Field of Dreams: There is Only One First Time
Category Archives: Mike Marando
All-Star Pageantry And Gimmicks Yield Mixed Results
MLB may have finally evolved the All-Star Game to the point where it no longer knows what it is for. The ceremony is lavish, the staging immaculate, the production values high enough to make an emperor blush. But beneath the glitter, the game itself can feel like an afterthought, a moving backdrop for the spectacle that surrounds it. P.T. Barnum would have admired the scale. I’m not sure he would have loved the baseball.
Read moreThe Bloom Is Off Baseball’s All-Star Game
I remember racing home to see the 1968 game and watching Don Drysdale pitch three innings of one-hit baseball. The Great Juan Marichal followed that up with two innings of high-leg-kick mastery. And 1976, during his unforgettable Cinderella season, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych earned the start for the American League All-Stars—a moment that captured the rise of a pitcher unlike anything baseball had seen before or since. It felt real. It was real.
Read moreHey, Dirt Cam. Nobody Likes You. Go Away Now.
Even when it behaves, the DirtCam is hardly essential viewing. Its grand contribution might have been today and will likely wind up on late-night TV. But the thing typically offers only a shaky, dirt-level angle that adds little insight and occasionally gets coated in a face full of infield spray.
Read moreMLB Whiffs with Latest Proposal to Shrink Amateur Draft, Minor Leagues
The impact would extend beyond the draft itself, affecting the quality of play, weakening baseball communities, and reducing the chances for American kids to play for a Major League franchise.
Read moreDo We Only Get One Chance To Use Our Oven Mitts and Move Second Base?
The incentive to run is clearly already there. In 2024, a record 122 players stole at least 10 bases, with 48 reaching 20 or more. Similar totals followed in 2023 and 2025. Additional “incentives” are unnecessary.
The use of enlarged sliding mitts are also unnecessary and should be prohibited.
For $8 Million Per, Super Bowl Ads Failed to Deliver
This Bud’s not for you. Rather, it turns it into a bad kegger.
Read more1964: A Neighbor Kid, A Snapshot In Time, And A World Series That Wasn’t
By the time September 15 came around, the Phils were on a roll. They had owned first place since July 17. It appeared a World Series berth was merely a formality. The Phillies’ front office had that ticket availability plan – however unusual.
Read moreWorld Series Reflections and Highlights
The Freddie Freeman walk-off homer was a crowd-pleaser; and yes Shohei Otani was otherworldly in reaching base in all nine plate appearances with an epic night. But had it not been for a gutsy relief outing by a guy few outside of Dodgertown have even heard of, all this would have gone for naught. Had you ever heard of Will Klein?
Read moreHas Baseball Turned Into Nothing More Than a Home Run and Strikeout Showcase?
Fans could not get enough of the home run. And why not? They were seemingly drenched ad nauseum by giddy announcers and a plethora of analysts ballyhooing all kinds of metrics such as Exit Velocities, Launch Angles, and Expected Home Run Rate, or xHR%. The players themselves were given to cartoonish theatrics after hitting one out, from fancy bat-flips to the perfunctory pointing, glaring and glittering of bling as they sashayed around the bases.
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