Baseball

I co-write the New York Mets blog Faith and Fear in Flushing with Greg Prince. Since February 2005 we’ve written thousands of posts, made TV appearances for SNY, been frequently quoted in mainstream-media accounts of the Mets and been named one of the city’s best blogs by the Village Voice. (And you should read Greg’s thoroughly awesome books.)

Here are some of my favorite Faith and Fear posts, with more baseball writing below:

2019

The Fabric of Summer (Sept. 11)

Comeback Kids (June 7)

Mickey Callaway Is Already Fired (May 20)

‘Ee’s a Jonah, He Is’ (April 19)

2018

Special (Sept. 30)

Back in the Bandbox (Sept. 16)

2017

And Then That Happened (Aug. 4)

The Inevitability of Nope (June 28)

Saturday Means Story Time (April 29)

Last of the Old School (March 23)

2016

The Man Who Loved the Game (Sept. 27)

One Bad Team, Three Lovely Parks (Aug. 9)

Waiting for the Worst (June 23)

The Pitcher Whisperers (May 31)

Thor Meets Loki (April 13)

An Invitation Best Refused (April 4)

February 17’s Other Met (Feb. 23)

Sandlot Stars, Medical Degrees and Other Winter Tales (Jan. 20)

2015

Welcome Home (Sept. 27)

Purest and Simplest Joy (Sept. 9)

Daniel Murphy, Avatar of Chaos (Aug. 28)

The Cheers for Wilmer (Aug. 1)

An Escape, Except When It’s Not (March 6)

Pitchers and Other Liars (Feb. 21)

The Ballad of Salty Parker (Feb. 15)

2014

Farewell to the Father of Baseball Cards (Dec. 14)

Lucas Duda Is the King of Nutrasweet Pop (Sept. 27)

How Dilson Herrera Is Like 18th-Century Connecticut (Aug. 31)

David Wright’s Crappy Anniversary (July 22)

The Zen of Bartolo (June 19)

The Great Everywhere Books-N-Ballparks Tour 2014 (May 19)

Cooperstown Is Unpleasant This Time of Year (Jan. 9)

2013

The Better Side of Nostalgia (Sept. 30)

Just Your Typical Sunday (Sept. 17)

Games Everywhere (July 14)

What the Doctor Can’t Fix (June 29)

The Wilbur Huckle Appreciation Society (June 7)

The Inevitable Downfall of Johan Santana… (March 13)

The Limits of Nostalgia (Jan. 4)

2012

The Miami Marlins Are the Worst Collective Entity Ever (Nov. 13)

The Less Likely Joys of the Game (Oct. 3)

Death Spiral (Sept. 13)

The Unfamiliar Confines (June 28)

Johan, on the Mound, With the Change-up (June 20)

Orlando’s OK With Me (June 2)

What Johan Did, in Perspective (June 2)

In Which I Finally Learn to Hate the Marlins (April 26)

The Interloper in The Holy Books (March 23)

Farewell to the Kid (Feb. 17)

The Offseason We Spent Watching Baseball (Feb. 3)

2011

Your Newest Cardinal (Dec. 23)

The Silver Lining After All (Dec. 6)

The Remains (Dec. 5)

A Beantown Valentine (Dec. 1)

An Open Letter to Braves and Red Sox Fans (Sept. 29)

A Short Time Ago in a Stadium Not Far, Far Away… (Sept. 14)

How the Mets Got a Rainout (Aug 4)

And So We Came to the End (July 21)

The Two Joes (July 2)

The Other Jose Reyes (June 28)

That Ken Burns Crap (June 14)

Carpe Jose-em (May 7)

What I Did Instead (May 2)

Of Dukes and Other Royalty (Feb. 28)

Remember When? (Feb. 6) — With Audio!

2010

Carlos Beltran Superstar (Sept. 27)

Everybody Hates Roger (Aug. 21)

Ask Not for Whom the Cheap Plastic Horn Goes BRAAAP… (July 1)

Hooray for R.A. (May 31)

Monsters in the Closet (May 24)

Strange But True Tales of Ike and Rod (May 8)

What He Left Behind (April 27) — I later revisited this story with NPR’s Mike Pesca.

Sunny Day (April 5)

My Swoboda (March 24)

Last Man Standing (Jan. 9)

2009

The Return of Wally Backman (Nov. 18)

Flash-Forward Friday: I Saw Everything End (Nov. 6)

Address to Reluctant Mets Fans (Oct. 21)

The First Year of Citi (Oct. 13)

Do You Know How Lucky You Are to Be So Unlucky? (Aug. 31)

Very Bad Things Are Coming (Aug. 27)

Time Was (Aug. 23)

The Long Way Home (Aug. 2)

A Summer Afternoon in Flushing, a Summer Night in Maine (July 28)

The Mets and the Moon (July 20)

A Brooklyn Tale (June 22)

This Post Has No Title, Because There Are No Words (June 12)

A Classic … for the Other Guys (June 11)

From the Diary of Johan Santana, Pitcher, New York Mets (April 25)

Why Rickey Henderson Is Best in Small Doses (Feb. 9)

2008

Pass It On (Oct. 18)

The Little Game 7 (Sept. 28)

Magical Misty Tour (Sept. 28)

The Co-Eds, the Cops, the Masked Killer, the Middle Relievers and Me (Sept. 18)

The Story of Billy the Kid (Sept. 8)

I Dunno, They Looked Fine to Us (June 25)

Dear Fred and Jeff (May 8)

Aw What the Hell, Let’s Dance (April 17)

One Dream, Deferred and Then Delivered (April 10)

To Hell With the Cornfield (March 25)

Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (March 20)

The Last Season (March 4)

Place Your Bets (Feb. 13)

The First 89% of the Offseason Isn’t Always the Most Important Part (Jan. 29)

2007

The Night Before (Dec. 12)

Unforgiven (Nov. 19)

Dreaming Someone Else’s Dream (Oct. 16)

I’m OK, and That’s Not OK (Oct. 1)

Boys’ Day Out (Aug. 10)

A Plea for Uniformity (July 12)

All Hail Freddy Sanchez (July 9)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Tolerate the Yankees (May 18)

Beneath the Dome (April 22)

What’s in a Name? (March 9)

The Baseball-Card Mines of McCrory’s, Lake Grove, N.Y., 1976 (March 2)

An Impostor at Shea (Jan. 6)

2006

Raise a Glass (Dec. 31)

Requiem (Oct. 20)

In Defense of a Pronoun (Oct. 3)

I’m With Goofus (Aug. 21)

Addicted to Love (July 7)

Farewell to a Met (June 26)

Left-Handed Compliments (Feb. 9)

The Final Circle of Met Hell: Vince Coleman (Jan. 5)

The Eighth Circle of Met Hell: Roberto Alomar (Jan. 4)

2005

The Clubhouse of Curses (Aug. 16)

Royce and Rich (April 28)

No Scrubs (April 18)

More Baseball Writing

About That Mariano Rivera Lovefest… (The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2013)

Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere I Choose: Baseball Fandom in the 21st Century (Baseball Prospectus, June 24, 2011)

A Farewell to Mike Piazza (Wall Street Journal Online, May 22, 2008)

New York Mets 2008 Season Preview (Deadspin, Feb. 20, 2008)

New York Mets 2007 Season Preview (Deadspin, Feb. 20, 2007)

A Cards Fan and a Met Fan Discuss Game 7 (Deadspin, Oct. 19, 2007)

Where My Team Stands: New York Mets (Deadspin, Oct. 2, 2006)

A Farewell to Ted Williams (The Wall Street Journal Online, July 6, 2002)

Pitcher Throws Press a Curve Ball (The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 1998) — subscription required

Remembering Curt Flood (The Wall Street Journal Online, Jan. 25, 1997)

The Daily Fix

In the summer of 2001 I became the first editor of the Daily Fix, a noontime roundup of the best sportswriting on the web. From 2002 until the summer of 2008 I co-wrote the column with my pal Carl Bialik. (Actually we switched off the writing duties, but our styles were close enough that few people could tell the difference.)

In the summer of 2006 we wrote a series of special columns for the Fix’s fifth anniversary, including this look behind the scenes. In January 2007 Sports Media Guide interviewed me about the Fix in particular and sportswriting in general.