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Yosh Kawano and Japanese American Baseball

“He became an icon. I don’t know how many clubbies can say that.” -Ryne Sandberg on Yosh Kawano Many of us who have attended a game at Wrigley Field have spent several moments admiring the flags flapping in the breeze and breathing in the smell of history emanating from every nook and cranny. We can […]

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Spahn and Sain: Cubs Rained Out in Colorado

The Cubs played 18 innings of baseball yesterday, and they’re playing zero tonight. Tomorrow they’ll play (at least) 18 innings again. This schedule is a bold new direction for baseball—one that really gives those pace of play arguments more weight. Obviously, this is a seriously well-timed rainout, of the kind that fans of Spahn and […]

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Eric Karros’ Big Day Against the Yankees in 2003

Interleague play was first introduced as a regular season indulgence in 1997, and some purists—including yours truly—never came around on the novelty. This skepticism was helped by having an American League team on the other side of Chicago; the argument of “seeing players you normally wouldn’t” always rang hollow. And, with the rapid development and growth […]

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Starlin Waiting In the Sky

There was really no way Starlin could win. He was called up to a simply awful Cubs team, and fans needed something, anything to feel good about. Even if it was this incredibly young, incredibly raw, incredibly rushed through the system  talent. Obviously, his debut game only made things worse in the end, kind of […]

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Starlin Castro Symbolized the In-Between

Starlin Castro makes his return to Wrigley Field this afternoon, last playing in the Confines in the lamentable fourth game of the 2015 NLCS, when the wind had just about entirely been let out of the surprise 97-win season. I have written elsewhere that to be traded away from a team so on the cusp of such […]