StephenJWalker.com

On Saturday, January 30, National SABR Day, I presented at the Bob Davids Chapter (Washington and Baltimore areas combined) Winter Meeting in Rosalyn, Virginia.

Below, are the data I used for my research presentation at the SABR National Convention at the J.W. Marriott in Washington, D.C, on July 30, 2009. This year marks the 39th SABR National and my first convention. If you would like a PDF file of my presentation, please let me know via including your email address in a comment to this post.

I wanted to let everyone know that the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Catholic Review profiled “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators” along with five other books written by members of the archdiocese. I guess we might have the beginnings of a Catholic literati!

My long-time friend and devoted Washington baseball fan David Gough penned a brief review of my book “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators.” I’m posting it here with a lot of gratefulness. Dave is an author of two fine books himself (“They’ve Stolen Our Team” – a story of the 1960 Senators and “Lil’ Nel” a biography he co-wrote with Jim Bard on Nellie Fox, the ‘69 Senators first base coach and Hall of Fame member). Dave provided inspiration and mentoring for me as I developed the ideas and path for “A Whole New Ballgame.”

I will be appearing on WJLA’s News Channel 8 this Friday evening, July 3 (8-9 p.m.) on their SportsTalk show with Glenn Harris. The information to call or send email questions is below. If you can watch and call in, please do. If not, please email a question. It’d be great if the show gets more questions about the book than they have time for me to answer.

In April, Pocol Press published my first book, “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators.” So far, I have one confirmed appearance to speak about and sign books. As part of the local chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), termed the Bob Davids chapter in honor of SABR’s first and one of its finest founding members, I will appear at Brighton Gardens  at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 11, 2009. Here is a link to the notice:

My book, “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators” is now in print and available for purchase! The ISBN number is 978-1-929763-38-2

The publisher, Pocol Press informed me today, that my book “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators” has been sent to the printer. It should be available in three weeks. If you would like to read an insightful, heartwarming remembrance of the best baseball team to grace Washington, D.C. for the past 50 years, you’ll enjoy this book.  Feel free to spread the word!

The announcement today that the Nationals signed free agent Adam Dunn to a 2-year contract evoked a variety of responses. Here’s the two expressed most often:

The president of the Washington Nationals Fan Club quotes ESPN’s Bill Simmons as saying “”People in DC do not
care about that team. At all.”

This spring, Pocol Press (www.pocolpress.com) will publish my book on the 1969 Senators. The title is “A Whole New Ballgame: The 1969 Washington Senators”. Below is information if you would like to pre-order.

I love retrosheet’s (retrosheet.org) feature that shows how a hitter performed against every pitcher they faced in their career and vice-versa. I wanted to see how some well-known players from our two nearby major league baseball teams performed against other players, each other, and each other’s teams in 1969, my favorite baseball season, mainly because of the Senators’ unlikely and wonderful 86-win season.

I much prefer watching, following and discussing baseball to football (I am a Redskins fan suffering under our current Synderian reign of incompetence), but I’ve recognized an unmistakable trend in this season’s NFL Play-offs. Have you?

Here’s some details on the pictures on the 2nd page of our annual family Christmas letter:

Column 1 (from top to bottom on the page):

The past week, Christian Guzman earned National League co-player of the week honors for his amazing display of hitting that led the Washington Nationals to an 8-1 home stand. Guzman turned in multi-hit games for seven consecutive contests.  The last baseball player in Washington to achieve that feat? Hank Allen, April 15 to April 26, 1969. You can look it up on the wonderful site www.retrosheet.org.

A baseball team’s bench, especially in the National League, can help a team win several games. In years past, the Washington Nationals bench has been filled with marginal major league players, has-beens, or never-weres. This year, 2008, is completely different. With a current bench of Willie Harris, Felipe Lopez, Dmitri Young, Jesus Flores, Rob Mackowiak and Aaron Boone, the Nationals have their best bench since they began playing in Washington. Throw in Johnny Estrada, Elijah Dukes and Wily Mo Pena, all now on the DL, and you have unprecedented depth. It’s a feather in Jim Bowden’s cap — and let me make it clear now I’d much prefer Mike Rizzo as the team’s GM, Bowden’s arrogance and lack of emphasis on on-base percentage drive me crazy — that he’s been able to build this strong a bench with almost nothing to trade and little to no free agent money to burn.

Ok – first of all, no jokes about Senators baseball and these three stooges in the title.

I saw a story on this in today’s Washington Post — http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/26/ST2008022602806.html?sid=ST2008022602806

In my quest to blog on all things baseball, I wanted to take a look at how the Nationals rate against the other teams in the highly competitive NL East at the catcher and infield positions. Though some rate the AL East the toughest division in baseball, I disagree. I think the NL East is number one.

Remember the days when WMAL AM 630 was a relevant player in Washington sports broadcasting? I grew up listening to the one-of-a-kind sports radio call in show “Sports Call” hosted by Ken Beatrice. A friend of mine told me today that Beatrice lives a comfortable retirement in a suburban bedroom community in Gainesville, Virginia.

Thanks for visiting my site. Here, you’ll find intelligent, insightful writing on sports, especially baseball in Washington, D.C. — both its history and its current incarnation. I hope you will enjoy what you read here, that you’ll offer a comment or two, and that you’ll visit often. Once I learn the in and outs of this site, I plan to post some pictures of the 1969 Senators and some sound bites from interviews I conducted with former players, coaches, broadcasters and fans from that amazing team that won 86 games and vaulted rookie skipper Ted Williams to the American League Manager of the Year.