Baseball – the Addison Recorder

Breaking Down the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 4: The Results

January 7, 2016 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

I often wonder what it must be like to be a player waiting for induction in the Hall of Fame. There’s three kinds of players to be in this imaginary exercise. There’s the kind of player who knows they’re not getting elected, who are just hanging around for the fun of it, who are thrilled to simply be on the ballot. Then there’s the kind of player who knows they’re getting in, who is waiting on pins and needles for the call, who has probably been expecting the call for five years. What is it like to wait for a night that you know is coming soon?

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Breaking Down the 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 3: The Voting

January 4, 2016 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

I’ve taken a look at the Holdovers on the Ballot. I’ve looked at the Newcomers. And now it comes time to take a look both at my predictions for the final vote as well as my ballot for the IBWAA (the Internet Baseball Writers of America).

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Breaking Down the 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 2: The Newcomers

December 22, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

My analysis of the Hall of Fame voting continues here, with the Newcomers. (You can read Part One of my breakdown here.) These are players who have been selected to join the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. The rules are as follows:

You must have played in Major League Baseball for at least 10 years.
You must have been retired for five years.
You cannot be on baseball’s ineligible rolls (See: Rose, Peter)

Those relatively loose rules mean that multiple players of varying quality can join the ballot. For every newcomer such as Randy Johnson, there’s a Jacque Jones. For every Pedro, a Tom Gordon. For every Smoltz, a Delgado. It’s an eclectic mix, and one that’s always a crapshoot as to who will actually receive votes. Who sticks around is a separate matter, but we’ll get into that.

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Breaking Down the 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot, Part 1: The Holdovers

December 21, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

It’s time once again for that holiday tradition that absolutely nobody is calling for – my analysis of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2016 ballot. I’ve been told by a grand total of zero (0) peeps that this is their go-to for the Hall of Fame election process, and I aim to please our readership. This year, we’ve got 32 players to examine (once again, a decline of 2 players from last year), and I aim to cast guidance as to whether or not the player is getting in, along with some idea of whether or not they’re going to be making any gains in the voting this year.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: A Royal Occasion

October 30, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

I may or may not need to write about Games Six and Seven on Monday. The way the Kansas City Royals are playing baseball, this series could be wrapped up by Saturday night. Or I could be back here on Monday talking about the resurgent New York Mets, their ability to overcome the odds, and their triumph in the face of a growing cultural consensus that this year is KC’s year.

Instead, let’s talk about the despondency of being a fan, and of what it means to be a sports fan.

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Thoughts From The Dugout: World Series Preview

October 27, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

At this time last year, I was alternating between performances of a show at Second City (I was one of six co-writers in the Advanced Writing program) and running to the nearby Old Town Social or catching the Clark bus to walk to Murphy’s Bleachers to catch the tail ends of a thrilling postseason. It was a fantastic time to be writing, and a splendid time to write about baseball – and like many other Americans, I fell in love with the Royals. Which made the climax of the World Series that much harder, as they were stifled by the heroics of Madison Bumgarner (still the best postseason pitching performance I’d seen since probably Josh Beckett in ’03 and ’07.

I didn’t think the Royals could come back. Too many things worked against them. Their success was a fluke, a combination of momentum and luck that couldn’t be equaled.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: The Stakes of the LCS

October 19, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

The LDS is in the books, the next round is underway, and all ready my predictions are looking to be half-baked at best.

Welp.

It’s time to delve into just exactly what these series are all about. October continues, y’all.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Wild Card Preview

October 6, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

It’s here. The scent of pumpkin spice lattes wafting from the corner of every other muffaka on the planet. The sound of leaves crunching as you walk down the sidewalk. The Bears losing in September. Autumn has arrived, and with it…the baseball postseason.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: Awards Fever

September 29, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

So, in spite of what the scheduling gods and MLB marketing wizards may have told you, the postseason races this year have been, well, rather uninspired. I say this while living in the heart of Cub-Fandom on Earth – most of those involved have been decided for several weeks at least. It’s exciting and great that teams like Toronto and Kansas City are pushing each other for home field advantage, but at the moment, the only race is for who will win the AL West and which team will get to face the Yankees in the Wild Card play in.

So, on that note, here’s my picks and reasoning for the MLB awards.

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Thoughts from the Dugout: The Legend of Big Papi

September 14, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Here at the Addison Recorder, I make no bones about it – I’m a huge fan of David Ortiz. The heart and soul of the Red Sox, he is the only man alive to have played on three World Series winning teams from Boston. And on Saturday night, he further cemented his legacy as one of the all-time great power hitters by slugging his 499th and 500th home runs.

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