Baseball Purist
“For Love of the Game”
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Ed Kranepool – The Original Mr. Met
By Stephen Kohn I met Ed Kranepool in the late 60’s at an autograph event in my hometown on Long Island. I was an avid Mets fan since 1965 and meeting him was a real thrill. He was one of the original New York Mets and his jersey number 7 became my favorite number throughout…
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Fidel Castro and the Island Game: Power, Politics and a Lifelong Love of Baseball
By Bill Coleman Few political figures of the 20th century are as tightly bound to a single sport as Fidel Castro was to baseball. In Cuba, baseball is not just a pastime, it is a cultural language, a shared rhythm and Castro spoke it fluently. Long before he became the face of revolution, he was a tall,…
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The Final Days of Roberto Clemente
A Hall of Famer’s Last Mission Became His Greatest Act of Humanity By Bill Coleman On a warm autumn afternoon in 1972, baseball fans watched one of the game’s greatest players achieve a milestone that seemed to seal a perfect career. Just three months later, he would be gone. The story of Roberto Clemente is…
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La Insólita Historia de las Tarjetas de Béisbol Venezolanas de Topps (1959–1968)
By Bill Coléman Baseball Purist received such a popular response from our Latino readers for our previous post titled The Unusual Story of Topps Venezuelan Baseball Cards (1959-1968) that we have decided to repost it in Spanish as well. Enjoy!! Baseball Purist recibió una respuesta tan positiva de nuestros lectores latinos por nuestra publicación anterior,…
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No Game for Old Men
Leonard “Bones” McCoy: Admiral, wouldn’t it be easier to put an experienced crew back on the ship?James T. Kirk: Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor. From the movie: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan Evidently, so is the game of baseball. We examined the current, top 100 position players in terms…
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The Crazy Life of Rube Waddell
By Bill Coleman There have been baseball stars. There have been baseball legends. And then there was George Edward “Rube” Waddell, the flame throwing left-hander who may have been the strangest superstar the sport has ever seen. Author’s Note: “Rube” began as slang for an unsophisticated country bumpkin in the mid-19th century. It was a…
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The Unusual Story of Topps Venezuelan Baseball Cards (1959-1968)
By Bill Coleman Ink, Gum, and Caracas Dreams: When Topps Took Baseball Cards to Venezuela In the late 1950s, as America’s pastime stretched its cultural reach far beyond U.S. borders, one unlikely export followed close behind: the baseball card. For Topps, already the dominant force in the hobby, the decision to produce cards in Venezuela created one of…
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The Commerce Comet After Dark: The Wild, Unfiltered Life of Mickey Mantle
By Bill Coleman By the time the stadium lights dimmed in the Bronx, another show was just getting started! The All-American Star Who Didn’t Fit the Mold On the field, Mickey Mantle was the embodiment of postwar baseball greatness with switch-hitting power, Oklahoma charm and the centerpiece of the New York Yankees dynasty. Off the field, he was something…
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Uriko
One of the most famous marketing slogans is “sex sells“. We would not normally equate that slogan with baseball, but perhaps that saying does have some truth when it comes to Japanese baseball or more precisely the selling of beer at ballgames. In our last post titled Baseball Across the Pacific: Japan and Korea’s Professional Baseball…
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Baseball Across the Pacific: Japan and Korea’s Professional Baseball Leagues
By Bill Coleman The Stage: Two Nations, One Passion Baseball in Asia isn’t just a sport—it’s a cultural performance. In both Japan and South Korea, the game thrives at the highest professional level through two elite leagues: Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and South Korea’s Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). While both share deep roots in…
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The History of Baseball Video Games
BP Note: This is the second of our two-part post. Please access the first half post covering pinball machines linked here: The History of Baseball Pinball Machines. By Bill Coleman From Pixels to Pennants: The Evolution of Baseball Video Games Baseball, with its measured pace and statistical soul, has always seemed like a natural fit…
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The History of Baseball Pinball Machines
By Bill Coleman BP Note: This is a two-part post. The second half will cover baseball video game history, which we will release on Friday, May 15th. Silver Balls & Fastballs: The Lost Art of Baseball Pinball – Where the Arcade Meets the Ballpark There’s a certain magic in the sound of a pinball machine—the…
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