend to face the Washington Nationals, they said “a scheduling conflict” precluded them from making a Trump/Easter Egg roll re-visit to mark their 2025 title. Maybe they’ll reconnect sometime later in the season when some of the push back dies down. Hopefully not.
A Jackie Robinson shirt is among the collection offered by Pasadena CLSC. a company co-founded in 2019 by Dennis Robinson, the the grandson of Mack Robinson and great-nephew of Jackie Robinson.
Don’t let those triggering memories of ’25 dissipate now that ’26 has splashed down on us.
Don’t forget how writer Craig Calcaterra pointed out that the MLB continues to scrub the word “diversity” from what was once its “Diversity and Inclusion” web link, and that “the Trump regime remains a shitty, segregationist enterprise that is unworthy of anyone’s respect or obeisance and Major League Baseball utterly lacks a spine.”
That is, in a very interesting way, directly conflicting with how Robinson is adored in the new film, “Baseball: Beyond Belief.”
The Paulist Productions film, after a short theatrical run, and with some irony, was embraced by Fox to put it onto its Easter Day programming slate. It is an extension of the book by John Sexton, “Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game,” who teaches a class by that same name at New York University. Sexton, a Catholic, puts into words all the connections he makes between baseball and faith-based entities, and many have noticed.
Joe Price could be identified these days as is the Executive Director of the Baseball Reliquary, the non-profit focused on the cultural history of baseball, which has an annual Shrine of the Eternals election. He is also co-director for the Institute for Baseball Studies at Whittier College, which houses the Reliquary’s research archives. For the film’s purposes, his status as a professor emeritus of religious studies at Whittier College, holding a doctorate in theology and culture, lends him the gravitas to say things in the film such as: “Dodger Stadium might be a sacred place depending on how much you have to pay for parking.”
Robinson and sainthood are discussed by Price because “saints are doing the work of God in ordinary ways.”
Sexton is shown in his classroom explaining to students how the April 15 Jackie Robinson Day is “set apart the same way Easter is set apart, the same way Passover is set apart” by religious followers. Willie Alfonso, one of the New York Yankees chaplains, says “God was using (Robinson) as the catalyst to break down this barrier” of MLB discrimination. A rabbi in the film explains how Jews “took on Jackie Robinson as their hero — to them, if Jackie Robinson could be a Brooklyn Dodger, maybe Jews could be acceptable (in America) too.” Baseball broadcaster Chip Caray says the grace by which Robinson made it through his career “was somewhat Christ-like. Think about the abuse that he took. Could you imagine someone of this generation going through that today? People today cry when they get a bad tweet. … Definitely a saint, maybe numero uno.”
David Robinson, Jackie and Rachel’s youngest son, explains how his father lived a life “that could be seen as a model and as an obligation to follow … he showed examples of leading with action.” But as for sainthood? Jackie Robinson, a lifelong Methodist, as was Branch Rickey, and grew up attending Scott Methodist Church in Pasadena and later in life belonged to a Congregational/United Church of Christ church in Connecticut, “would absolutely refuse the term,” said David. “But he was striving to lead a good life.”
The Dodgers are giving away a new version of a Robinson 42 jersey to honor the day. ESPN has national coverage, bringing out Joe Buck back to the baseball booth with Doug Glanville as his analyst. MLB has a new “We Are Jackie” campaign for social media, tying it somehow to the country’s 250th birthday.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will take his players, as well as members of the visiting New York Mets, out to the center field plaza where the Robinson statue is displayed for another teachable moment/video capture for social media content. This time with Robinson’s grandchildren Sonya Pankey Robinson and Ayo Robinson, plus and Negro League Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick.
"His legacy 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 today."
Jackie Robinson’s granddaughter, Sonya Pankey Robinson, stepped into unveil UCLA’s new Jackie Robinson‑inspired uniforms.#GoBruinspic.twitter.com/2QYWgRahko
UCLA’s No. 1-ranked baseball team also broke out new retro jerseys this week to honor Robinson. The first night the Bruins wore them, the were shutout for the first time this season, by UC Santa Barbara on Tuesday night, 4-0, ending a 27-game win streak, falling to 33-3. On Jackie Robinson Field in Westwood.
So we wonder again: How does this all uniformly resonate in a 2026 setting?
Jackie Robinson, center, shows his son Jack Jr. and the son of Roy Campanella the statue of Abraham Lincoln that stands outside the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey in February 1951. (SABR-Rucker Archive, via the essay “The Black Knight: A Political Portrait of Jackie Robinson“)
A review in 90 feet or less
The newest machinations that connect and correlate well with the current interpretation of all matters Jack Robinson:
== In Bryant’s “Kings and Pawns,” the author has explained on social media about how the title reflects not just his love of chess but a realization that “each Black entity in the story was accused — often by each other — of being manipulated either by a foreign government, or their own” as they tries to traverse the politics of the day aside from their main jobs as athlete and actor.
Jackie Robinson testifies at the House Un- American Activities Committee on July 18, 1949 (Getty Images, via JackieRobinsonMuseum.org)
The two events Bryant focuses on:
= A July 1949 House Un-American Activities Committee meeting convened to smear and derail the career of Paul Robeson, a great All-American football player at Rutgers in 1917 and ’18 who played pro ball and then made a career in the theater as an actor and singer, but was also true to his ideological compass and social justice activism in the 1930s and ’40s. It was easy to label him as dangerous and subversive by the FBI. Robinson had been recruited to testify against him.
= A June 1956 Robeson battle with the HUAC over it prohibiting him from leaving the United States, with Robinson again being called to testify at the hearings.
Bryant writes: The Cold War resembled a chess match, and everchanging cast of kings and pawns. The United States and Soviet Union fought for control of the chessboard, which was to say, the world. Robinson, Robeson and (NAACP founder and author W.E.B.) Du Bois had been kings, crowned by the Black community who idolized them, but who were the pawns? Robeson supporters believed it was Robinson, allowing himself to be used by HUAC that July day in 1949, a champion to the segregationists who would not shake his hand. The NAACP, and much of the country, believed it was Robeson, the former for setting back Black progress by conflating civil rights with communism, the mortal enemy of his country — American were were currently fighting communists in the unforgiving mountains of Korea. Robeson and Du Bois suspected it was the entire Black leadership itself, the Walter Whites and Roy Wilkinses, who appeased the very government agencies — Hoover’s FBI and the State Department among others — that were also surveilling them, did not trust them and would, in the very near future, accuse them of the same subversiveness that was destroying Robeson’s livelihood. The furious Malcolm X saw Black America as the pawn, constantly willing to be used by their country in exchange for an acceptance from whites as equals that would never come.
Heavy stuff, and heavy content, asking the readers to do a lot of heavy lifting. What are we often missing here?
Paul Robeson listens to a speech during the Peace Partisans World Congress in Moscow on April 20, 1949 (Getty Images via JackieRobinsonMuseum.org)
“The narrative that increasingly takes shape, in our minds, as we read ‘Kings and Pawns’ is that of a fratricide — one that is particularly captivating, because the ‘brothers’ in question did not meet at any point during the overlapping course of their two extraordinary lives. But it’s us, the appalled readers, who are doing most of that projecting, and imposing on this story the logic of a modern-day pop-culture feud. … The fastidiousness of (Bryant’s) elastic text does little to allay those who are likely to become inflamed. (Bryant) is a serious and engaging sportswriter who has published eleven books, many of them fuelled by his ambition to disturb the stubborn and déclassé jingoism that still sustains the subject he loves — baseball, the American game.
“He leans on a labored metaphor here: ‘Through countless published biographies over several decades, Robinson’s 1949 testimony against Robeson on Capitol Hill had long sat in plain sight, explored in only a page or two or usually by a single sentence—Jackie Robinson testified against Paul Robeson—an exposed root on the beaten path of the story of baseball integration.’ The “root” grabs and tugs Bryant down into a swamp of disinformation, hero worship, groupthink, xenophobia, daddy issues, and dark bargaining. The book is a little like a thriller, following Bryant as he lances a Red Scare factoid, which spills out on him its substance.”
It is important to note that Bryant, in sizing up Robinson for a newer generation of historians, wasn’t someone who embraced having to be involved in the civil rights movement because he had “to live within the deferential parameters of how an athlete was expected to speak,” especially him, for all he did.
Also it is enlightening that Bryant recounts an interview Al Cohn of Newsday did with Rachel Robinson in October of 1976, almost a year after her husband’s passing, where she talked about his civil rights leadership role. She admitted there were “two major mistakes that Jack made” in this arena. “He regretted them very much .. He didn’t think he did wrong things when he was doing them. But his judgment changed as time went on. … (One of the mistakes) was his statement against Paul Robeson and his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. I think we got some bad advice, and we didn’t fully understand the committee … When Jack was asked to testify, he conferred with Mr. Rickey and with black leaders who were heads of organizations. Jack was at that time very patriotic — his country right-or-wrong. … We came out of conservative families that were afraid of communism. … He got misused.”
Bryant can put this into the context of current events and accept that no longer should Robeson and Robinson been viewed as adversaries, but as manipulated minority leaders thrown into a public square and expected to say whatever they had to for survival and acceptance in their world.
“The shock of the Trump administration’s assault on the arts and universities, its immigration and visa restrictions, and domestic attacks on citizenship may feel unprecedented because many of today’s generation have no firsthand memory of the first half of Cold War and cannot envision Americans comfortable with the police-state tactics, but what is past is prologue: Trump is merely re-instituting the playbook of the McCarthy 1950s, the time of Robeson and Robinson, American versions of authoritarianism.”
== McLaughlin’s “Royal Treatment” first should be commended for its brilliant commission of a Gary Cieradkowski illustration that fits the occasion.
Recounting Robinson’s time playing Triple A ball in Montreal — the year after he signed his contract with the Dodgers and a way for him to get integrated in a pro baseball world for one season before his MLB arrival in Brooklyn — might have already been presented well enough in Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal from the 2013 film “42.”
Robinson actually wore No. 9 that season with the Royals, when he led the International League with a team-record .349 average as well as a .468 on-base percentage, and tied for the lead with 113 runs while stealing 40 bases. It wasn’t enough to win league MVP (it went to Baltimore first baseman Eddie Robinson — .318, 34 homers, 128 RBIs).
George Shuba greets Jackie Robinson at home plate in a famous handshake captured on April 18, 1946. (Courtesy of Greg Gulas, Carrie Anderson, Mike Shuba via SABR.com Games Project)
But there was a lingering question as the season went on: What would prevent the Dodgers from promoting Robinson to the big-leagues during that ’46 season rather than wait until the start of the ’47 season?
“For perfectly understandable reasons, there was no bigger fear in the stands of Delorimier Stadium (in Montreal) in the late summer of 1946 than the one posed from above in Brooklyn. Would (GM Branch) Rickey rob the Royals of their greatest hero ever to save the Dodgers? How could he not?”
The Royals had wrapped up their league title with a 71-36 record by August 1, 14 games up and “Royals fans were becoming quite accustomed to (Robinson’s) heroics and had no desire to share him with Brooklyn just yet.” They had the Junior World Series to look forward to, and the last Canadian team to win that was Toronto in 1926.
“Rickey would have done considerable damage to his relationship with the club,” McLaughin writes, “if he exercised his right to pluck Robinson away for its own playoff run. Would this be enough to resist tempations?”
The Dodgers would tie St. Louis for the National League title, but then lose a best-of-three playoff for the right to face Boston in the World Series. What if Robinson played that last month?
On Aug. 10, the Dodgers had traveling secretary Hal Parrot announce in Brooklyn that Robinson would stay in Montreal. Even though the Dodgers could have used help at first base and third base for Leo Durocher’s lineup.
“This was nowhere hear enough to satisfy the conspiratorially minded north of the boarder,” McLauglin wrote. “Such a statement would have carried more weight coming from Rickey himself, or Rickey Jr., the Dodgers’ farm director, rather than a potentially disavowable former sportswriter turned PR man.”
Topps created a 2022 “Pro Debut” series that included Jackie Robinson as a Montreal Royals player.
Maybe there was concerns Robinson, who had moved from shortstop already to second base, wouldn’t do well with another position switch — he would eventually start 151 games at first in his rookie season with Brooklyn. Robinson also had some back ailments that kept him out at times in the Montreal lineup and a doctor had “advised him to step away from baseball for ten days to calm his nerves (to the approval of) Rachel Robinson,” but Jack only missed one day.
“Rickey ultimately concluded he made too big an investment in Robinson, both as a player and a broader change agent in American culture, to rush the Great Experiment, which had been planned and executed methodically up to this point,” McLaughlin concluded. “If Robinson were white, it is nearly unimaginable to think that he would not have gone up to Brooklyn mid-season. Reality being what it was, Royals fans could breathe easy and Dodgers fans would have to wait another year.”
Robinson helped Montreal outlast Louisville in six games for the Junior World Series title and the love of the fans poured out for him before and after the game as they serenaded him with song and appreciation.
It led to the famous words by Sam Maltin, a reporter from the Pittsburgh Courier, who not only wrote that Robinson, in his opinion, was “the most popular athlete ever to wear a Montreal athletic uniform,” but as fans swarmed Robinson afterward, Maltin famously wrote that it was “probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on the mind.” He added, as McLaughlin noted in his book, that the group of Louisville fans who came to the game saw “a lesson of goodwill among men. That it’s the man and not his color, race or creed. They couldn’t fail to tell others down South of the ‘riots,’ the chasing of a Negro — not because of hate but because of love.”
A message that future Dodgers teammate and Louisville native Pee Wee Reese also took to heart.
A shelf of Jackie Robinson related book titles at the Los Angeles Central Library’s sports section.
More to explore:
== Maybe it’s also worth nothing that today marks the 120th anniversary of the first Japanese professional baseball game, by a team of barnstormers in Kansas — thanks for the heads up by Robert Fitts.
== University of Nebraska Press, in honor of Jackie Robinson Day, offers “The Royal Treatment” at a special 40 percent discount (down to $22.17 from its cover price) through May 31 on its website. Use the promo code 6AS26
== In the new book, “American Sportswriters: A Biographical Dictionary,” by Jerry Roberts (McFarland, 652 pages, $145), the entry for Bryant includes: “Bryant’s books are incisive, taking on large issues in no uncertain terms, exposing the rot behind the scenes in an even-handed way. Saying Boston is a racist town, particularly regarding sports and sportswriters, is not a new issue. But Bryant went a step further and put some blame on an icon of the trade: ‘Influential Globe sports columnist Will McDonough sees race in Boston as a media creation, a topic alive only because the Red Sox haven’t won a championship,’ Bryant wrote in ‘Shut Out” in 2002. ‘It’s a viewpoint that is immediately offensive because he is not Black and thus cannot relate to the tremendous emotional distance that African Americans have felt from Boston.”
== Recent review posts of Robinson books to align with Jackie Robinson Day/April 15 in this annual series include:
=2025: “Jim Gilliam: The Forgotten Dodger” by Steve Dittmann; “Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America,” by Gerald Early, “They Changed the Game: 50 Stories and Illustrations Celebrating Creativity in Sports,” and “Dream Merchant of the Perfect Game: The Life and Legacy of Frank ‘Doc’ Sykes.” = 2024: “Under Jackie’s Shadow: Voices of Black Minor Leaguers Baseball Left Behind” by Mitchell Nathanson = 2023: “Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson” by Gary Scott Smith, “Call Him Jack: The Story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter,” by Michael G. Long =2022:“True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson” by Kostya Kennedy, “Not an Easy Tale to Tell: Jackie Robinson on the Page, Stage and Screen,” by SABR = 2021: “42 Today: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy” by Michael G. Long, “Jackie: Perspectives on 42″ by SABR = 2020: “The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson: The Baseball Legend’s Battle For Civil Rights during World War II” by Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning = 2019: “Reclaiming 42: Public Memory and the Reframing of Jackie Robinson’s Radical Legacy” by David Naze, “A Fine Team Man: Jackie Robinson and the Lives He Touched,” and “Black Baseball, 1858-1900: A Comprehensive Record of Teams, Players, Managers, Owners and Umpries,” by James E. Brunson III = 2018: “Singles and Smiles: How Artie Wilson Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier” by Gaylon H. White
== One final curious discovery with “Kings and Pawns”: In the acknowledgements, Bryant credits the “tireless research and watchful of eye of Brooks Melchoir” for making the book happen. “With precious few possible exceptions, I cannot think of a person in the country who has devoted more personal time to the story of Jackie Robinson, especially his early, pre-major league years. For the past three years, Brooks has worked on making sure this project was afforded the benefit of every magazine article, newspaper story, video clip, cartoon and photograph of Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson. Every author should have such an ally and friend.”
Melchoir could be the subject of a Bryant book, if he so desires. The former SportsByBrooks.com blogger disappeared between 2013 and 2018 after becoming so ubiquious online, and few are apt to explain why. Only Jeff Pearlman seems to have known as much to write about it, and then not particularly make clear what happened. Even when one asks him about it. But now Melchoir is back, and has Bryant’s back? Well, OK then …
More reviewers and interviews to access:
== The PBS News Hour interview with Bryant includes a transcript of the segment at this link.
== Bryant joins Bomani Jones for his “The Right Time” podcast:
Leslie A. Heaphy, author, “The Negro Leagues, 1869–1960,” offers a blurb: “You may think you know the story of Robinson and Rickey and the integration of the baseball, but author Keith Crook provides a more extensive story. Rickey plays a role but as we read so did many others. Crook places Robinson’s signing in the much deeper context of New York politics and law in 1945. What he has produced is a rich story steeped in primary sources to show the more complex story surrounding Rickey, Robinson and the Dodgers.”
A blurb from Booklist: “A prominent Kansas City artist and a veteran author collaborate to create a colorful snapshot of Black baseball stars and the Negro National League from the 1880s through 1948 and the integration of Major League Baseball. Each chapter includes colorful reproductions of High’s artwork, highlighting pivotal moments in baseball history or individual players who shaped the face of the league and have only recently been recognized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Chapters conclude with High’s meditations on his inspiration and methodology for creating a particular work, and several illustrations portray works in progress with explanations of the art and composition of his unique collagraphs, making this as much an art book as a baseball history. Covering everyone from Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first Black major-league player in 1885, to Cuba’s Martin Dihigo, one of the greatest players who never played in MLB, Dressman and High recount the greatness of Black players and coaches in early baseball history, the innovations they created to showcase their talents, and the obstacles they had to overcome for long-overdue recognition.”
It’s framed as a ” Utopian Baseball Fantasy” to guess how the game might have been different if things really were different in a 1934 world. Graf assumes it could have come about at the urging of President Theodore Roosevelt, imploring the 16 teams of the all-white NL and AL to add four Negro League teams — at a time when many of the Negro League stars were in their prime. Teams are then integrated to include White and Black players through a draft. It’s like Strat-O-Matic come to life. Satchel Paige, in real life, wasn’t allowed to join the established Cleveland Indians in 1948 at age 41, a year after Robinson came to the Dodgers. In 1934, Robinson was a 15-year-old at Muir High in Pasadena, best known as the city’s ping-pong champion.
Embrace the disgraced general concept of enshittification as it pertains specifically to the New York Mets and, by geographic circumstances, also to the New York Yankees.
As pent-up anger and frustration ruins the way we wade through an existing world of A.I. slop, we learn that the Enshittocene — a noun coined by author Cory Doctorow and then fleshed out in his 2025 book about “Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to do About it” — expanding the definition beyond soul-crushing Big Tech stalwarts can be a healthy exercise for those who need a way to explain their grief and lack of relief.
If the Amazin’ Mets are an Amazon-Meta mashup, and the Yankees, way more than Waymo or Yahoo in their Oracle world, continue to reflect as the IBM of baseball, you Reddit right that it all happens under what locals call the Big Apple, but really it’s acting on algorithms engineered by the gigabytes of Tim Cook’s Apple Inc.
No wonder the Mets and Yankees start this new week having each lost on five consecutive days for the first time in history, according to Sportradar.
An AI query about how any of this might Venn diagram itself on the circles of despair looks like this:
Plenty of other sources that explain how Steven Cohen, who in 2020 bought the Mets for $2.4 billion from his hedge-fund stash that wasn’t penalized for insider trading, has granted the team a MLB-top $352 million payroll for the 2026. The Mets have under contract the highest-paid player in outfielder Juan Soto, averaging $61.9 million in salary. He is currently injured.
The Dodgers circumvent much of this by deferring payments that otherwise would boost their ’26 payroll to $395 million. They also are on tap to pay the highest tax rate on the Competitive Balance Tax payroll for exceeding MLB’s $244 million threshold. The Mets and Yankees are second and third on that list.
For all the lamentations that the Dodgers are ruining baseball with their ownership spending … why is it every July 1 that we’re all reminded that it is the Mets who continue to give 1999 retiree Bobby Bonilla a $1.193,240.20 paycheck and will do so through 2035 for its example of how defer payments continue to haunt a fanbase looking for excuses to be even more disheveled?
ESPN already has already crunched the numbers to deduct that this Mets-Dodgers matchup is on the hook for more than $1 billion in salary liability. Last year’s meeting between the Mets and Dodgers was the previous most expensive series at $764 million in combined payroll — $36 million in total payroll behind this year’s matchup. When you add in their tax bills, the total jumps to over $1.07 billion, surpassing last year’s record of $1.025 billion. The Dodgers and Mets have ranked first and second (in some order) in total payroll four times since 2022. 2023, when the Mets ranked first and the Dodgers fourth, is the only exception during that stretch.
Aside from cash flow, there’s the Zeitgeist/ethos comparison that can also provide more entertainment.
His riff was about how the franchise that continues to provide him with comedic fodder had to be somewhat dismantled over the last offseason because of political ideology that was contaminating the clubhouse vibe. Note: That was Brandon Nimmo batting leadoff for the Texas Rangers during last Dodgers’ homestand instead of what we’ve been used to seeing the Mets as they come into town this week.
As with most NYT stories, some of the best material is buried in the reader responses. Such as:
“Death in the Strike Zone: The Mystery of America’s First Baseball Hero”
The author: Thomas W. Gilbert The details: David R. Godine Publishing, 192 pages, $27.95; released March 24, ’26 The links:The publisher, the author website, Bookshop.org
A review in 90 feet or less
Josh Canales
In the summer of 2000, between the junior and senior seasons where he would become UCLA’s starting shortstop, Josh Canales jumped at a chance to go New York and play for the Newark (N.Y.) Raptors of the Northeast Collegiate Baseball League. His second base double-play partner would be Kelsey Osburn, a sophomore at the University of Arizona.
“Our attitudes were similar, our personalities were similar,” Canales would explain. “When we played up the middle we had an awesome chemistry and a lot of fun.”
Kelly Osburn
On July 11, as Canales was taking batting practice and Osburn was running the bases, Canales laced a ball heading foul down the third base line. The ball caught Osburn just above the ear on his right temple. Osburn, who had not been wearing a helmet, was conscious for about three minutes, crumpled to the ground and slipped into a coma. He was airlifted from the field in Newark, N.Y. to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where doctors performed brain surgery.
“I didn’t know if I ever wanted to pick up a bat again,” said Canales, who grew up in Carson and, at 14, briefly joined an inner-city gang out of rebellious adolescence. He had got himself on a productive path — as a senior at Carson High, Canales hit .380 with 25 stolen bases and 43 runs, and was drafted in the 19th round by Oakland.
The 5-foot-9, 145 pound infielder decided to go to the University of Florida for two seasons, transferred to UCLA, and after hitting .248 in 52 games as a junior, and improved to .376 with 15 stolen bases in 16 chances during in 53 games as a senior leading into the 2001 draft — a 16th-round pick by his hometown Dodgers. After logging a few seasons of Single-A ball (aside from one Triple-A at bat with Las Vegas in 2002), his baseball life was done.
But the death of Osburn lingered.
“It was a defining moment in my life,” said Canales, who played with the initials “K.O.” on his glove during the rest of his college and minor-league career. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t remember Kelsey. I feel like when Kelsey died, a piece of his heart went into me. He was 5-feet-5 and had to fight and scrap for everything he ever got. He had the heart of a lion. …
“This built character very quickly,” Canales said about what he went through. “I grew in my faith and learned to put life in perspective.”
It helped that Canales could turn his parents – Isaac, the pastor of 1,300-member Mission Ebenezer Family Church in Carson, and his mother, Ritha, a nurse. Canales has used his experience with this tragedy as he and his wife are pastors at the same Carson church.
“Kelsey Osburn died doing something he loved,” Canales says to help him keep things in perspective.
To start chapter 2 in his new book, Thomas Gilbert writes: “Nobody is supposed to die from playing baseball. Especially not amateur baseball — and certainly not a meaningless game with nothing at stake at the end of a season that nobody was playing much attention to. Yet that is how James Creighton, as dominant a pitcher as there has ever been, lost his life in the autumn of 1862.”
At a time when some 50,000 young men were losing their lives in the Civil War, this one 21-year-old’s death made even less sense.
As Gilbert continued to post blog entries on things he came across in his book research, an essay in March of 2021 titled “The Man Who Invented Modern Pitching — Which Killed Him” seems to have laid the groundwork for expansion of that topic for this book.
It starts: “The story of James Creighton is the oldest and saddest one in the baseball book.”
“Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda And the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History”
The author: Eric Vickrey The details: August Publications, 348 pages, $24.95; released Dec. 7, ’25 The links:Author site, publisher site, Bookshop.org
A review in 90 feet or less:
The time capsule that Sports Illustrated has become, in the musky scent of its recent emasculation, can still be a bit jarring.
When the SI issue of May 19, 1969 arrived at our house, proclaiming a group of “hot young” Dodgers were about come to the rescue of a franchise still trying to find its footing from a 95-win team getting swept in the ’66 World Series, then watching Sandy Koufax retire, and now braced for Don Drysdale heading in that direction, there was some reason for optimism for all the kids in my neighborhood. The magazine’s 40-cent cover price our parents paid was also worth an investment in seeing the future as predicted by our wise elders.
Manager Walter Alston, as we were shown, had Bill Sudakis, Ted Sizemore and Billy Grabarkewitz all ready for the reboot. Tell Danny Goodman to start cranking out World Series trinkets.
Given that those ’69 Dodgers would finish 85-77, fourth-best and just eight-games out in the newly created National League West, it was a bit of an illusion, but much easier to compartmentalize after taking in a 76-86 showing in ’68 (seventh in the elongated NL, 21 games back) and a 73-89 free-fall from ’67 (eighth place, 28 1/2 games back).
Yet, these three Musketeers fresh out of the Mickey Mouse Club would bring it back to glory.
With mixed results.
Sudakis, a catcher and third baseman who signed as a free agent in 1964 a year before the MLB Draft began, hit .234 that ’69 season in 132 games, age 23. Sudsy, as was his nickname, seemed to be all but washed up by ’72 when the Dodgers waived him. The Angels kicked the tires on him before the ’75 season, then released him mid-way through after he hit .121 in 30 games.
Sizemore, a 15th round draft pick in 1966, somehow won the ’69 NL Rookie of the Year Award following Johnny Bench (in ’68) and Tom Seaver (in ’67) in an otherwise so-so year for up-and-coming talent. Starting at second base, Sizemore would have a career-best 4.2 WAR, hitting .271 in 159 games, age 24. After upping that to .306 in ’70, the Dodgers capitalized on his value, sending him to St. Louis with backup catcher Bob Stinson for Dick Allen (which didn’t end up so well). Sizemore came back to the Dodgers in ’76 via a trade for Willie Crawford, but by ’79, the Dodgers were done with him again, sending him this time to Philadelphia.
Grabarkewitz, taken in the 12th round of the ’66 Draft, was bestowed jersey No. 1 when he came up for 34 games that ’69 season, going 6 for 65 (.092). But the next year, he was on the NL All-Star team, hitting .289 in 156 games with a team-leading 17 homers, 92 runs scored, 84 RBIs and 19 stolen bases.
Then, poof.
In the 2024 book “Baseball’s Shooting Stars: Improbable Ascents and Burnouts in the National Pastime,” author David J. Gordon devotes a special chapter to Grabarkewitz, the man “who led the league in consonants” but was “stymied by badly timed injuries.” His 6.5 WAR in his career year in 1970 — a stat that didn’t even exist at the time but often used in modern times to measure former players in a new light — wasn’t that remarkable, but in the aftermath, Gordon write that Grabarkewitz “may have been the most extreme one-year wonder of any non-pitcher in MLB history … I can find no other historical example of a position player with a career lasting at least five years who posted a > or = 6.5 WAR in one season but played at or below replacement level for the remainder of his career.” Why he was out of the game by age 29, after a brief time with the Angels, can be baffling to some, but Gordon has a thought on that:
“My reflexive take on one-year wonders like Grabarkewitz is their career years were flukes and the law of averages caught up with them. But Grabarkewitz is something else. Nothing about his sterling 1970 season seems lucky or flukish. A combination of lesser injuries and an overloaded Dodgers farm system — not regression to the mean — conspired to prevent him from becoming the player everyone thought he would be for more than one season. I view Grabarkewitz mainly as a very unlucky player who might very well have achieved long-term success on a different team and under more favorable circumstances.”
Gordon allusion to “an overloaded Dodgers farm system” goes to why Vickrey’s book gives a greater context to how and why the team’s 1968 MLB draft remains, by consensus still today, the greatest haul of talent in the game’s history.
Dialing back to that ‘69 season, there was a brief glimpse of a 20-year-old Steve Garvey (1-for-3), 19-year-old Bobby Valentine (five pinch-running appearances) and 19-year-old Bill Buckner (0-for-1).
Valentine, Buckner and Garvey were prized pieces of a collection that included Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, Tom Paciorek, Doyle Alexander, Joe Ferguson and Geoff Zahn. Adding in Bill Russell, Charlie Hough and Tommy Hutton, the Dodgers’ foundation had been laid and would last more than a decade — let’s call it the 1981 World Series, after they team decided to let their prized infield break into pieces.
The link to all of them is Tommy Lasorda. As Vickrey details, it was Lasorda, that scout, who was a key figure in the Dodgers’ acquisition of talent before the instution of the 1965 MLB Draft — the first pick of that draft was Rick Monday, an outfielder from Santa Monica High who had gone to Arizona State and was all but signed as Dodgers home-town talent before the Kansas City A’s were allowed to take him. Just prior to that, Lasorda was the important figure in the Dodgers signing local talent Willie Crawford from Freemont High in L.A., one of the last of the “bonus baby” players who had to spend time on the major-league roster likely before they were ready.
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 