Category Archives: Baseball
Gil Hodges Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th December 2021Gil Hodges (1924-72) was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this month. This overdue honor makes him the fifth member of The Boys of Summer ensconced in the Cooperstown hall. I would have written shrine, but Walter O’Malley’s also there. The other four are Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, and…
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The Brooklyn Dodgers – A Personal Reminiscence
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th July 2015Below is a PowerPoint Presentation from a talk I gave today to the Lubbock Roundtable. It deals with the random nature of baseball – much more so than any other sport. It than discusses the Brooklyn Dodgers of the years 1947-56, the Jackie Robinson Years. It presents the key Dodger players of the time with…
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In Search of the Random
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th October 2014Baseball’s annual encounter with randomness is well underway. I’ve already written about this – here and here. But the baseball playoffs allow revisiting the topic. Baseball is a sport where the best team loses almost as many games as it wins. Thus, a very large sample size is required to determine which team is the…
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Jackie Robinson and 42
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th May 2013I went to see the new movie about Jackie Robinson with reluctance and trepidation. Robinson was the hero of my youth. I remember his first season in Brooklyn vividly. He was an athletic hero who really was a hero. I was worried that Hollywood would mess up his story. The film focuses on Robinson’s signing by Branch…
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Why the Baseball Playoffs are an Elaborate Coin Toss
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th October 2011Consider this: According to Elias, out of the 52 best-of-seven series in baseball history to be tied 2-2 after four games, as this one was, the winner of Game 5 went on to win the series 36 times, or 69 percent of the time… The author of this insight got paid for making it. A while…
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Duke Snider – RIP
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th February 2011Duke Snider, one of my boyhood heroes died today; he was 84. I’ve already written about him and the rest of the Brooklyn Dodgers – here. One of the great players on a great team. He was a power hitter who fielded with grace. He played on a team that was from another world. Professional…
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Baseball Hall of Fame Permanently Contaminated
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th August 2008Walter O’Malley was recently inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. If you grew up in Brooklyn when the Brooklyn Dodgers were still there as I did there is no worse villain than Walter O’Malley. O’Malley’s election to baseball’s Hall of Fame is as apposite as the Pope bestowing sainthood on Vladimir Putin. If you ask…
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