Kindred Blue
Baseball lore, columns, videos, comedy, poetry,
photos, history, a dab of Dodgers and more.
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Ron Sokol, longtime columnist, author, and baseball aficionado, tries to keep the hits coming every week. Follow Ron on Twitter at @kindredblue1.
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SOME VINTAGE VIN SCULLY, THE LYRICAL POET OF BASEBALL
KINDRED BLUE RECENT BLOGS
WRIGLEY FIELD, IF THESE BLEACHERS WOULD TALK
Let me take your down cuz I'm going to... Wrigley Field.... Everything is real, and baseball to get up about. Wrigley Field for ever... Yes, I paraphrased a famous song, but it is so hard to know all what to say about Wrigley Field. At the end of this article I ask...
TOO ERR IS HUMAN, TO UMPIRE DIVINE
Technology and Major League Baseball are waltzing together. The radar gun. Instant replay Pitch graphics. Doppler radar. Every single MLB stadium is equipped with triangulated tracing cameras that follow the ball from the pitcher's hand until it crosses home...
WE WUZ ROBBED!!!
Thank you to Skip Collinge who posted this on Say What!! Baseball Oddities and let me borrow it here. My reply to this: Amen! I was so looking forward to the Yankee Series this weekend. Dodgers- Yankees is all about history and tradition. Look at these pictures-...
EARNED SWAGGER (or, another reason I love baseball)
He's not classically good looking. He isn't exactly charismatic. He is kind of built like a gnome (no offense to him or gnomes). I mean, his nick name is Funky. He came up to the majors in 2015 with the Oakland Athletics, and in 45 games hit all of 206. He had 31...
BASEBALL, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
"War, good God, what is it good for? Absolutely nuthin! Say it again..." Now, that's a well-known song from awhile ago. Given all the complaints I am hearing and reading, and the analyses, that very refrain could apply to the great (or once) national past time,...
SLUMPS, AND WHY YOU MUST NEVER GIVE UP!
The Rolling Stones have a rather well known song, that has been popular for many years: "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". Here is a a particular refrain: "When I'm ridin' round the world And I'm doin' this and I'm signin' that And I'm tryin' to make some girl Who tells...
BASEBALL: TO LIST OR NOT TO LIST
Let me ask: Do you keep lists? Would you have a list that tells you where to find the list you were working on the other day? Is that called "listing"? Are you checking your list twice, or is that just for Santa to do? Major league baseball has lists, and I am not...
DID YOU KNOW THAT HITTING IS ROCKET SCIENCE?
Ty Cobb wrote a pamphlet entitled "Science of Batting", published by no less than the Louisville Slugger Company (Hillerich & Bradsby Co., Inc., to be exact). It has topics that range from the bat grip, to the body position and stance, to the psychology of...
BULL PEN?
You come out of the bull pen, you may be asked to get the team out of a jam. Or you may be asked to keep it close, or keep the team ahead. You may indeed be the closer, who is such a key, critical part of the equation. And, the situation you walk, jog or skip into...
I’VE BEEN TRADED?
Is it like being told you are going to be stationed overseas? Perhaps in a place where there's a risk of harm to your person? And, you don't really know even when you'll be back? Or, worse yet, if? Reminds you of a divorce? "Ok, pack your things, and get out!" "Or,...
SOMETIMES IT’S HARD TO FOCUS ON THE GAME
Four photos at the ball park the other evening, over the course of a few innings. The game was of interest, don't get me wrong, but I kept looking at the sky. Not sure just what I was looking for out there, but my buddy next to me was talking, and I don't recall much...
WHEN THE CLOSER IMPLODES
Should there be even the slightest resemblance to anyone alive or no longer alive, it is purely coincidental. And now the poem: The wheels came off and rolled up to the plate the throw at home was far too late "We pay him so much just to save the game, but he blew the...
FACELIFT
I have not had any "work" done. Oh, I could sure use it, but hey, time does what it does. Over the next year, or thereabouts, the ballpark in Los Angeles where the Dodgers play (the Doyers some would say) is getting a $100 million face lift. I cut and pasted the...
MATT-GICIAN
Do you believe in magic? That's a wonderful song from, oh, a few years back, but it is about magic "in a young girl's heart..." This is a bit different. First, you may not have heard of Matt Beaty, or not heard much. He is 26, just up from the minors this year, on...