Check it out! My children's baseball book Baseball's Greatest Players: 10 Baseball Biographies for New Readers is now available for pre-order: https://amzn.to/3szxgmI ..read more

To continue reading my stories and analysis, please visit my page at Medium:  https://historianandrew.medium.com/ Look forward to seeing you there ..read more

VIA MILB Group seeks to protect America’s beloved Minor League against MLB’s devastating plan to eliminate 42 hometown teams   WASHINGTON – Mayors of Chattanooga, Tenn., Dayton, Ohio, and Columbia, S.C. tomorrow will announce the official formation of the Mayors’ Task Force to Save Minor League Baseball. The Task Force will be co-chaired by Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, and Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin. The mayors will host a telephone news conference at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 22 during the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting in Washington, D ..read more

Right-handed pitcher Jimmy Serrano came to professional baseball with little fanfare. However, he stuck around for more than a decade and even spent some time in the major leagues. All in all, it was a good baseball career. Serrano was drafted in the 18th round by the Montreal Expos in 1998 out of the University of New Mexico. A reliever, he posted strong numbers and progressed steadily, but never got the call to Montreal. In March, 2002, he was traded with outfielder Jason Bayto the New York Mets, but never got to the big-league level with them. After his rights were bought by the Kansas ..read more

For players, professional baseball is a journey that takes many twists and turns. Neither the path nor the destination can ever be foretold. Someone who can attest to that is pitcher Logan Darnell , who has just completed the 10th year of a career filled with changes and achievements. The left-handed Darnell was a sixth-round draft choice of the Minnesota Twins out of the University of Kentucky in 2010. A starter, he progressed steadily through their minor league system, winning 31 games between 2011-2013. His development paid off by getting called up to the Twins for a brief time in 2014 ..read more

PRESS RELEASE During this week’s Baseball Winter Meetings in San Diego, representatives from Minor League Baseball (MiLB) and Major League Baseball (MLB) engaged in formal and informal discussions regarding the Professional Baseball Agreement (PBA) that were cordial and productive. Following those meetings, MLB has repeatedly and inaccurately stated the position of MiLB with respect to several key areas under consideration in the PBA negotiations. To correct the record, Minor League Baseball’s positions on the key areas are as follows:  Facilities – Under the current standards outlined i ..read more

PRESS RELEASE YOUNGTOWN, Ohio -- A larger-than-life statue commemorating the inspiring 1946 handshake of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American Major League Baseball player, and George "Shotgun" Shuba, his white teammate, will inspire better relations among people of different racial backgrounds, say leaders of a group planning to build the statue in Ohio. The Economic Action Group, a downtown Youngstown development advocate, and the newly formed Robinson-Shuba Commemorative Statue Committee aim to raise $400,000 to complete the statue and dedicate it on April 18, 2021, the 75th anniver ..read more

Jack Spradlin was a left-handed pitcher who played at just about every possible level of professional baseball except for the big leagues. By no means was that a failure, as he had a long and interesting career playing the game that he loves. On the radar of major league teams since high school, Spradlin was a 50th-round selection of the New York Mets in 2002. He did not sign then, nor in 2004 when the San Francisco Giants took him in the 43rd round. Finally, after a strong season at USC (University of Southern California) he was taken in the eighth round in 2005 by the Washington Nationa ..read more

Multi-tiered approach designed to drive deeper fan engagement, enhance media distribution offerings    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. and STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 25, 2019 — Minor League Baseball™ (MiLB™) today announced it has selected Octagon, the leading international sports marketing and media agency, to develop a long-term content, media and distribution strategy for the organization.     The three-phase partnership includes conducting in-depth digital fan research and current digital platform analysis, developing a media content strategy and leading a targeted media rights distribution strategy ..read more

World War II impacted every aspect of life imaginable in the United States during the 1940s. As the conflict raged globally, adjustments were made everywhere, including in Major League Baseball, which had to get creative to field an entertaining product. This included one game where a 15-year-old boy named Joe Nuxhall, took to the mound against the St. Louis Cardinals. Joe Nuxhall was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio. By the time he entered high school he was the size of a grown man and pitched on a local semi-pro team with his father Orville, who was also a talented hurler. The young lef ..read more