Jay Dunn

1 week ago | trentonian.com | Jay Dunn

On Monday night the Pirates beat the Nationals behind the pitching of Paul Skenes, who threw 99 pitches in six innings, allowing only three hits and no walks. He gave up only one earned run. For Skenes that’s almost a typical night’s work. He was the first player chosen in the 2023 draft and he’s already justified that selection — and more. The Pirates are the very definition of a bad team — except when Skenes is pitching.

2 weeks ago | trentonian.com | Jay Dunn

Babe Ruth hit 60 homers in a single season and 714 in his career. Ty Cobb had 4,189 career hits and stole 897 bases, including 96 in a one season. Lou Gehrig once played in 2,130 games. When I was a teenager, any baseball fan could recite those numbers. Even people who weren’t avid fans knew those numbers. To people of my generation they seemed to be written on stone tablets and were permanently woven into the fabric of the game.

3 weeks ago | mcall.com | Jay Dunn

Holy Torpedo! What is this? In their opening weekend the Yankees outshone the Bronx Bombers of yesteryear with an awesome display of power. In three games against the Milwaukee Brewers, they scored 36 runs, and that included 15 home runs. Observers noticed that many of the players were wielding oddly shaped bats — something that was dubbed the “torpedo bat.”Were they cheating? Absolutely not. The torpedo bat complies with major league rules in every way.

4 weeks ago | trentonian.com | Jay Dunn

On a typical baseball team the leadoff hitter is frequently the fastest runner. On a typical baseball team the catcher is frequently the slowest runner. Occasionally catchers have batted leadoff, but it would be an understatement to say that that happens very infrequently. Here’s how infrequently it occurs:The Yankees have played in New York since 1903. In 122 seasons they have played more than 19,000 ball games.

1 month ago | trentonian.com | Jay Dunn

Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent died on Feb. 1. The Major League Baseball network was transmitting the Caribbean World Series when his death was announced, and it flashed the news on the crawl space at the bottom of the screen. Immediately, I felt sorry for whoever it was who was managing the messages that appeared on that crawl space. After all, there have been only 10 commissioners in the history of the major leagues. Subsequent messages about Vincent’s death would have to be embellished.