Emptying the Baseball Brain

Hey Everyone —

I appreciate all the people who have reached out to guess what my next book is about … and I can confirm today that it is not “The Fountain Pen 100,” or “100 Lessons Duane Kuiper Taught Me,” or “100 reasons why peanut M&Ms are better than regular M&Ms” or “The Zack Greinke 100.” All these books are on the future list, obviously. But not this time. I promise the announcement is coming very soon — I’ve been back and forth with Publisher John to schedule the big reveal. I am so excited to share.

In the meantime, please feel free to keep the guesses coming (though if you KNOW I’d ask you not to spoil the surprise).

And in honor of those guesses — almost all of which have included the number 100 — today I’ll give you 100 random thoughts, mostly about baseball.

First, two quick announcements. The Diamond King, the movie I co-wrote about baseball artist Dick Perez, is now available on Tubi for free (yes, with ads — but still free!). I think you’ll get a kick out of it, especially if you remember collecting those old Donruss Diamond Kings cards that Dick painted.

Second, I’ll be releasing my next PDF on Monday (I hope) — last month, I released Just Sittin’ Round Here Trying’ to Write This Book — a collection of stories I wrote through the years about Bruce Springsteen. You can purchase that for $10 (or, if you’re a free reader, you can get it absolutely free by upgrading).

The next one is called “The Last At-Bat,” and here’s the cover designed by our daughter Katie! Cool, right?

OK, let’s get on with the show.

Our pal Molly Knight has written her 30 thoughts on 30 teams, and it’s excellent, all Molly things are, but I figure, if she’s giving us 30 thoughts on baseball, I have to give 100 random thoughts on everything. What choice do I have?

1) Pal Linda Holmes has this idea that once teams score 10 runs in a game, they should be allowed to bank runs to use for future games. She has a whole system, which I’m sure she will be happy to share with you, but it’s perfectly joyful, Linda. And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that her Phillies scored 13 runs on June 27, then averaged 3.4 runs per game for the next 10, then scored 13 runs on Wednesday.

2) Mike Trout banged two home runs Wednesday, and he’s now six away from 400. We thought he’d be at 500 by now but, well, we all know the Trout story. I was thinking about this: As the 2017 season began, Trout had a 164-homer lead on Aaron Judge. Now, Judge is just 55 homers behind and gaining.

3) Mookie Betts is hitting .188 in the last month, and I don’t want to live in a world where Mookie Betts is hitting .188. I just don’t think he’s ever been healthy. He is playing a good shortstop, though.

4) Novak Djokovic remains a warlock. He’s just so impossibly good at tennis that even as his skills diminish, he can outhink, outwork, and outplay almost anybody in the world. There are, I think, only two players immune to his witchcraft. Unfortunately for us Djoker fans, one of those players is Jannik Sinner, who he plays Friday in the Wimbledon semifinal. We’ll be watching!

5) New baseball sensation Jacob Misiorowski — who Molly insists we call Les Miz — is 6-foot-7 with a 102 mph fastball … and he was taken in the second round of the 2022 draft. Why? How? I guess it’s partly because he was barely noticed in high school, and then he went to play baseball at Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri. Also, there have been worries about his control and that his pitching motion will not hold up to a lot of innings (there was talk of moving him to the bullpen). It’s too early to say how he will turn out, obviously, but he sure looked good whiffing a dozen Dodgers on Tuesday.

6) The other day, our daughter Katie found some money that someone had given her. She promptly went up to each of her parents and said, “Can you please buy my money?” She has no idea what to do with cash. Phone booths would have melted her brain.

7) I can’t get over how good a year the Dodgers’ Will Smith is having, while almost nobody notices. He’s hitting .324/.430/.548! He actually leads the league in on-base percentage, which is crazy because Juan Soto is in this league.

8) I’ve been thinking about this: Which player in baseball would get the most back in trade value? This is obviously a very different question than “Who is the best player in baseball?” because you have to consider the players’ age, the players’ contract status, etc. My first thought is …