I had one of my favorite annual feelings the other day. I was driving to my office in the morning, it was 7 a.m. or so. And it was bright and sunny outside. And I had my first: “Oh, spring is coming,” sensation. I love that feeling so much, I love that first time in a new year when you notice that the days are getting just the tiniest bit longer and the darkness of winter ever so slightly begins to lift. Plus, it almost always happens right around the time pitchers and catchers report. This is going to be an amazing year in our world. Our younger daughter, Katie, is going to graduate from h ..read more

Tim McCarver at age 25 had an absolutely fantastic season. This was 1967. He hit .295/.369/.452, with 26 doubles, 14 homers, he struck out just 32 times and he played fantastic defense behind the plate, throwing out 55% of the baserunners who tried to steal off his pitchers and brilliantly handling a pitching staff with titans Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton and a 29-year-old rookie named Dick Hughes. “Oh,” Gibson would remember “he could call a game.” The Cardinals won the World Series. McCarver finished second in the MVP voting. He looked at that moment to be one of the bright stars in baseb ..read more

OK, so I wrote a fairly massive story for Esquire Magazine that will be coming out in the next few days about all the rule changes in baseball. I go in pretty deep. Until then, I just want to talk about my overall philosophy about the changes. I’m really excited about them. More to the point: I’m really excited that the powers of baseball are finally trying to help shape the game rather than just letting it go in whatever direction the winds blow. See, I used to be a laissez-faire baseball guy — I guess we called it being a “baseball purist” — and I believed in the power of the game to corr ..read more

We will get to Patrick Mahomes, obviously, because there has never been anyone quite like him, but this is the NFL, and that means that first we have to talk about a penalty that was called when many people think it should not have been called. It’s funny, there are all sorts of prop bets for the Super Bowl, but best I can tell you there is no way to bet on, “What questionable referee call will the losing team blame?” The odds would be something like this: 2-1: A puzzling roughing-the-quarterback penalty 3-1: Calling a catch not a catch 3-1: Calling a non-catch a catch 5-1: Missing several ..read more

Happy Super Bowl Week! The Football 101 is nearing the finish line. Here’s the complete archive. Thanks for reading, and thanks for subscribing! And if you want to track the countdown, Brilliant Reader Ed B put together this awesome spreadsheet. Of course, I would love for you to subscribe for the big finish! We also have lots of other great stuff coming here on JoeBlogs. Subscribe now OK, look, there’s no way to rank Tom Brady and make everybody happy. You either say he’s the greatest football player of all time (making various people very happy and very unhappy) or you say he’s not the ..read more

Here are the highest point-per-game seasons for NBA players 35 years or older: LeBron James, 30.3 ppg (age 37) LeBron James, 30.2 ppg (age 38 — in progress) Alex English, 26.5 ppg (age 35) Karl Malone, 24.4 ppg (age 36) LeBron James, 25.3 ppg (age 35) LeBron James, 25.0 ppg (age 36) I’ve been thinking about how players age better in sports than ever before. Roger Federer was the first player in the Open Era to be No. 1 in the world after age 35, and now Novak Djokovic is 35 and the best in the world by a seemingly wide margin. Tom Brady won the MVP at 40 and almost won it ..read more

OK, before we get into the first class of the JoeBlogs Hall of Fame, let me talk for a minute about the criteria, because I’ve been thinking a lot about that. As you probably know, the voting criteria for the Baseball Hall of fame is a pretty famous 23 words: Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played. I’m not sure how many people through the years have broken this down, but I would suppose that those words mean something like this: Player’s record: Stats. Playing ability ..read more

Happy Friday! The Football 101 is nearing the finish line. Here’s the complete archive. Thanks for reading, and thanks for subscribing! And if you want to track the countdown, Brilliant Reader Ed B put together this awesome spreadsheet. Of course, I would love for you to subscribe for the big finish! We also have lots of other great stuff coming here on JoeBlogs. Subscribe now You might already know this, but it’s worth pointing out again: Bruce Smith, not Reggie White, has the all-time NFL record for sacks. All-time sack leaders (official) Bruce Smith, 200 Reggie White, 198 Kevin ..read more

At this point, you probably know that Michael Schur and I have spent the last month opening up old sports cards on the PosCast in a circuitous effort to raise money for ALS research. I’ll get back to that last part in a minute. First, I should say: I was deeply skeptical that anyone would want to listen to Mike and I just opening up old packs of baseball cards and shouting out insightful stuff like, “Whoa! Rod Scurry!” and “Look at John Candelaria’s mustache” — especially since this is a podcast and nobody else could actually see John Candelaria’s mustache.* *It wasn’t good. But the numbers ..read more

The Kansas City Royals are announcing today that they’re bringing back Zack Greinke for the 2023 season, and I’m very happy. I don’t know how much longer Zack pitches, but he should end his career in Kansas. City. Whatever landmarks he might pass — 3,000 strikeouts, for example — he should pass in Kansas City. Thinking about Zack, I started to think, as old fogeys do, “Aw, man, I miss the days when great players spent their entire careers with one team.” And then, my inner Bill James jumped up and gruffly asked the question: “Wait, do you KNOW that great players don’t spend their entire car ..read more