New VIEWS

Hello Baseball Fans, Happy New MLB Season!!  It is mid-March and Opening Day 2025 is technically mere hours away!  The Chicago Cubs will ‘host’ the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan at 6:10 a.m. EST on the Tuesday and Wednesday mornings of March 18 and 19, respectively.  Following the fun across… Continue reading PLAY BALL 2025!

Hello Baseball Fans, Baseball statistics. When you read baseball statistics, whether it is the career total of a famed player or current in-season league stats, or when you look at projections for that Fantasy Baseball league draft (or mid-season free agent lists), have you wondered how to calibrate the players who do things at high… Continue reading S.O.P.S.

Hello Baseball Fans, Editor’s Note: all but the last few lines of this article (including the title) was written on Oct 6, 2023. Somehow it was lost in the VFTD files and was not posted in due time. Since ‘5’ is the subject, it was fitting that this was discovered on 5/25, 2024, thus the… Continue reading A CERTAIN KIND (OF) FIVE

Hello Baseball Fans, We are trying something quite a bit different here as far as formatting 2023 Post-Season predictions. For once, or at least not very often, we actually have predictions completed! And for a format, it is a one-shot complete 2023 Post-Season Bracket for playoffs and World Series. Regardless of the inevitable errors in… Continue reading 2023 Post-Season Picture

Hello Baseball Fans, Baseball has a very storied history within its leaders who have led the sport through times of war, depression, golden ages, and more. From Commissioner Kennesaw ‘Mountain’ Landis, who expelled the great ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson and his comrades from MLB, to Bowie Kuhn, who led the sport in 1970s as star outfielder… Continue reading IF I WERE COMMISH

Hello Baseball Fans, Well, a new year is upon us! In recognizing the date and impending activities of ringing in and celebrating 2023 over the next twenty-four plus hours, it dawned on us here at VFTD to complete a 2022 year-in-review of the Views. There is only one slight problem. While many great things happened… Continue reading ONE FROM 22

Hello Baseball Fans, Everyone here at the VFTD hopes you’re having a happy and merry holiday season and that you can ring in the new year with hope and a fresh outlook to the future! AND, if we are all so fortunate enough, there will soon be reason to be hopeful about the 2022 MLB… Continue reading ’21 AND DONE

Hello Baseball Fans, It is likely that we have all heard of Chicago Cubs shortstop Javier Baez. If you haven’t, tune in to a Cubs game and enjoy the show. He hits the long ball with the best of them, swings hard from both sides of the plate, and at times even strikeouts a bunch.… Continue reading BLACK & TAN

Hello Baseball Fans, It is officially spring time! That means our thirty big league teams are about to break training camp and head home for real games that count! And that means less favorable weather than the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues too, which adds some flavor at times. But that is a story for another… Continue reading G=1,252

Hello Baseball Fans, “Threes” was a left-handed pitcher. And could switch-hit. “Fours” was a right-handed slugger. And could anchor the field that is right of center. Threes was born in late spring of ’78. Fours retired from MLB in early fall of ’76. Threes was a longtime Blue Devil and Brewer throughout high school, college,… Continue reading LUCKY 7s: THREES & FOURS

Hello Baseball Fans, …..Along with Lincoln a.k.a. ‘The Ball Kid’, the entire crowd was in a dizzying frenzy to cheer on that very first pitch. The hometown Summertown Summoners were making their long-awaited ‘debut’ following a bus, train, and jet-lagged trip for an unprecedented fifteen game road trip where they visited their entire division’s home… Continue reading TOP OF THE FIRST INN-TRO

Hello Baseball Fans, What is a ball field? A ball field is many things. A ball field is the perfect diamond. The green grass. The reddish-brown clay. A ball field is the welcoming, yet protective wall. The chalk of the batter’s boxes. The perfectly straight foul lines. A ball field is the confined dugout. The… Continue reading BALL FIELD, BALL PLAYER, & BALL KID

Hello Baseball Fans, Here’s a HOT item to kick off the new year, decade, and ensuing season! Have you ever seen the great film biopic about Johnny Cash called “Walk The Line”? If not, you should check it out. But whether you have or haven’t, a perceived lesson early in Cash’s career can be applied… Continue reading “DON’T TOUCH IT”

Hello Baseball Fans, We’d like to announce that Fall is officially here. ‘The Classic’ is upon us. The 2019 Regular Season ended what seems like months ago. October baseball has grabbed the headlines. Milwaukee traveled to our nation’s capital to take on the Nationals and went back north disappointed. Washington wiped out the the two-time… Continue reading AN EVEN NINETY-NINE

Hello Baseball Fans, When you really think about it, baseball is a most unique and complex kids’ game. The baseball field has alternating patches and strips of grass and dirt. None of the fields even have the same dimensions, which prompts ‘ground rules’ at every park. The players’ bench is below field level, yet designed… Continue reading 19 STARTING IN ’19