Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'baseball'

Grudge Match

February 14th, 2013 · Comments Off on Grudge Match

When Senator Warren B. Rudman recently passed, I was struck by the concluding section of his New York Times obituary, which contained an anecdote that attested to his stubbornness: Mr. Rudman feuded with his alma mater long after he had left its campus. In 1952, Syracuse University withheld his bachelor’s diploma because he had refused […]

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The Micronesian Olympics

October 10th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Micronesian Olympics

The Micronesian Olympics—now known as the Micronesian Games for copyright reasons—were first held in 1969. As these photographs attest, the athletes competed in front of crowds that numbered in the dozens or even less. Yet those first Olympics still occupy a cherished place in the memories of Micronesian sports fans, particularly those whose tastes run […]

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Personal Incentives

April 5th, 2012 · Comments Off on Personal Incentives

Continuing on with our semi-regular practice of shouting out old Sports Illustrated stories that have stuck in our mind, I’d like to call your attention to this “Where Are They Now?” piece about the fabled Steve Dalkowski—a man who recently popped to mind when news of Ryan Leaf’s latest travails broke wide. The thumbnail sketch […]

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The Forgetting

October 27th, 2010 · 5 Comments

I’ve been dealing with some mega writer’s block these past few days, which has got me wondering whether it’s possible for someone to spontaneously lose their most well-developed skills. That’s obviously true in the athletic realm, where the dreaded Steve Blass Disease has ended more than a few baseball careers. The problem with such vexed […]

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For the Glory of the Company

April 9th, 2010 · Comments Off on For the Glory of the Company

In the midst of researching a forthcoming post on the economics of sports bribery, we’ve been learning a heckuva lot about the backstory on Shoeless Joe Jackson, the baseball great whose legacy is tarnished by the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. We dig the fact that Jackson was a linthead who spent his childhood working […]

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Why Bookkeepers Don’t Rule the World

October 14th, 2009 · 4 Comments

In reading about the recent discovery of an undated film featuring Babe Ruth, we took notice of one of the clues that could yield the clip’s day or origin: Two college professors separately proposed using the shadows of the flag poles (seen on the field) to determine the position of the sun and, with some […]

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It Was a Different Era…

June 12th, 2009 · 3 Comments

The response to yesterday’s post on smoking ballerinas got us thinking about other examples of folks who make their livings with their bodies, yet continue to puff away. And that train of thought inevitably led us to Phillies great Dick Allen, whose between-innings habit would never fly today. Then again, it’s unclear to us whether […]

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