On the demise of Rosenblatt Stadium:

The free market roared unchecked along 13th street, anchored on the northern end by the massive cheeseburger-palming ape representing the King Kong burger shack, and on the south by the old-fashioned sign that led parched and sweaty baseball fans to the Zesto ice cream shop. In between was Famous Dave’s BBQ, which often looked more like a house party than a restaurant. The organic public festival that leapt up around the ’Blatt came to define the CWS experience nearly as much as did the baseball played inside.

His last surviving child remembers growing up Ruth.

One of the best game stories ever:

And all of a sudden the ball was there, like the Mystic River Bridge, suspended out in the black of the morning.

When it finally crashed off the mesh attached to the left-field foul pole, one step after another the reaction unfurled: from Carlton Fisk’s convulsive leap to John Kiley’s booming of the “Hallelujah Chorus” to the wearing off of numbness to the outcry that echoed across the cold New England morning.

At 12:34 a.m., in the 12th inning, Fisk’s histrionic home run brought a 7-6 end to a game that will be the pride of historians in the year 2525, a game won and lost what seemed like a dozen times, and a game that brings back summertime one more day. For the seventh game of the World Series.

To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless or headless corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more don’t. Many are mothers struck by stray bullets, innocents misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning immigrants trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors. Some even are students and baseball players.

Oft-injured Kevin Mitchell loved toys and clubhouse high jinks, but the former MVP was also a guardian angel–and much more.

You know him for his gold tooth, his silver tongue and his Blue Cross & Blue Shield. We wouldn’t want to say the guy is injury-prone, but he once strained his rib muscles while vomiting. Another time he showed up late for spring training because he needed emergency dental work after munching on a microwaved chocolate doughnut.

He is the Wile E. Coyote of baseball. He keeps falling off cliffs, getting conked on the head with anvils, opening packages that explode and, inevitably, coming back for more.

Why are they so bad?

A profile of major league reliever Joe Valentine, who was raised by two mothers.

Years ago, then-Giants second baseman Jeff Kent was changing out of his uniform when he glanced at the nearby reporters and cracked, “There are no queers here, are there?” The comment barely raised an eyebrow. Valentine is aware of the stigma. That is why his family asked that this story not be published until Valentine secured a spot on the major league roster.

A Red Sox fan, so devoted he listened to their games over the phone in Paris, recounts the glittering glory and the chilling finale of 1978′s New York-Boston playoff.

On the unassuming brilliance of the Atlanta Braves catcher:

Somewhere along the line, the career of Brian McCann became less than the sum of its parts. He was too quiet, too underrated, too underappreciated, and there was a storyline that was all too easily available for defining his career; a metaphor that was perhaps too perfect to do anyone any good, even if that somebody happened to be a Major League baseball player who hits clutch grand slams with an air of regularity.

On Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, and disappointment.

Bo Jackson’s baseball exploits remain mythical to those lucky enough to have seen him.

May 15, 1989: Baseball writer Peter Gammons was in Minnesota to write a Sports Illustrated cover story about Jackson, so he watched Bo take batting practice. It was a typical Bo hitting session — he cracked rockets all over the field. Then it was time for his last swing. Bo jumped into the cage and hit left-handed.

He hit a titanic shot 450 feet off the Hardware Hank sign in right field.

Left-handed.

“I got work to do,” Bo said to the other players, whose jaws had dropped. He ran out to the outfield to shag some fly balls.

The video of his batting-cage exploits has turned him into an Internet curiosity and a media star. How can a kid so small and so young handle 85-MPH heat? Are his parents up to something? Is Ariel Antigua for real?