Opening Day of the 2019 Baseball Season

A Quick Review of the 2019 Major League Baseball Season Openers

OPENING DAY BUTTON

by thehotbutton

The Opening Day of baseball for the 2019 MLB season is Thursday, March 28, the earliest beginning date ever at any traditional Major League ballpark.  This season, all 30 clubs will open on the same day

It's time for the 2019 baseball season!

World Series Champion 2018

 

Available on Amazon

The Boston Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games. 

Available on Amazon

Highlights of 2019 in the World of Baseball 

Some of the highlights of the 2019 Major League Baseball season will include:

• March 28, 2019 – Official Opening Day
• April 15, 2019 – Jackie Robinson Day
• July 9, 2019 - 90th All-Star Game, Cleveland Indians Progressive Field
• October 22, 2019 – Scheduled first game of the World Series. 

Baseball is Back!

Bill James Handbook for 2019

This avid 'baseball fan' will be glued to the TV for each moment of these Opening Day games! (I LIVE for this!). 

If you are as 'Crazy about Baseball' as I am, the 2019 baseball season from Opening Day to the last game of the World Series will occupy your time and thoughts for the next 26 weeks.  The joy of baseball has returned!





*Quick Link:

• Reference guide to the complete lifetime stats on every baseball player currently in the majors, available on Amazon. 
• More baseball moments and memories from your 'Baseball Contributor',  Wednesday Elf 

(c) Wednesday Elf

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For Love of the Game – a Movie Review

As the baseball season winds down once again, I begin to make plans for my wintertime baseball replacements.  I am a died-in-the-wool, I LIVE for This baseball fan who is not happy without a daily dose of baseball in some form or other.  This means that during that WINTER season (as per my favorite Bill Veeck quote “There are only two seasons – winter and baseball”) I find books and movies about BASEBALL to fill the time until Spring Training returns once again!

For Love of the Game

I have many favorite (baseball) movies I love to re-watch each winter.  One of the top ten on my list is For Love of the Game which stars the actor I consider the best and most believable at playing the part of a baseball player ~ Kevin Costner.

Costner's character in the movie is a Detroit Tigers pitcher named Billy Chapel.  Billy has an on-again, off-again girlfriend, Jane (Kelly Preston) who tells him she's leaving him and moving to England just before what is most likely Billy's last professional game.  It's the last game of the season against rival team the New York Yankees.  Vin Scully (playing himself) announces the game.

This 1999 movie was filmed in the real Yankee Stadium where a 40-year-old pitcher (Billy Chapel) is pitching the final game of his 19-year career. Battling a sore arm and coping with the news that the team has been sold and he will be traded, on top of learning that his long-time girlfriend is leaving to take a job in London, Billy enters the game fighting both physical and emotional limits.

The movie opens with Billy taking the mound to pitch.  The loud sounds of the crowd slowly diminish as Billy enters his 'zone' where he blocks out everything to concentrate on pitching, leaving a total silence as he winds up for the pitch.  We hear his thoughts as he approaches each batter and each pitch, giving us a glimpse into what a real life professional baseball pitcher goes through. 

What makes the movie most interesting is that the entire movie takes place during this one baseball game and the story of everything that led up to this day is reflected in flashbacks.  Girlfriend Jane is shown in subsequent scenes as she watches the game on TV at the airport while waiting for her overseas flight.  The suspense of the game builds as one out after another is recorded, leading toward the crowning glory moment for a baseball pitcher, a Perfect Game. 

Movie Trailer

 

Kevin Costner as Billy Chapel giving us 'one more day of summer' in the movie For Love of the Game. 

To me, For Love of the Game is the perfect title for this baseball movie, as it is exactly how I feel about the game of baseball.  My wintertime will be filled with this and my many other baseball movies and my home library of books about baseball until my favorite time of year (Baseball's Opening Day) returns. 

Enjoy the off-season and join me again when my favorite phrase resounds in baseball parks around the country ~ “Play Ball”.

For Love of the Game is available on Amazon.

*Kevin Costner has starred in several movies with a baseball-theme, such as Chasing Dreams, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game and The Upside of Anger. I own most of them!

*Review written by Wednesday Elf (10/31/2015)

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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Baseball's All-Star Game

Review of a Mid-Summer Classic

*Updated on 6/25/2021

Welcome to July baseball from Wednesday Elf, known as the 'baseball fan contributor' here on Review This!  It's time for a mid-season story about baseball's All-Star Game.

The All-Star Game

Stadium Seating - Source: FreeImages

The Mid-Summer classic known as the All-Star game has occurred (nearly) every July since 1933.  (No official MLB All-Star Game was held in 1945 due to World War II and was cancelled again in 2020 due to a worldwide panendemic.) 

In 2020, we again had a cancellation of this 'Summer Classic'. The All-Star game was to be held at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. Instead, they will host the All-Star game in 2022.

Coors Field in Denver

Now, the 2021 All-Star Game will be held July 13th in Denver at Coors Field ~ home of the Colorado Rockies. 

Facts About the All-Star Game

The All-Star game is held on either the second or third Tuesday in July to mark a symbolic halfway-point in the Major League Baseball season.  Known as the 'All-Star Break', no regular-season games are scheduled on the day before or for two days after the Tuesday All-Star Game.  A number of festivities are held the day before the All-Star game, including the 'Home Run Derby', a contest between MLB's top home runner hitters, which began in 1985.

2015 was the 30 Year Anniversary of the 'Home Run Derby' (1985-2015)

The participants (players) in this annual mid-summer event are chosen by the fans in both the National League and the American League.  Until 1947, the team selections were chosen only by the managers, but since then the fans get to select the starting lineup.  The pitchers are still selected by the managers.  Ballots used to be given out at ballparks throughout baseball for voting on players for the game.  That year (2015) was the first year that all voting is done entirely on the internet.

All-Star Game Venue

The ballparks chosen for each year's All-Star game alternate between the National and the American League, with venues selected for a variety of reasons by a MLB selection committee. The choices may be made to commemorate a particular historical occasion, the opening of a new ballpark, or a significant year. For instance, the game was held in Yankee Stadium (home of the New York Yankees) in 2008 as it was the final year for that stadium prior to the new Yankee Stadium opening in 2009. 

Available on Amazon

While waiting for the next All-Star Game in 2021, us baseball fans can catch up on past All-Star games with this great baseball reference book The Midsummer Classic.  It's a fun book for baseball fans who love reading and compiling statistics.  The book has facts and play-by-play game data of every All-Star game through the year 2000. (published in 2001). A comprehensive resource for fans, researchers and baseball historians.







Wednesday Elf , the baseball fan, has more stories about baseball be found at:

Baseball Moments and Memories Blogspot

More baseball stories on Review This by Wednesday Elf:

• Why I'm a Baseball Fan
• A Collection of St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Players
• Quiz: Do You Know Your Baseball Jargon?

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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Major League Baseball Stadiums

Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO

If you are a baseball fan, there is nothing better than being at a game in person. And when the game is a Major League Baseball game, it's even better, especially when it's your favorite team!

Girl's Day Out at the Ballpark!

In June 2014, while visiting my daughter in St. Louis, we acquired tickets to a St. Louis Cardinals' afternoon game. The seats were fantastic, the view outstanding, the weather beautiful (although very hot) and the game fun, even though the 'Cards' lost 3-2 to the NY Mets. In past years I had been to a number of Cardinals games at the 'old Busch Stadium, but this was my first visit to the 'new' Busch Stadium which opened in 2004.

Ballpark Village at Busch Stadium, St. Louis

Ballpark Village, St. Louis, Missouri

We also had the opportunity before the game to visit 'Ballpark Village', a new dining and entertainment district in St. Louis located next to Busch Stadium. It just opened this 2014 baseball season and is located on the site of the 'old' Busch Stadium. Between the 'village' tour and the Cardinals game, it was a full (and fantastically fun) afternoon.

Favorite Baseball Stadiums

My favorite major league stadium is Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Home of the St. Louis Cardinals, my favorite team.

Kurt, known as BallparkEGuides1 on HubPages  gives us some great tips for enjoying a game at the new Yankees Stadium in the Bronx, NY. 

It doesn't really matter which baseball stadium you visit or which team is your favorite. If you are a baseball fan, any visit to a baseball game becomes a joyful summer experience.

Experience all thirty baseball stadiums in the country from the comfort of your favorite easy chair with The Baseball Stadium Insider found on Amazon.

'Take me out to the ballgame!' 

*Written by Wednesday-Elf, your baseball contributor on Review This Reviews!



*Baseball Stadium Photos are (c) Wednesday Elf

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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