tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298309902009-05-08T15:52:28.466-05:00by Sean LahmanSean Lahmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14363681502973240023noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-46873787000389403902009-05-08T07:05:00.005-05:002009-05-08T15:52:28.473-05:00

On their web site, the Archives of the city of Montreal recently posted a collection of color photos from the first home game of the Montreal Expos. That game took place on April 14, 1969, and it was the first Major League Baseball game played outside of the United States The images capture some of the game's greats, including Maury Wills, Rusty Staub, and Curt Flood. I like the photo above,

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-78556890682997477772009-04-29T20:45:00.000-05:002009-04-29T21:07:14.307-05:00

Back on the radio, Friday from 7-8 pm on WHAM-1180 with Bob Matthews Bob and I will be discussing the current baseball season, and the greatest players of all time at each position. We'll also be taking phone calls.

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-53061479114325655012009-04-21T06:16:00.004-05:002009-04-21T15:30:52.607-05:00

I heard two different sports radio hosts last week make the proclamation that taking a quarterback in the first round was a 50-50 proposition. One went down the list of the guys taken in the last ten years and figured that 8-10 of the 18 players on the list were busts. Another looked at all of the quarterbacks taken number one overall and came to the same conclusion.It's an exercise I've

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-37179493025010661202009-04-15T06:40:00.000-05:002009-04-15T07:09:53.178-05:00

It's income tax day across America, and if it's not your favorite day of the year, just be thankful you're not a professional athlete. A recent article in the LA Times explains that 20 of the 24 states with major league franchises (the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball) have laws that require visiting athletes to pay state income tax for each game they play there. Kevin Baxter of the Los

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-29144213820937515552009-04-03T07:54:00.001-05:002009-04-03T07:55:42.831-05:00

Word came earlier this week that my book, The Pro Football Historical Abstract, has won the Nelson Ross Award. It's presented annually by the Professional Football Researchers' Association for "outstanding achievement in pro football research and historiography." I'm grateful and humbled by the honor, particularly since it comes from a group of dedicated folks who really know their stuff.

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-15486561145123365722009-03-25T07:53:00.000-05:002009-03-25T10:56:52.703-05:00

Warren Buffett is good at managing his money. So is Bill Gates, apparently, and so is Mike Bloomberg.You know who's not great at managing their money? Guys who leave college to play pro sports.Sports Illustrated has a great piece this week about how and why these guys who sign million dollar contracts almost always end up broke. We've all read the anecdotes. Just this year, ex-Broncos running

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-27413488154850775422009-03-04T20:30:00.009-05:002009-03-05T14:11:48.481-05:00

Newspapers are dying.  The closing of the Rocky Mountain News last week was a sign of how bad things have gotten in the business.  I spent five years writing for the New York Sun before they stopped printing last September, and like it or not, many other and bigger papers will suffer the same fate.  The current economy doesn't help, but the root cause of the problem is a business model that just

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-35462197469024921552009-02-20T00:01:00.000-05:002009-02-20T00:01:00.724-05:00

It all started with this... Pete Rose being summoned to New York by the Commissioner in February 1989. It was the public's first inkling of the story that would dominate the rest of the year.

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-89893082212748481932009-02-06T17:30:00.003-05:002009-04-03T11:05:59.323-05:00

Todd Haley was introduced as the new head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs today. Since the start of the 2008 season, eleven teams have changed head coaches. That ties the record for the most coaching changes from one opening day to the next, set in 1997. Collectively, the NFL teams have made 32 new hires over the last four years, with six teams having changed coaches at least twice (and that's

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-60765104597955803152009-02-03T02:00:00.001-05:002009-02-03T07:25:15.387-05:00

Nicholas Carson of Silicon Alley Insider runs the numbers to show just how much it costs to print an ink-and-paper version of the New York Times, and he reaches this conclusion:It costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.Carson estimates the figure is $644 million per

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-45940250868093001432009-02-02T06:00:00.000-05:002009-02-02T08:56:28.507-05:00

One of the great films of all-time.

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-38031246596193692602009-01-28T05:46:00.001-05:002009-01-28T13:20:55.271-05:00

John Updike died yesterday. The prolific author published more than fifty books, and won the Pulitzer Prize twice. He also wrote regularly for the New Yorker since 1954, often about baseball. One of his best known columns described the last game in the career of Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams. It was intended as a rebuke to a Boston columnist who noted the occasion by saying, essentially

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-77065898121073406132009-01-27T01:00:00.011-05:002009-01-27T08:19:16.431-05:00

On Saturday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame's 44-man Board of Selectors will meet in a hotel conference room in Tampa. When they emerge, they'll announce their selections for the Hall’s class of 2009. Their process for selecting new members is as mysterious and shrouded in secrecy as the selection of a new pope. I'd like to say that I can use by profound understanding of the game's history, my

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-81210201566381820992009-01-26T06:43:00.002-05:002009-01-26T16:49:41.143-05:00

The Pro Football Hall of Fame will select the class of 2009 this weekend, and I'd like to know who you folks think will get in. Not necessarily who you think *should* get in, but who you think the board of selectors will actually choose. I'll compile the predictions and post them here after the announcements are made. I'll give a copy of my book (or some other suitable prize) to someone who

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-44784756170722088812009-01-20T19:13:00.003-05:002009-01-20T19:20:36.972-05:00

I'll be back on WHAM-1180 with Bob Matthews on Thursday January 22 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. This is becoming a semi-regular gig. Bob and I will be discussing the Super Bowl matchup and other topics of interest. We'll also be taking phone calls.

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-88096117635214907132009-01-12T14:15:00.002-05:002009-01-12T14:15:01.072-05:00

The Baseball Hall of Fame released the results of their 2009 balloting moments ago, and as I predicted, the writers have selected Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice for induction later this summer.This was the first time that I've published predictions for the actual vote totals. A quick look at the results shows that most of those projections for the vote totals were pretty close. My forecast for

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-58841967660836910202009-01-07T17:30:00.010-05:002009-01-12T14:16:25.332-05:00

It's been around for so long that we take it for granted, but that doesn't mean it isn't one of the coolest innovations of our era. I'm talking about the computer generated first down marker that appears on most football games broadcast for the last ten years.It seems like a pretty simple concept, but actually making it work is a complex challenge. According to the website HowStuffWorks.com, "it

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-2575472898122895192009-01-05T06:00:00.004-05:002009-01-05T11:46:32.337-05:00

Francis Ford Coppola's newly restored version of The Godfather and the Godfather, Part II have just been released on Blu-ray and DVD. The director oversaw a frame-by-frame restoration of his films' original negatives, which were in pretty rough shape. The result is a fresh new look at the work of cinematographer Gordon Willis and a pair of classic films that haven't looked this good since they

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-48783064256969194672009-01-02T17:15:00.003-05:002009-01-03T11:50:21.987-05:00

Sammy Baugh died a couple of weeks ago. If he'd have been a baseball player, Sports Illustrated would have commemorated his passing by putting his photo on their cover, as they did for Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle. Instead, SI's first issue after Baugh's death had a dog on the cover, and his passing garnered just a single paragraph thrown into a year end listing of other sports figures who

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-48487139214765298082008-12-31T10:38:00.007-05:002008-12-31T16:50:31.895-05:00

New Year's Eve is a time to reflect on the year that's ending, and it's always a bittersweet exercise. It was a tremendous year in the world of sports, from the Giants' improbable Super Bowl win, to the amazing spectacle of the Olympic Games in Beijing, to Tiger Woods winning the US Open on a broken leg. The Celtics and Lakers renewed their rivalry, Yankee Stadium closed, and Michael Phelps won

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-35902481823593373642008-12-29T11:15:00.001-05:002008-12-29T13:27:43.535-05:00

It's not even noon on the day after the NFL season ended, and already three coaches have been given their pink slips. In New York, Eric Mangini lost his job after the Jets swan dive cost them a playoff berth. The Browns fired Romeo Crennel after four disappointing seasons. there were signs of life in Cleveland last year, when the team surprisied everyone by finishing 10-6. This season they

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-72915233668298643952008-12-26T07:30:00.003-05:002009-01-12T14:16:45.464-05:00

For a few years I've been working on a predictive model for HOF voting. Not a method for determining (and advocating for) the players I think *ought to be* in the Hall of Fame, but a way to predict how many votes a player will actually receive, based on a study of actual voting patterns.I haven't written about it or published any predictions for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that I

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-9441557985930865342008-12-11T06:28:00.001-05:002008-12-15T22:10:00.235-05:00

I'll be back on WHAM-1180 with Bob Matthews on Tuesday December 16 from 7 to 8. Bob and I will be discussing the upcoming vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and other topics of interest. We'll also be taking phone calls.UPDATE: I've been bumped to Friday night, same time, same channel.

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-5433809071559766952008-12-05T12:45:00.002-05:002008-12-05T13:30:18.442-05:00

There's a great piece by Kerry Byrne running at Sports Illustrated this week, calling this "the Golden Age of Passing." Observing the success of rookie quarterback Matt Ryan and first-year starter Matt Cassel (who hadn't started a game since high school), Kerry suggests that this reflects a major shift in pro football.It's a far cry from the traditional coming-of-age story for NFL quarterbacks,

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29830990.post-36325095236958527602008-12-03T06:42:00.000-05:002008-12-03T10:15:54.656-05:00

On the radio last night, host Bob Matthews and I were talking about former Buffalo Bill Steve Tasker and his chances of making the Hall of Fame. Bob's a big supporter of Tasker, but I told him I thought that the lack of statistics for special teamers would keep him out. The one thing that would help, I said, was the big play he made in Super Bowl XXVII, chasing down Leon Lett from behind and

Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08481452830155315560noreply@blogger.com