Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were arguably the biggest stars in Major League Baseball in the 1990s.  Bonds was the best position player, Clemens the most dominant pitcher.  Their careers followed eerily similar paths, culminating today with what I expect will be the failure of both of them to garner enough votes from the Baseball  Writers of ( Read more... )

Today's post at the Magical Words blogsite is about writing, and the creative lessons to be learned from the success of an aging baseball pitcher.  The post is called "Writing to Our Strengths, or What I Learned From Barry Zito."  I hope you enjoy it.

Last night, Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamiliton hit four home runs in a single game, tying a Major League record and becoming only the 16th player in the history of the game to accomplish the feat.  This actually marked the second accomplishment of such magnitude of this young baseball season.  Only two and half weeks ago, on April 21, Philip ( Read more... )

Getting this in before the storms arrive and knock out my internet for the evening ( Read more... )

Today’s post can be found at http://www.sfnovelists.com, the group blog on speculative fiction that I maintain along with a group of over one hundred published authors of fantasy and science fiction. The post is called “The Fundamentals.” I hope you enjoy it.

Today’s post can be found at http://www.sfnovelists.com, the group blog on speculative fiction that I maintain along with a group of over one hundred published authors of fantasy and science fiction. The post is called “What sports Can Tell Us About Writing, and What they Can’t.” I hope you enjoy it.

We watched John Sayles' movie Eight Men Out last night.  Netflix, of course.  It's an old movie.  It came out in 1988, right around the same time as Field of Dreams, when  hollywood seemed to be in the midst of a mini-obsession with the Shoeless Joe Jackson story.  Hollywood does this -- remember when Tombstone and Wyatt Earp came out within months ( Read more... )

Most of the major organizations that give out awards -- the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives the Oscars; the Baseball Writers Association of America, which gives the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year Awards to name a few -- don’t like to recognize the same person twice in a row. Generally it takes a ( Read more... )

The other day I was reading the New Yorker, which I do when I exercise, and I came across an amusing cartoon.  It shows a pitcher and catcher talking on the pitcher's mound in the middle of a game in front of a stadium full of fans.  The pitcher is saying, "I'm sure I could keep my slider down if they'd just fire the manager."  Got me thinking.

I ( Read more... )

Nancy and I went to a wedding today, which we hadn't done in some time.  For a while there, everyone we knew was getting married (us, too).  Then everyone was having babies (us, too).  Now, perhaps we're entering second wedding territory (hopefully not us, too...).  Today's wedding was a second time around for one of them, first for the other.  It ( Read more... )