Explore the vast range of titles available.

Though there would be miles to go before they slept, they enthusiastically repacked their bags and caught a red eye to Washington, D.C. They arrived in our nation's capital on September 1, 2024, at 3 a.m., and roughly 12 hours later watched Darren enter the game as a pinch-hitter for the Nationals and smack the first pitch he ever saw in the majors up the middle for a base hit. The timing couldn't be better because Sunday is not only Father's Day, but dad's (76th) birthday\" Baseball has long been the tie that binds this father and son. \"Hess a people person, a relatable guy\" Dusty is proud that Darren opted to get his degree from the University of California instead of signing out of high school.

The Muckdogs, who previously went by the names \"Clippers\" and \"Trojans,\" spawned several dozen major-leaguers through the decades, including Ryan Howard, a slugging first baseman who would win National League Rookie-of-the-Year and Most Valuable Player honors with the Philadelphia Phillies and Matt Carpenter, who's currently experiencing a baseball rebirth in New York Yankees pinstripes. Before and during the game, I chatted with Will Bardenwerper, an accomplished, Pittsburgh-based author who's spending his summer in places like Batavia, researching a book he's writing about baseball's impact in bringing small towns together. In his highly insightful and entertaining blog, \"Homestead: Baseball and the Fight for the Heart of America,\" Will nails it when he writes \"small town baseball is as much community picnic as sporting event.

[...]although Mason has been camping out in his cozy bed rather than a lumpy bullpen, I'm sure victory deprivation has led to sleep deprivation. [...]when Major League Baseball took control of the minors two years ago, the dynamic changed. [...]that happens, there are sure to be more sleepless nights in Rochester. ··· Yes, they draw twice as many fans for scrimmages in college football hotbeds like Alabama, Georgia and LSU, but the crowd of 36,000 that showed up for a Buffalo Bills practice at Highmark Stadium Friday night was pretty darn impressive. Count first-year Bill and reigning Super Bowl champion passrusher Von Miller among those wowed by the turnout.

Bevis discusses the Shaughnessy Plan, a playoff format adopted in professional baseball authored by Frank Shaughnessy which successfully orchestrated to generate millions of dollars in revenue through its minor-league operations--which the other professional sports leagues had merely copied. Shaughnessy devised a system of postseason playoffs that not only revolutionized how champions were determined but also how success was defined at the highest levels of professional sports. Under the Shaughnessy Plan, no longer was the best win-loss record in a league sufficient to reach the pinnacle of success, the survivor of a series of playoff games was deemed to be the pinnacle while best over the long regular season was replaced with best in a short series of games, establishing a radical change in American sports.