Winter 2023
Catching up on people’s lives
The simple act of throwing a ball back and forth connects John Sukanec to others. » More ...
Baseball
Summer 2019
Baseball in a Grain of Sand: Seeing the Game through a Small Town Season
The suspense, narrative, soaring victories, and crushing tragedies of stories told through a single season in American Legion baseball. » More ...
Summer 2018
Physics at the bat
Today’s baseball game, brought to you by Physics Unlimited, is a blockbuster contest between the famous Mathematical Physicists and Washington State University’s own Oblique Collisions.
As the Oblique Collisions take the field, Ernest Rutherford, the renowned English physicist, is first up for the Mathematical Physicists. Better known outside physics circles for his cricketing skills, Rutherford is quite the hitter, though usually of particles much smaller than baseballs.
Indeed, in describing the collision of an alpha particle—better known as the nucleus of a helium atom, two protons and two massive neutrons—with a gold atom, Rutherford had this to say: “It was as if you fired a … » More …
Fall 2015
Memories of Bobo
A player and coach larger than life in every way » More ...
Winter 2014
Nikkei Baseball: Japanese American Players from Immigration and Internment to the Major Leagues
Samuel O. Regalado ’83 MA, ’87 PhD
University of Illinois Press, 2013
Since Sam Regalado received his doctorate in history in 1987, he has established himself as one of the leading authorities on the history of baseball and the Hispanic population in the United States. Now a professor at California State University Stanislaus, Regalado has penned an eminently readable history on how baseball helped Americans of Japanese descent construct an identity.
Regalado’s interest … » More …
Fall 2013
Love Reports to Spring Training
Linda Kittell
Turning Point Books, 2013
Baseball lends itself as metaphor like no other sport. Boxing might come close, but its inherent brutality and changing cultural tastes have removed it from the public’s awareness.
But baseball endures and permeates our culture, and even a non-fan can appreciate the sport’s dramatic interplay of quietude and adrenaline. In Love Reports to Spring Training, Linda Kittell exploits this richness through a deeply satisfying … » More …
Summer 2012
John E. Olerud ’65—Science is a lot like baseball
Whether he’s studying how wounds heal or he’s tagging a runner out at home plate, John E. Olerud ’65 knows two techniques to succeed: work hard and stick with it.
Olerud credits those lessons to the man who recruited him to Washington State University’s baseball team, Chuck “Bobo” Brayton. “He was one of those guys who taught you a lot of lessons about life, not just baseball,” he says.
The lessons learned have led to achievements on the diamond—as catcher and captain of the 1965 Cougar baseball team that played in the College World Series, and as a professional player for seven years—and in academia, … » More …
Summer 2012
Scoring position: A man buys his hometown team
In the 1970s, when Mikal Thomsen ’79 was a budding business student at WSU, he earned his tuition by compiling the stats for the football, basketball, and baseball teams. The job not only let him parlay an interest in numbers and sports into an entertaining occupation, it gave him free admission to all the games. With primo seats. During the football season, he had a bird’s-eye view from the press box. During baseball, he travelled with the team as the official scorer.
Thomsen liked being in the thick of things, following the minutiae of the games, getting a sense of the players. Today, as a … » More …
Winter 2011
Sabermetrics as told by The Simpsons
Between the book Moneyball and the movie “Moneyball,” there was the 2010 Simpsons episode “MoneyBART,” which introduced 6 million or so people to the artist Banksy, who wrote the opening sequence. Less celebrated is the fact that the show introduced many people to the concept of sabermetrics.
A viewer’s guide to the episode can go a long way in explaining some of the fundamental notions of baseball’s most exuberantly rational side.
First, the quick plot summary:
Lisa Simpson needs an extracurricular … » More …
Winter 2011
Timeline: John Olerud’s Baseball Career
“When I made up the lineup, I always put Ole [John Olerud] in the third spot—where you want your best all-around player—and filled in around him,” says WSU baseball coach Bobo Brayton. “He led the world in everything.”
On the rare occasion when Ole faltered a little on the mound, Bobo would visit the big lefthander with words of advice: “Remember you are John Olerud. There’s no one better.” He was named national College Player of the Year in 1988.
—from Washington State Magazine, Summer 2002
WSU
1987
Hit .414 with 5 HR and 20 RBIs. As a pitcher, he went 8-2 … » More …