All Things Baseball
Some old business and baseball thoughts first… and then I’ll give you a rundown of an awesome weekend in Cooperstown.
— Our get-together in London—where I’ll be signing some books at the Waterstones London in Trafalgar Square at 5 p.m. and then heading over to the Theodore Bullfrog pub for merriment—is on Friday, June 7, the day before the London Series begins. I put a wrong date on it last week because of course I did. Hope to see you there on JUNE SEVENTH.
— A couple people have written in to say they won’t actually be able to make it for the get-together, but they will be at the Series games. I’ll be there, too. I’m not sure exactly what my schedule will look like, but I should be around and hopefully I’ll see you.
— Two updates on the silly and hopefully amusing little umpire/pitcher thing I threw together while on the plane to New York:
I mentioned in there at that Brandon McCarthy’s favorite umpire had to be Chris Conroy because he had good success with Conroy behind the plate. Brandon assured me that not only has he never heard of Chris Conroy, he was almost never aware of who was umpiring his games. He says that he was sometimes aware if one of the “more famous” umps was on balls and strikes, and he does remember appreciating the way Alan Porter and Tim McClelland called a game.
I wrote that I had never heard of umpire Fieldin Culbreth, but that I appreciated the name. Brilliant Reader Mark wrote in to say that not only should I know that name, but that Fieldin and I were actually COLLEGE CLASSMATES AT UNC CHARLOTTE. Boy, is my face red.
— The Ronald Acuña Jr. news is such a bummer. I am literally looking at the new Baseball America magazine, which has Acuña on the cover with the headline “HE’S THE 1.” A lot of people were ready to list Acuña as the best player in the game after his titanic 2023 season, when he hit .337/.416/.596 with 41 homers and 73 stolen bases and 149 runs scored.
But for some reason, it just wasn’t firing for him this season. And then on Sunday, in one of those fluky moments that seem to happen much too often in 162-game seasons, he was on second base, he looked like he was going to take off for third, he stopped and wrenched his knee. He fell to the ground, and it was clear that the injury was very bad. A few hours later, the inevitable news came out: A complete tear of his left ACL, he’s out for the season, and there’s no telling when (or even if) he will be fully healthy again.
The sad irony here is