When Mickey Callaway oversees his first pitchers and catchers workout on Valentine’s Day, he’ll be the youngest Mets manager to open spring training since Davey Johnson, who was 41 at the start of his first camp in 1984. Callaway, who’ll…
The benefit of being a low-level packrat (it’s not like you can’t walk through rooms in my house or the basement, which is my Dan Cave) is that I’ll occasionally come across things from my childhood that spark a…
The folks up at Skylands Stadium in Sussex County have found a festive way to keep people coming to the ballpark in winter: A mile-long Christmas light show consisting of more than 2 million lights. My wife and I went…
Last weekend, a 100-year-old piece of Clifton history had a moment. Clifton is my adopted hometown. Like Yogi Berra, I’ve settled in northern New Jersey, not too far from New York City. (That Berra came from St. Louis and…
Some years ago, I searched and tracked each team’s selection for the season-opening logos they decided to paint onto the field for the first games of the season. MLB provides three choices, and it seems the teams decide which…
To no one’s surprise, Noah Syndergaard will be the Mets’ Opening Day starter this year. What I find more significant is that he’s the seventh different pitcher to start the first game in the last seven seasons, a record for the…
Bill McKechnie, a Hall of Famer manager who won World Series with the Pirates and Reds and had two other Fall Classic appearances (guiding the Cardinals and Reds), had long been remembered with his name on a ballpark. The Pirates’…
Sometime during the first week of April, Bartolo Colon will begin his 20th season in the Major Leagues. Then, somewhere around his ninth or 10th start (based on his outings last year), he’ll turn 44 years old (his birthday is…
I saw the Andy Marte news first. I was having a quiet Sunday morning, reading The New York Times and Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, my phone silent and face-down on a table next to me. When I picked it up, an…