http://dabblersjournal.com prone to enthusiasms.... Fri, 02 May 2008 20:38:59 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The sort of odd issue that pops up from time to time in my Midwest League roster project: The Brewers sent a pitcher named Luis Martinez to Beloit in 2000; in 2003 he pitched a few games for the big club. He's still an active player, pitching in the Mexican League ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2008/04/26/luis-martinez/ From TSN, 8/17/1949, page 35: Paducah (Mississippi-Ohio Valley) fans hurled stones and beer cans at the Centralia Cubs following the second game of the August 3 double-header in which Catcher Tommy Gatts was ejected for allegedly striking Manager Eddie Kearse of Paducah as he scored the winning run in the sixth ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2008/04/15/mov-league-1949/ The Midwest League has a history of experimenting with playoff formats. This is one experiment I hadn't previously discovered.... From TSN, 9/9/1978; page 56: Organized Baseball's first wild-card playoffs could become a reality early in September, provided one of the Midwest League's two first-half divisional champions--Appleton or Quad Cities--finishes on top again ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2008/02/15/waterloo-may-become-baseballs-first-wild-card-playoff-qualifier/ For the past few months, I've been compiling (or creating, in some cases) electronic rosters for every Midwest League team, organization, and season. I've been collecting the basic resources for several years; the recent effort's been more about getting things into a useful shape than actually acquiring the data. The ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2008/01/28/midwest-league-rosters/ The Midwest League's 1982 format may be serving as a sort of pilot program the major leagues could consider in future years, should the big leagues opt for three divisions. The Midwest is the only Class A league not playing a split season, its three four-team divisions each crowning a ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2007/12/19/expansion-attendance-split-season/ Most sources, including mine and all other online databases, believe Swisher managed New Orleans in 1997. That's not exactly true. Once heard one of the Ohio Valley Redcoats owners--Mike Hayes, I think--tell tales about Swisher. Very entertaining. http://dabblersjournal.com/2007/12/18/steve-swisher/ The Charleston [WVA] Charlies were jolted a mite when they walked into Watt Powell Park in Charleston upon returning from spring training to find a huge pine tree growing directly behind second base. The prank had been the work of grounds superintendent Jim Teague, a professional landscaper. The tree, ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2007/12/10/a-tree-behind-second/ Eber Brock Ward was Michigan's most famous and most innovative Rich Man for much of the 19th century; his best comp is certainly Henry Ford, who flourished about 75 years later. I don't think anyone's written a full-blown biography of Ward, but there are pieces of him all over my ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2007/11/28/captain-ward/ I've written/posted about 500 entries to this journal over the years. Perhaps half of those are now available on Flickr, another fifty or seventy-five don't merit the effort required to repost them (some of those entries were pretty much like this one). A number of job-related entries are under embargo, ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2007/11/23/dabbler-migration/ The Vietnam Veterans of America have (has?) published a twenty-fifth anniversary commemoration of the opening of The Wall; it appears that this is a special issue of the VVA Veteran, the organization's magazine, though it's not labelled as such. It's an interesting document, with lots of articles directly on-topic, an excerpt ... http://dabblersjournal.com/2007/11/17/the-wall/