Darin Downs was done playing professional baseball to start the 2021 season. He had settled into a new role as pitching coach for the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks. It appeared that the Coronavirus has helped to end the career of someone who had been playing at the pro level since 2003. Then the Ducks […]
Three Batter Minimum
Three Batter Minimum: An Odd Pitch Count
I absolutely love the ridiculousness of professional baseball. It’s a sport, sure, but it is also a professional endeavor. It’s something that grown adults are partaking in so that they can make money, build a career, live their lives, etc. Yet, at the same time, professional baseball is home to events and happenings that are […]
Three Batter Minimum: A Bad Week for Teddy
Imagine for a moment that you’re Teddy Stankiewicz. You’re riding high on the wave of leading the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions to the 2020 Chinese Professional Baseball League championship. You’ve spent two winters in Mexico and the Dominican Republic as well as two summers in Taiwan showing that you are one of the best pitchers in […]
Three Batter Minimum: Parsing Out the Pecos League
The Pecos League is, well, hard to keep track of for lack of a better phrase. You combine a ridiculous streaming price point of $6/game with a website that is straight out of your “I’m firing up America Online in 1998 and ready to surf the net” nightmares and you get a league that isn’t […]
Three Batter Minimum: The Curious Case of Milton Harper
Not all baseball stories are good baseball stories. Some are awful with a dash of morbidity and confusion tossed into the mix. That’s the best way I can think of to describe the end of Milton Harper’s career and life. The two are intertwined but in reality, not much is known about how his life […]