Skip to main content

Popular posts from this blog

A House Divided: Mine

Baseball was at the beginning of our relationship. Shortly I moved to New York in 2007 to take a job as a professor at John Jay College, CUNY, one of my colleagues—a Red Sox fan—invited me to go to a Red Sox bar in the middle of Manhattan to watch Yankees- Red Sox. And Erin, another new professor in our political science department, was also a Red Sox fan, so she was going to come with. Sounds great. The first colleague got delayed, so Erin and I took the subway to the Red Sox bar, had a great time, had our first two beers and great conversation before our other colleague got there. Earlier that summer, I looked the schedule and found out that the Astros had a September series at Shea Stadium. I bought two tickets before I got to New York, figuring one of my new colleagues would want to join me at a ballgame.  And since the Red Sox fan was single, a woman, and into baseball, it seemed obvious to invite her. And by the 4 th inning, I knew I wanted to ask Erin out on a formal date. ...

Who's Responsible for the Astros Pitching Turnaround in the ALCS? There Are Several Candidates

The Astros finished off the Red Sox on Friday night, winning Game 6 5-0.  The Astros won three straight to close out the series on the strength of their run prevention. Astros pitching allowed Boston batters a mere 3 runs, striking out 25 while allowing only 10 hits, 10 walks, and 1 hit batsman. Red Sox hitters slashed .111/.208/.244 in the last three games of the series. This is a big contrast to the first three games of the series, when the Red Sox scored 25 runs to take a 2-1 lead in the series. Astro pitchers allowed a slash line of .296/.374/.546. They gave up 32 hits to batsmen from Boston, including 6 doubles and 9 homers.  Who is responsible for the big turnaround? Perhaps it is Brent Strom. The 73-year-old came to the Astros coaching staff before Dusty Baker, but he came before even A.J. Hinch. Strom has led the Astros pitchers since 2014 and has developed a reputation as one of MLB's best pitching coaches. Despite being the age of a presidential candidate, he...