By: William Robinson
Welcome to my 25th post for the baseball blog 9 Inning Know It All. I have been writing for this blog since 2015 and during that time I have seen a lot of turmoil in my life. I have moved to Atlanta (a city with an MLB team), had my third daughter, and honestly have changed both physically and mentally as the result of everything that I have endured. During that period of time one thing that I have learned is that from time to time it’s good to be introspective and to look back on not only the things you have done but also the way you have thought. What better way is there to look back on the way you have thought then by going through your blog entries? So today my blog is discussing my 5 most favorite blogs that I have written during that time period and also my least favorite as well. I’ll also spend some time at the end of the blog looking ahead to future seasons and stuff that I may or may not be writing about in the future.
1) What Baseball Means to Me (Feb 2015)
My favorite blog that I have written was the one that I wrote about what baseball meant to me. It’s no secret that during these past three years I have had a lot of turmoil with my family. Where I once had spoken to my brothers several times weekly, I now haven’t spoken to them in two years. This blog was written in February of 2015 before that change happened in my life and as such it’s a time capsule to the way that I was before. In this blog I write about my father and the relationship that I had with him and how that tied into baseball and more specifically baseball cards. I idolized him and thought that this man couldn’t do any wrong in his life. Now I look back and see how childish that feeling truly was and that how he truly hadn’t prepared me and my brothers for the hardships that would come in life before he passed away. Now I’m not going to demonize this man because he truly did the best that he could, but the idea that he was perfect is hardly accurate.
I understand that this appears quite negative now and that if I feel negatively about him you must wonder why this must be my favorite post. It’s my favorite post because the blog is filled with hope. I talk about losing touch with baseball during my time in medical school and in the years after my father died. I talk about my love for my brothers and my love for collecting and it gives me hope that maybe one day. Just like my relationship with baseball and baseball card collecting that one day after some time has passed perhaps my relationship with my brothers will also be repaired. I understand that this is unlikely but still where there is love there is hope and everyone can change.
2) Why Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson Deserve National Holidays (Nov 2016)
It’s amazing how much over the last two years things have changed. It feels like the racial tensions in this country are at a high unlike anything that I have ever seen in my lifetime. There are shootings in churches, bombs are being sent to politicians, and the blatant racism is unabashedly out in the open. It’s easy to get down thinking about how things are but let’s be honest this is nothing compared to the hatred and vitriol that these two heroes faced in their lifetimes. I look at this blog and am reminded about how these two heroes and the many other heroes that integrated baseball faced down this hatred before and won the day. It gives me hope that we too can win this day. We just have to continue to fight for what is right, just like Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson. For as Martin Luther King Jr. Once said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
3) What’s Good for Baseball (May 2016)
In this post I go through my arguments for an electronic strike zone, more days to celebrate integration in baseball, a women’s professional baseball league, and doing away with the “unwritten code”. Wow, this article looks even better today. After a season in which more and more articles are devoted to how silly this outdated code looks, I look back and see that I’m on the right side of history with this one. This article still deals with a lot of the things that I strongly believe in today. Major league baseball is better with less human error. An electronic strike zone would speed up the game, it would eliminate arguments with home plate umpires, it would eliminate many of the ejections of superstars and it would standardize the strike zone making hitting and pitching better and remove any and all doubt that an umpire is “throwing the game for one team or another”. Getting rid of the code and allowing more players to show their personalities without fear of retaliation would be good for the game. It would improve marketing and would keep baseball on the lips of the media. It would also cut down on injuries to superstars that are being intentionally hit by pitches. Also having a professional baseball league for women would encourage women to follow the sport and open up a whole new demographic for the game.
4) Adopting a Baseball Team (March 2016)
My fourth favorite post is the one that I wrote right after moving to Atlanta. I love this post because of how much I love having moved to Atlanta. It’s been so good for both me and my family. My career has taken off here and finally I have a place that I work that I love and people that I love to work with. My daughters have amazing schools to go to and things to do anytime they choose, and my wife has blossomed into a whole new woman here. This city has reinvigorated me and has made me a better person and so looking back on this blog makes me feel good. I love Atlanta and I now love my Atlanta Braves. This was the first time in my life that I have lived in a major league baseball city and I have taken to it very well. The Braves are now my team and I live and breathe Atlanta Braves baseball.
5) The Case for Larry Walker (Nov 2015)
I will champion Larry Walker’s case for the hall of fame until my dying day. Larry Walker is a slam dunk hall of famer in my opinion, but for some reason because he played in Colorado, he’s getting the shaft. I’m using this blog as yet another opportunity to hype up my man Larry Walker. Larry was a great baseball player. His career OPS was .965!!! Now I realize that he played in Coors Field, but he also played for the Cardinals and Expos and during those years he was still an amazing player and his numbers during those years were not enough to bring down his career numbers enough to take him out of running for the Hall. He did not use PED’s and was a great fielder as well earning 7 Gold Gloves in the outfield. So why not vote him in? Maybe he’ll start to get some love before his name drops off the ballot.
Finally, my least favorite blog that I have written was my predictions for the 2018 season. I did horribly last year. I foolishly predicted that the White Sox would make the playoffs and thought that the Brewers weren’t going to make the playoffs either. I predicted a herculean season from Aaron Judge and missed out the World Series champion by predicting the Astros. My prognostication abilities truly were terrible this year and I feel somewhat embarrassed by how bad they truly were.
I love writing for this blog. Maybe not secretly but I’ve always hoped that one day when I retire from medicine that I could have a baseball card or antique shop and spend my days chatting about the sport that I love. So, this blog gives me a little bit of an opportunity to do that on a schedule that fits in with my work. Looking ahead to the future I definitely can see some sort of article relating to Bryce Harper and Manny Machado and their free agent choices. Because honestly who knows where they will end up. I hope to one day write an article about the world series winning Braves and I fear that I’ll write one about another baseball strike. But no matter what I’m writing about baseball will still be the greatest sport on this planet and I will be thankful that I’m getting the chance to write about it. Thank you 9 Inning Know It All and thank you to all the people who have read my blog. Now Play Ball!
William’s Most Viewed Posts
1) Baseball Card Collecting: High End Cards vs Set Building (April 2015)
2) What Baseball Means to Me (Feb 2015)
3) The Case for Larry Walker (Nov 2015)
4) Alex Rodriguez, Prince Fielder and Two Different Types of Retirement (Aug 2016)
5) The Case for Manny Ramirez (Dec 2016)
6) Hope Springs Eternal (Feb 2017)
7) Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson Deserve National Holidays (Nov 2016)
8) The Case for Don Mattingly (Nov 2017)
9) Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio? (Sept 2018)