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I will be appearing on WJLA’s News Channel 8 this Friday evening, July 3 (8-9 p.m.) on their SportsTalk show with Glenn Harris. The information to call or send email questions is below. If you can watch and call in, please do. If not, please email a question. It’d be great if the show gets more questions about the book than they have time for me to answer.

I am thrilled to announce that I will be making three appearances to sign and discuss my book, A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators. Here’s the information and links. Mark your calendars!

In April, Pocol Press published my first book, “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators.” So far, I have one confirmed appearance to speak about and sign books. As part of the local chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), termed the Bob Davids chapter in honor of SABR’s first and one of its finest founding members, I will appear at Brighton Gardens  at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 11, 2009. Here is a link to the notice:

My book, “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators” is now in print and available for purchase! The ISBN number is 978-1-929763-38-2

The publisher, Pocol Press informed me today, that my book “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators” has been sent to the printer. It should be available in three weeks. If you would like to read an insightful, heartwarming remembrance of the best baseball team to grace Washington, D.C. for the past 50 years, you’ll enjoy this book.  Feel free to spread the word!

The announcement today that the Nationals signed free agent Adam Dunn to a 2-year contract evoked a variety of responses. Here’s the two expressed most often:

The president of the Washington Nationals Fan Club quotes ESPN’s Bill Simmons as saying “”People in DC do not
care about that team. At all.”

This spring, Pocol Press (www.pocolpress.com) will publish my book on the 1969 Senators. The title is “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators”. Below is information if you would like to pre-order.

I love retrosheet’s (retrosheet.org) feature that shows how a hitter performed against every pitcher they faced in their career and vice-versa. I wanted to see how some well-known players from our two nearby major league baseball teams performed against other players, each other, and each other’s teams in 1969, my favorite baseball season, mainly because of the Senators’ unlikely and wonderful 86-win season.

I much prefer watching, following and discussing baseball to football (I am a Redskins fan suffering under our current Synderian reign of incompetence), but I’ve recognized an unmistakable trend in this season’s NFL Play-offs. Have you?

Here’s some details on the pictures on the 2nd page of our annual family Christmas letter:

Column 1 (from top to bottom on the page):

The past week, Christian Guzman earned National League co-player of the week honors for his amazing display of hitting that led the Washington Nationals to an 8-1 home stand. Guzman turned in multi-hit games for seven consecutive contests.  The last baseball player in Washington to achieve that feat? Hank Allen, April 15 to April 26, 1969. You can look it up on the wonderful site www.retrosheet.org.

One of the best baseball sites on the web is Retrosheet (www.retrosheet.org). They have play by play accounts and box scores of every major league game from 1954 – 2007 (excluding 1955). The data they’ve collected has allowed them to add lots of features. One of the best is data on how a batter or pitcher performed against his counterparts. At the click of a mouse, you can see who your favorite player wore out and who he couldn’t touch.

People mistakenly dismiss the men who played for the Washington Senators as losers, but a close look at the careers of the 1969 Senators reveals the opposite. Twelve of Ted Williams’ men, albeit with other teams, participated in post-season play.

For Washington baseball fans old enough to remember or wise enough to study the rich baseball history of the nation’s capital, the 1969 Senators hold a special place. Until the Nationals win their 82nd game in a season (let’s hope it’s in 2008), they remain the last team in Washington to play better than .500 baseball.

Forty years ago, baseball players rarely attended college, fewer earned their degrees, almost none earned advanced degrees. College boys just didn’t make it in baseball at a time when fewer than 50% attended higher education.

A baseball team’s bench, especially in the National League, can help a team win several games. In years past, the Washington Nationals bench has been filled with marginal major league players, has-beens, or never-weres. This year, 2008, is completely different. With a current bench of Willie Harris, Felipe Lopez, Dmitri Young, Jesus Flores, Rob Mackowiak and Aaron Boone, the Nationals have their best bench since they began playing in Washington. Throw in Johnny Estrada, Elijah Dukes and Wily Mo Pena, all now on the DL, and you have unprecedented depth. It’s a feather in Jim Bowden’s cap — and let me make it clear now I’d much prefer Mike Rizzo as the team’s GM, Bowden’s arrogance and lack of emphasis on on-base percentage drive me crazy — that he’s been able to build this strong a bench with almost nothing to trade and little to no free agent money to burn.

Before we examine the NL East managers and benches, I want to take the time to savor the pending opening of Nationals Park, the Washington Nationals new ballpark, scheduled to host its first regular season game this Sunday, March 30, 2008. The stadium looks breathtaking, poised to become a beautiful Washington landmark. I want to sit back, sigh and say “ahhh” thinking of the joyful summer nights there with my friends and family.

After a brief hiatus, let’s return to the breakdown of the NL East. Today, we’ll examine each team’s bullpen and rank them. In 2007, it’s not a stretch to say the Nationals’ bullpen saved their season. They logged more innings than any other team in the division, as the Nats’ patchwork starting rotation usually struggled. They likely will have to turn in a similar performance in 2008, especially if John Patterson and Shawn Hill, as they usually do, struggle to stay healthy. So, let’s look at the bullpens.

A few years ago, I wrote this short vision of what a new baseball stadium in Washington might look like for Nats News, the quarterly newsletter the Washington Baseball Historical Society (WBHS) publishes. A lot of this has come to pass, more awaits in the future. The statues of Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson and Frank Howard will be in place next season.