Six Days Until Pitchers and Catchers

Joy, chocolate footballs, billionaires, and the things we might do differently

Six days until pitchers and catchers report. Here’s your daily splash of joy.

Why do you love baseball?

Brilliant Reader Frank: “Taking my father and daughter to games; Dad and I together showing her why we love the game.”

Brilliant Reader Jim: “Two on, nobody out in the bottom of the ninth, down by a run — and a game that seemed over is now very much in play.”

Brilliant Reader Joe: “Roberto Clemente — his play in right field, his arm and how nobody challenged him. And exactly 3,000 hits before his heroic death.” (JP: It should have been more, of course. But Joe is right. Three thousand hits is a perfect number for the perfect player.)

Brilliant Reader Matthew: Bryan Shaw is officially listed as a switch-hitter. He never had a plate appearance.

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Opening Cards for ALS

It really is amazing that this preposterously silly idea Mike Schur and I had a few years ago to open baseball cards on the PosCast — and somehow do it so that we could raise money for ALS research and care — has raised almost $300,000 for the amazing people at the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig AL(C)S Center at Columbia, Project Main Street and, now, Team Gleason. Mike might make some pretty good television shows, and I’ve written a few books, but it’s very clear that our true superpower is getting people to give us excuses to do stuff that we like doing.

I mean, Mike called me up one day and said, “We should travel around the world and go to cool stuff and write about what it means to be a fan.” And Dutton Publishing was like, “Sure, we’ll pay you to do that.” BIG FAN comes out May 19! Preorder signed copies now! We’ll be announcing tour dates by the end of the month.

But raising money for these amazing charities by opening up baseball cards — which is just something we would have done anyway — I mean, that’s next-level stuff. We can’t thank you enough. Already this year, we’ve raised more than $30,000 for Team Gleason, and we’ve still got more podcasts to come. This week’s PosCast is with Tom Haberstroh, and he’s incredible as always.

Next week, we open 1974 Topps cards with … Bob Costas!

“Hey Skitch,” Lenny says in That Thing You Do, “how did we get here?”

The way this works is simple enough: Donate over at Team Gleason, tell us your favorite team or player or whatever you like. You will automatically be entered in a drawing; at the end we’ll put together (I say we, but it’s mostly Mike) gigantic boxes filled with the coolest stuff imaginable. Your favorite cards! Autographed books! Strat-o-Matic games. Merch. Prizes galore.* Mike always goes WAY over the top when putting these boxes together. That’s why it always takes us so long to get them out.

But we do always get it out, and I promise you will not be disappointed.

*Brilliant Reader James just sent in an amazing prize; it’s a 2012 Topps Tribute Lou Gehrig World Series Gold Game Used Bat 17/25. I might just buy this card myself by donating $500 to Team Gleason, it’s so awesome. If you want to outbid me, have at it!

The more I learn about Team Gleason and the ways that they improve the lives of people with ALS, the more awed I feel to be able to help in small ways. When you look around, it’s sometimes hard to feel hope. But Buck O’Neil always said that there are more good people than bad, many more helpers than hurters, and I believe that.

Here’s Steve Gleason:

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A Chocolate Football for the Super Bowl

You never know what you’re going to find at Costco. I suppose that’s the wonder of Costco. I mean, sure, you’ll always find mayonnaise jars large enough to be vacation homes and free samples of stuff made with chickpea (I’m allergic to chickpea, so I know this for a fact). But surprises abound, and last week we found one of those surprises.

It’s this preposterously realistic-looking football made out of chocolate.

I don’t care all that much about this year’s Super Bowl. I suppose I’m rooting against Robert Kraft because that seems kind of fun*, but I don’t have any real skin in the game. I like Drake Maye a lot. He grew up a couple of miles from here.

Anyway, while I don’t care about the Super Bowl specifically, sure, I’m not immune from the Super Bowl as a national holiday, so we bought the chocolate football.

*OK, time for an old-fashioned Posterisk where I disappear into a side thought.

As I was writing this, The Athletic broke the story that Robert Kraft — like Bill Belichick — will not get elected into the Hall of Fame this year. As I have written, this is probably not a statement at all but is instead due to a dumb math error that the Hall of Fame made. They created a system that all but guaranteed at least some snubs. I suspect SOMEBODY in their veteran class will get elected, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if nobody does.

But Kraft’s snubbing leads to this opinion that I’ve been building:

I think all owners — ALL OWNERS — should be removed from all Halls of Fame and none should ever be elected again.

I don’t say that because I dislike sports owners. I just don’t think you should be able to buy your way into a Hall of Fame. I realize that this is naive, and that almost all Hall of Fames only exist because people bought their way in. But still …

Robert Kraft might be a fantastic sports owner — meaning he’s willing to spend some of his billions to win. Good for him. For that he gets countless gifts showered on him. Trophies! Adulation! Riches! They hand the Super Bowl trophy to him FIRST for crying out loud. He doesn’t need to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame for spending money on people who play football really well.

The Hall of Fame should be for the people who played the game, who coached the game, who made the game better.

True, if you throw out all owners, you’ll lose some good ones like Bill Veeck. So it goes. I think owners should be able to qualify for the Hall of Fame in other capacities — so, for instance, Lamar Hunt should still be in the Hall of Fame for founding the AFL and Branch Rickey should be in the Hall of Fame for inventing the minor leagues and signing Jackie Robinson.

But for being an owner? No.

I’ve written many times about how absurd it is that Tom Yawkey is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He wasn’t even a good owner. But this Robert Kraft thing reminds me — it’s an abomination that someone like Walter O’Malley is in the Hall of Fame.

On his plaque it says:

“An influential and visionary owner who inspired baseball’s move west in 1957.”

So he goes to the Hall of Fame for tearing the Dodgers out of Brooklyn in a shameless money grab? The money wasn’t enough? Owning Dodger Stadium (and all the pain that caused) wasn’t enough? He deserves to be honored for making himself rich beyond imagination?

All owners out of all Halls of Fame.

RIP The Washington Post

The Washington Post announced on Wednesday that they’re basically closing down one of the greatest sports sections in American history. And, just for fun, the man who began his run to gajillionaire by selling books is also shutting down the book section. I mean, why not? Irony is dead at this point.

As I wrote the other day, the Washington Post sports section — the section of Wilbon, Kornheiser, Povich, Boswell, Jenkins, Solomon, Feinstein, Kindred, Culpepper, Leavy, Clarke, Svrluga, Sheinin on and on and on and on — was the best of the best. It was an inspiration for every kid who ever got into this crazy business.

To shut it down over money?

When all you have is money?

I just don’t get it. I really don’t. I don’t long for billions of dollars, but I do sometimes think about it, and do you know what I’d do besides all the obvious philanthropic stuff?

• I’d buy Sports Illustrated and return it to glory.

• I’d buy the Washington Post and build one helluva sports section.

• I’d pick a different town every week and make takeout food free for a day.

• I’d pay off every library fine in America.

• I’d buy scorecards and those awesome little pencils for every ballpark in America.

• I’d pay off all ticketing fees.

• I’d make coffee free at airports before 10 a.m.

• I’d buy every closed down movie theater in America, refurbish them, and make them single screen temples — with special events too.

• I’d make every national park free. And Mason Via’s wonderful See it While You Can would be my official song.

• I’d make sure that every kid at their first big league ballgame got a ball, a program, a hat and an autograph.

Think how much fun that would be! Seriously, it would be the best. I’d say all of that would probably cost me $4 or $5 billion up front, maybe another $2 billion each year. A drop in the bucket for the guy who just euthanized the Post.

I’ll never understand why billionaires wouldn’t have more fun with their money.*

*For fun, why not put one thing you would do if you were a billionaire in the comments. I’m looking for fun stuff, but I’d also like it to be something you really could do if you were worth, say, $50 billion.

Great Songs With Long Titles

Richard Waite, who prefers to not have his Bluesky posts shared publicly, asked a fantastic question:

What’s your favorite song that has a long title, say at least six words long?

He suggests Pearl Jam’s “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” which is indeed a fantastic song.

There are some obvious ones. The Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want feels like the classic of the genre.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is) In by Kenny Rogers was absolutely fantastic (and uses parentheses beautifully) even before it appeared in Big Lebowski.

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic … Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want … Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again … You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) … there are so many good ones.

But one song jumped to my brain immediately, and I had not heard it in years, and when I went back and listened it took me back to being young. I’ve been downhearted, baby!

I love this song so much. So so much. Everything about it. But especially this couplet:

Ma Theresa’s joined the mob

And happy with her full-time job