In preparing an “All-Time Baseball Highlights” piece, I often go to the BaseballLibrary.com and click on “Today in Baseball History” or do a search on a specific player as a starting point in working up a Great Moments piece.

This page is valuable in that it gives a snap shot of a specific game or about the career of a specific player pinpointing a specific date in that player’s career, cross-references it with searches of a given day in history and provides a basis for further research on other reference pages which will be reviewed later in this series.

For example, a search of Baseball History on July 1 netted this;

The Brewers defeat the Cubs, 19-12, as SS Jose Valentin hits 2-run home runs from each side of the plate. 2B Ron Belliard and C Dave Nilsson each get four hits for Milwaukee, while Belliard drives home five runs. The Brewer light up Steve Trachsel for 10 runs in 3.2 innings pitched, hanging his National League high 11th loss on him. The Brew Crew collects 21 hits for the 2nd times in three nights. There are eight homers in the game, including a pair by Cubs Mickey Morandini. Not homering after four straight games in which he went deep is Sammy Sosa, who singles twice.

This snapshot became a basis for this “All-Time Baseball Highlights” piece.

Also, BaseballLibrary.com has captured numerous memorable and often humorous quotes concerning the piece of baseball history entered.

One of the classic examples is a comment of then Phillies owner Bob Carpenter concerning his trade of former Rookie of the Year Jack Sanford to San Francisco for Ruben Gomez and Valmy Thomas;

The Phils Carpenter will later rue, “it was the worst trade I ever made.”

BaseballLibrary.com is a great source for those seeking snap-shots of baseball history and great moments.  Two short-comings though, it does not cover All Star game moments and discontinued gathering great moments and player snapshots in 2002.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 2:32 am and is filed under Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.