Baseball from Top to Bottom

Heading to Ottawa University for my keynote address on Friday at the 27 Annual Conference on Baseball in Literature and Culture. I was going to talk about Irish hurling and its impact on 19th-century baseball, but, dadgum it, Shawn O’Hare over at Carson-Newman already called it—this is like when you show up somewhere, and someone else is wearing the same outfit.

I kid, of course. Shawn’s session sounds fascinating, as do so many others. I mean, we’re going to be geeking out on baseball and its history, that sounds like a party to me. The least interesting thing will be whatever the heck I think of to say.

Before I head out… let’s talk about baseball’s first week and offer some way-too-early-to-be-thinking-about thoughts!

Division Leaders

AL East: New York Yankees (6-1)

Aaron Judge is off to a sluggish start—he hit his first homer of the season on Wednesday and is batting .179—and it doesn’t even matter, not when Juan Soto keeps doing Juan Soto things, and Anthony Volpe decides that he’s waited long enough to become a full-fledged star. I have to come clean about something (and please don’t tell Mike Schur or anybody else I know about this)… I have a powerful rooting interest in Volpe’s success. Four reasons why: