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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #18: Manny Ramirez
To be a teenage Indians fan during the 1990s was to have a wealth of fantastic offensive players to cheer for at a time when you were too young to fully appreciate it. At the time I graduated from high...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #17: Jim Thome
When I was young, being a baseball fan meant playing it, collecting cards, and checking the sports section of the newspaper my dad brought home at the end of each workday. Each year I went to a couple...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #16: Derek Jeter
In 1996 Derek Jeter was a unanimous American League Rookie of the Year winner, and was an important part of the Yankees winning the World Series for the first time since 1978, ending the team's longest...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #15: Mike Piazza
Mike Piazza will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend. Given that I've got him as the 15th best player of the last thirty years, it's an honor I obviously believe is much-deserved. I'm not...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #14: Mike Mussina
Mike Mussina's career seems to have been marked by bad timing. In the process of working my way through this project, I've already written about other pitchers from the last thirty years having to face...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #13: Curt Schilling
Curt Schilling started 19 postseason games in his career, with a 2.33 ERA in 133.1 innings. He went 7+ innings while allowing no more than two runs in 13 of those starts, including two shutouts. In the...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #12: Frank Thomas
Frank Thomas was the best hitter the American League has had in the thirty years this project is focused on. He finished his career with a batting line of .301/.419/.555 and a wRC+ of 154, a figure...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #11: Adrian Beltre
Why do we love the ones we love? Some of the people we love, they loved us first. Loving them back felt natural without us ever really thinking about it. I don't remember a time when I didn't love my...
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The past I am borne back ceaselessly into
The afternoon before Game 5 of the World Series, I went for a run. The weekend before I had skipped the Frank Lloyd Wright Race, my hometown's annual 10K, for the first time in years, because my right...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #10: Jeff Bagwell
Did Jeff Bagwell have too little power, or too much? Some believe his numbers just weren't impressive enough; he hit "only" 449 home runs, leaving him a couple solid seasons short of 500, which itself...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #9: Chipper Jones
Larry Jones Jr.'s father was a baseball coach, and when the boy took to baseball at a young age, his family saw it as a sign that he was a "chip off the old block," which is why they began to call him...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #8: Ken Griffey Jr.
This seems like a subjective thing, I know, but Ken Griffey Jr. was the ballplayer for my generation. The #1 overall pick in 1987, Griffey made his MLB debut on Opening Day in 1989, when he was still a...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #7: Pedro Martinez
As a child, I was drawn to position players. Home runs, stolen bases, diving catches... those were the things that captured me, and those are things position players do. When I went to a game, or sat...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #6: Albert Pujols
Albert Pujols was born the same year as me. Same month, in fact. On Opening Day in 2001, he became the first person younger than me to appear in the Major Leagues. He is by far the best player born in...
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The Maddux on a Baseball Card
If you've read much of my writing, you're likely aware that when I was a kid, baseball cards were a huge deal to me, really taking off when Topps released its classic 1987 set, the one with the wood...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #5: Randy Johnson
Randy Johnson's career path was unlike that of any other pitcher. Actually, that's not true, his path was like that of a few others, but his version of that path was a wildly exaggerated version, which...
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Father's Day
After graduating from college, I returned home for a few months until I could figure out the next step. Around the time I moved back in, a pair of cardinals built their nest in a bush in our backyard....
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #4: Alex Rodriguez
"Never feel sorry for a man who owns a plane."- Charles MorseI don't know if Alex Rodriguez owns a plane or not, but he certainly could, having earned more than $400 million as a ballplayer, plus...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #3: Greg Maddux
Since I began this blog more than five years ago, I've gotten to write for and manage maybe the most substantial Cleveland Indians fan site on the internet, and to accept an award honoring Let' Go...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #2: Roger Clemens
It's been more than two decades since Greg Maddux became my favorite pitcher and eventually my favorite player, but when I was younger it was Roger Clemens whose poster adorned my wall. He was on the...
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Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #1: Barry Bonds
Even as an adult, much of life feels out of my control. A child's life is even more out of their hands. I didn't choose my family, I din't choose my home. I was incredibly fortunate in both of those...
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Ten Years Gone
On December 3, 2007, my dad turned 56. That evening he, my stepmom, a couple others, and I had dinner at their place. My stepmom was a wonderful cook, but I don't remember what we ate. I know that we...
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Coda to the Best Ballplayers of My Lifetime
I started my countdown of the 30 best players of my first 30 years as a baseball fan in early 2016. It became something of a boondoggle, because I didn't have as many personal stories relating to the...
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Teammates with long hitting streaks in the same season
Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts just finished up a 26-game hitting streak going. His teammate, Boston outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. recently had a 29-game hitting streak. Two players on the same...
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Best players of the last 30 years, #19: Kevin Brown
I don't have nearly a large enough readership for anything I write here to generate controversy, but if I did, and if one thing from this countdown were going to cause a stir, I'm certain it would be...
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