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But as they say, there’s no monopoly on great baseball cultural content. So here’s a few from others we found, and figured our audience would enjoy them too. Links attached below.

Fay Vincent: a commissioner who made things happen

First a wonderful tribute to the late Fay Vincent, former Commissioner of Baseball, from JoeBlogs, one of many fine sports bloggers I follow. Vincent accomplished a lot during his tenure, including starting the ball rolling to finally get Negro League history integrated into Major League history. He passed away yesterday at the age of 86.

Now there’s a couple of “tough outs” who aged well

How great were these two?! Dave Winfield, Eddie Murray, courtesy of a great X (formerly known as Twitter) source, Baseball’s Greatest Moments.

Growing up a Yankees fan, I’ll always remember the 1984 season vividly. The Detroit Tigers raced out to a remarkable 35-5 start, and there were no wildcard teams back then. So the season was essentially over by June. But Winfield hit .340…yet finished second on the NYY club to Don Mattingly’s .343!

Boggs turns Cheers to “Jeers”…without doing a darn thing!

And finally, Wade Boggs appearance on the hit show “Cheers” will make your day. Same source as above.

Could global baseball BE any hotter?

Depending on when your formative baseball-loving years were, Ichiro might be the modern version of Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs. Or perhaps Rod Carew and Lou Brock.

George Sisler anyone? You know, the Hall of Famer who retired 95 years ago, after a pair of batting titles and setting the single season record for hits (257) in 1920. That record stood until 2004 when a kid named….Ichiro Suzuki…broke it.

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I had the absolute pleasure of watching Ichiro live many times at the tail end of his career with the Miami Marlins. Believe me, even a pinch hit AB from that guy was worth the price of admission!

Ichiro is an obvious first-ballot Hall of Famer, except to one unnamed voter who kept him from being the second player ever to be voted in unanimously (Mariano Rivera). 99.7% of the vote will have to do, I guess.

But with Japan finally getting its first HOF inductee this summer, Ichiro joins many other firsts, such as Fernando Valenzuela (Mexico), Fergurson Jenkins (Canada - and the only “Fergie” many of us knew until the band Black Eyed Peas came along, and then modern British royalty. And of course, several Latin American nations have had their “firsts” in the Hall.

To those of us at Classic Baseball World and our collegues at the Africa Baseball Project, this is yet another signal that global baseball is ready to accelerate its growth.

And if you want to see why Ichiro is also a hall of fame comedian, here’s just one small sample.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have had a busy winter. It just got busier, with the signing of Joseph Deng, who stands 6’7” tall, and throws 95 mph. Imagine what he might be capable of acheving in 4 years, when he reaches the age where he can legally buy a drink in the United States! Joseph Deng is just 17 years old.

And now, with $1.5mm signing bonus and all the upside a kid could ask for, Africa has their latest baseball version of the moon landing: that’s one small step for the Dodgers, but one giant leap for thousands of African kids who dream of being the next Joseph Deng. And, the next Gift Ngoepe, the first African-born MLBer, whose vision for baseball in Africa in 2020 ultimately led to the creation of this online community.

Here comes Africa!

The trend in African-born kids reaching the minor leagues in the US, Japan and elsewhere is decidedly up. However, this is merely a trickle compared to what can and will be, thanks to the ongoing efforts of the Africa Baseball Project. You can check out their tab on this site to learn more.

US baseball fans might not realize that the sport has nearly as long a history in places like Japan and the Dominican Republic, which each started to embrace the sport roughly 150 years ago. But the modern world and its evolution toward instant communication has taken the sport globally. While many nations can meet the demand for quality equipment, playable fields and coaching resources, on a continent like Africa, it has been an uphill climb. Africa Baseball Project not only has identifed that problem, it exists to solve it.

Joseph Deng is the latest example of the extrordinary athletic talent that simply needs the opportunity to be seen. Behind him, there will be so many more.

And as you’ll learn on this site moving forward, the effort to try to speed up the progress, and feed the drive shared by so many thousands of kids across the African continent has just hit another gear. Like Deng’s fastball is bound to do, once the Dodgers coaching system gets to know him a bit.

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So as a tribute to one of the great sports, Bob Uecker, who left “the show of life” earlier this week, here’s a eulogy I wrote today in his memory.

Bob Uecker was a true student of the game. By that I mean he played like he always had a lot to learn.

He made his major league debut during the 1962 season. The same season that brought us the expansion NY Mets. The baseball lords do have a sense of humor.

And if you look at the site Baseball Reference, Bob’s page says “exceeded rookie limits in 1964.” Bob always interpreted that to mean that it was Ok for him to drink more than 8 cups of coffee before games. And it showed.

Because like they say, you play like you practice. How else do you explain how over-stimulated he was on the field?

No one was a bigger fan of baseball than Bob. And by that I mean THE baseball. Bob was a catcher, but he wasn’t like most catchers. You see, most of those guys behind the plate try to tell the ball what to do. They signal the pitcher how to throw it, and just as the ball is about to run free, they stop it with their glove.

Because he was a believer that the baseball should live free, as we all do in this country. So instead of trying to prevent the ball from reaching its potential, he’d led it go right on by, so it could choose its own path. Is there any better way to show how much you love the baseball?

Among his career highlights, we all remember 1967 as the year of the Redsox Impossible Dream, a season that fell just short of a World Series title. Bob’s St Louis Cardinals team won the series that year.

His leadership that season was undeniable. Yup, he led the league in passed balls that year, with 27.

And while Buster Posey committed 27 passed balls in more than 1,000 games, spanning an entire career, in 1967, Bob only needed 76 games to accomplish that feat. Sort of like how Babe Ruth only needed 154 games to reach 60 home runs. Kids, that’s a lesson in getting the important things done without a lot of wasted time, and you should remember that.

And speaking of the Great Bambino, They talk about Shohei Ohtani as being the modern Babe Ruth. But if you ask me, it was Bob Uecker.

Babe hit 714 home runs in his career. And if you take away that stupid, useless 7, Bob did too. He hit 14.

And, like the Babe before him, Bob spent a lot of time around beer. That happens when you spend your life at the ballpark. But Bob was a longtime announcer for the Brewers, so he was a natural fit for those classic Miller Lite commercials. And he palled around with the Milwaukee team’s mascot, Bernie Brewer.

So Bob and beer were a natural combination. And it is only fitting that we will remember his playing career as the guy who played like he’d just had a dozen beers before he walked out of the clubhouse.

So I ask you, who’s the modern Babe Ruth? For me, it will always be Bob Uecker.

Bob was a hitter. Not a good one, but they’ve never had a designated hitter for catchers, only for pitchers. In fact, a little known story about the teams Bob played for is that they lobbied Major League Baseball to have a DH for sub .200 hitters. But unfortunately, since Bob’s lifetime batting average was exactly .200, it never made into the rule book.

So here’s to the late, great Bob Uecker. Truly one of the game’s best. Not for what he did on the field, but how he made us love the game after he retired.

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Classic Baseball World: for the kid in all of us

Classic Baseball World is about more than wins, losses, called strikes and passed balls. It is about honoring our heroes in the game, the people who helped raise us without even knowing it. And about connecting their skills, and especially their courage, to current and future generations of baseball fans, in the US and all around the world.

Bob Uecker is one of many baseball personalities we will honor here. My only regret is that we won’t get a chance to include him among the people in the game we can bring directly to this community. In writing and soon in audio and video form.

Here’s to your memory, Bob. May the beers you drink up there taste great, and be less filling.

DONATE TO AFRICA BASEBALL

This is one of many great sites for baseball fan, stats geeks (including us!) and those who want to track the very active off-season and updated rosters for their favorite MLB teams.

Check it out here.

DONATE TO AFRICA BASEBALL