Jeff Polman
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Jeff Polman is a baseball journalist, screenwriter, and author of the historical baseball blogs "1924 and You Are There!" and "Play That Funky Baseball". He lives in Culver City, CA.

Blog Entries by Jeff Polman

Veeck -- As in Maverick

(3) Comments | Posted May 22, 2012 | 12:29 PM

2012-05-20-BillVeeck.jpg

Arcadia is a pleasant little town at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, just east of Pasadena. Inside the Arcadia Public Library, around the corner from the main desk and just before the children's section, a host of very rare items are on...

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The Top 25 Baseball Books for Your Desert Island

(10) Comments | Posted March 6, 2012 | 4:01 PM

Baseball lends itself to book form so effortlessly because day and in and year out, the game wears fantastic drama on its sleeve. In the mood for a sprawling Russian novel? Let's go with a history of the Cubs. Fast-paced action thriller? Any book on the 1967 American League race...

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My Hall of Fame Ballot for 2037

(2) Comments | Posted January 6, 2012 | 5:22 PM

Nothing gets the baseball blogosphere more riled up than a good old annual debate over players' Hall of Fame credentials, so to save time down the road, I thought I would jump ahead 25 years. Look for the following piece in the January 2037 issue of Baseball Kindle Digest ...

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Take My Leg, Please!

(0) Comments | Posted November 9, 2011 | 5:11 PM

Having just endured six days in a hospital, I've been moved to write something about how far our medical profession has advanced since the bygone days. Luckily the recent discovery of a long-buried diary of Confederate General John Bell Hood illuminates this for us. Having survived an arm wound battling...

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The Great Red Sox Collapse, in 140 Characters or Less

(9) Comments | Posted September 29, 2011 | 11:53 AM

As a lifelong Red Sox fan, their swan dive from the top of the American League East in 1978 is still the most devastating baseball event for me. They recovered beautifully in the final week, winning their last eight games to tie New York on the final day, so when...

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What I Did on My SABR Vacation

(0) Comments | Posted July 11, 2011 | 3:29 PM

Well, let's see...

Heard notorious sports agent Scott Boras address (and actually charm) a packed ballroom of baseball fans and media about his early playing days. Heard a presentation called Fielder Jones, the Offensive Efficiency Paradox of His Hitless Wonders, and How They Stunned the Cubs in the 1906 World...

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Time Travel Now Possible

(2) Comments | Posted June 28, 2011 | 2:49 PM

Late the other night I drove a Nash coupe about five miles to my old Hollywood apartment, to see if the 1947 version of me was home. Sadly, Sunset Boulevard ended at a roadblock, because Formosa Avenue wasn't mapped out by the game developers who created L.A. Noire.

No matter....

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Tales From the Haunted Dodger Ravine

(5) Comments | Posted June 3, 2011 | 11:40 AM

With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe...

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless evening in the early summer of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone in my Saturn, through a singularly dreary tract of L.A. county; and at...

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For a Rite of Spring, Give Me Hockey

(25) Comments | Posted May 5, 2011 | 1:04 PM

In today's overly crowded world of TV sports viewing, April and May are my favorite months. The baseball season is dusting off its cleats and swinging to life, while hockey and basketball are filling our plates with non-stop playoff games. It's hard to know what to watch.

Thankfully, one of...

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To Live With Unreality in L.A

(0) Comments | Posted April 4, 2011 | 3:56 PM

I spent a good two hours at Santa Monica Beach this weekend, but, weirdly enough, didn't have to endure alien meteor showers.

It's also strange that I've been up to the Griffith Park Observatory about a dozen times since I've lived out here and not once did I experience...

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Of Dice and Men

(4) Comments | Posted February 14, 2011 | 11:10 AM

I first see the line while crossing Fifth Avenue: dozens of grown men in multi-colored parkas and baseball caps, waiting patiently in sub-freezing temperatures to honor their hero.

I won't lie. I'm one of them.

It's Saturday the 12th, the 50th anniversary celebration of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, the highly realistic and...

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