Tag Archives: Literature

Going Viral (We Hope) with Keats Injured Playing Cricket

On this date (almost), a Great Poet recorded his failings in a late-winter, spring-training game of cricket. This would be March 19, 1819: 193 years, roughly 70,500 days (counting Leap Years like this one), or 1,692,000 hours ago for the … Continue reading

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Another Passing of a Sort: Tim Wakefield

Tim Wakefield, knuckleball (cricket fans: a specialty pitch, with the ball gripped not exactly by the knuckles but at the fingers’ edge, with an inward curl; the grip keeps the pitched ball from rotating so that it floats in an … Continue reading

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Gary Carter, Whitney Houston, Many Events

The past several days have witnessed a convergence of many events, unrelated perhaps, but like all things juxtaposed by fate, each gives to the other a different and new meaning. There were the untimely deaths of only the third New … Continue reading

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Equal Opportunity Sinners

Because cricket and baseball can be as ignoble as otherwise, this article by Rob Steen on whether cricket can learn a thing or two from baseball in stamping out match-fixing is worth a read. Steen skates over baseball’s less than … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens

It’s the prodigious writer’s bicentennial. And we at ROTB cannot think of a better way to celebrate than to read Chapter 7 of Pickwick Papers, where the Dingley Dell Cricket Club takes on All-Muggleton. And if that doesn’t baffle you, here’s … Continue reading

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“Ulysses” (at 90) Meets “Who’s on First?”

Ulysses, the 20th-century masterpiece by James Joyce (whose favorite cricket player was Arthur Shrewsbury, who had a striking resemblance, Joyce thought, to his Zurich-based artistic confidant, Frank Budgen), turns 90 today—if my (Evander’s) math is anywhere close to correct. Although … Continue reading

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Evander (Not Holyfield) Meets and Greets Baseball Players and Cricket Fans

The scene today was Fairfield, New Jersey, the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Route 46 East. I arrived with my pre-1974 Yankee Stadium seat to add some autographs and to promote Right Off the Bat. The Crowne Plaza was hosting a … Continue reading

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Prince Receives a Kingly Sum

The Detroit Tigers have added one big—in every way—bat by signing former Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder to the largest contract in franchise (Tigers) history. The son of Cecil “Big Daddy” (not the Tennessee Williams variety—from the Madeleine Sherwood … Continue reading

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The Overhaul of Fame

Since I (Evander) am always babbling (even occasionally in a coherent manner) about this subject, Martin has egged me on to comment further on The National Baseball Hall of Fame selection process: how to ensure only the greatest players are … Continue reading

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Explaining Cricket Stats: Part Two

As we noted in Explaining Cricket Stats: Part One, you can easily get lost in the thicket of statistics in either sport. (“You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy?” as James Joyce tries to calm his … Continue reading

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