A song to play while you’re reading about the Nationals: “I Will Survive,” by Gloria Gaynor. This team will be fine with Bryce Harper hitting 40 homers for a division rival. Just…just fine. The Washington… Read more »
Season Previews
A song to play while reading about the Red Sox: I honestly never understood the appeal of “Theme Song to New York, New York” until it became the Red Sox’ preferred way to troll the… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Cardinals: “The Glory of Man” by Minutemen. This song is track 20 on the 1989 CD release of Double Nickels on the Dime, and in 2019… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Rays: “Roll With It” by Oasis It is eight years since Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2% was published and over a decade since the remarkable 2008… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Orioles: “Baltimore,” by Randy Newman. I was tempted to use Nina Simone’s version, but Randy’s is just so good. Newman is a dark comedy genius, however,… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Giants: “LOVE” by Kendrick Lamar, ft. Zacari. (As Kendrick uses his song about love to talk mostly about loyalty, the Giants will find out how many… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Twins: “Sometimes It Snows In April,” by local hero Prince — because a series of home dates likely to be impacted by weather may set the… Read more »
A song for a team going their own way, and to listen to while reading about the Royals: “Never Follow Suit,” by The Radio Dept. The 2018 Royals may have lost nearly twice as many… Read more »
A song to play while reading about the Mets: “Secret Garden,” by Bruce Springsteen – It’s cliche for a baseball writer to go back to the Springsteen well, but hey, if you change all the… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Marlins: “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails Some things are more important than baseball. If the game ceased to exist, we would miss it terribly, but we’d… Read more »
A song to play while you read about the Padres: “Afternoon Delight,” as sung by San Diego’s own Ron Burgundy. After the Machado signing and seeing how the team’s top prospects have performed so far… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Rockies: “Rocky Mountain High,” by John Denver The natural urge or human exploration and ambition is to go where few others have gone before. For some… Read more »
A song to play while reading about the Diamondbacks: “All We Got” by Chance the Rapper Back in 2012, the Angels were in a playoff hunt thanks to strong veteran seasons from pre-decline Albert Pujols… Read more »
Heading into the 2019 season, the Cleveland Indians look to continue their streak of Division Titles. 2018 marked their third in a row and fifth winning season since Terry Francona took over the manager’s seat… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the White Sox: “Almost” by Bowling for Soup. White Sox fans went into the offseason uncharacteristically optimistic about the team’s chances to land either Manny Machado or… Read more »
A song to play while you read about the Rangers: “It’s Gonna Take a Little Bit Longer” by team minority owner Charley Pride. There was little fanfare for Arlington Stadium during its last season in… Read more »
A song to play while reading about the Angels: “Michael” (as in Trout) by Franz Ferdinand. In 1995, Hideo Nomo debuted with the Dodgers and my pee wee baseball practices were never the same again…. Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Astros: “Zachariah,” by the Jesus Lizard. It’s a spaghetti Western stalk of inevitability, the soundtrack for a team that can only be contained in the vagaries… Read more »
A song to play while you read about the Mariners: Built to Spill – “Never Be The Same,” because Jerry Dipoto’s team today will never be the same as it was last week. On the… Read more »
A song to play while reading about the Athletics: “A Theme for Oakland,” by the Phenomenauts. For 30 years, the Oakland Athletics had used Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” as their victory song. That’s fine… Read more »
Thank you for checking out Banished to the Pen’s 2019 Season Preview Series! In our fifth edition, we’re pairing shorter essays with some assorted miscellany to bring you a fun snapshot of every team heading… Read more »
With the regular season over, it’s the most exciting time of the year: we get to find out which predictions or projections from our preseason contestants were the most accurate. Apparently there are some playoffs… Read more »
Do you remember the face book? Not TheFacebook.com. We’re talking about its localized analog predecessor: an actual book schools printed and circulated to incoming students to help them get to know their new classmates. After… Read more »
One hundred and six million dollars. That’s how much the Colorado Rockies invested in free agent relievers this offseason. That’s over six times what they spent on position players. This extreme approach will, unavoidably, dominate… Read more »
The heel team of the 2018 offseason was definitely going to be the Pittsburgh Pirates. In January, they traded the top pick in the 2011 draft, pitcher Gerrit Cole, because he was likely to get… Read more »
Ah, the innocence of April. There I was, sitting on my couch, allowing myself to believe for even a moment that the 2017 New York Mets season would be free of the various issues that… Read more »
On the heels of last year’s wildly successful (and chaotic) Cubs preview, Brandon Lee, Dan Epstein, and Darius Austin brought back the Facebook chat preview to discuss the 2018 Seattle Mariners. Darius: I think the… Read more »
Jon Daniels is rolling the dice. At some point this offseason, he must have looked at his starting rotation and thought, huh. I have two starters. We should… I should do something about that. At… Read more »
A couple days ago, the esteemed editor/organizer/cat wrangler of this team preview series here at Banished to the Pen sent me a very kind email. It said “Were you going to have that Twins preview… Read more »
This time last year, optimism was in abundance in the Steel City. The NL was sharply divided between have and have nots, and the Pirates sat closer to the haves. With former MVP Andrew McCutchen… Read more »
