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A Perfectly Strange Day at the Beach by Henri Marchand This essay, written in July of 2008 during the last economic crisis, seems apt for our current times. On a recent Sunday morning, a two weeks before the 2020 July 4th holiday, we took our first ride to the beach…
Read More »The Art of Getting Home: Bart Giamatti and the 1952 Saint Patrick’s Girls Softball Team By Christine O’Connor No one has ever written about the game of baseball with more intelligence and beauty than former Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti. In one of his many essays on the subject he described…
Read More »William Henry Merritt By Eileen Loucraft Back in the early days of professional baseball, Lowell produced a star catcher named William “Billy” Merritt. William Henry Merritt was born in Lowell on July 30, 1870 to William and Mary (Cleary) Merritt who were Irish immigrants. He attended Lowell schools and the College…
Read More »Baseball By The Numbers A Confession By Jerry Bisantz I admit it. I am bad at math. So, why do I love baseball so much? And, please, don’t give me all that Kevin Costner “Field Of Dreams” playing catch with your Dad poppycock. Anyone who really knows baseball knows “Bull…
Read More »Time Lapse By David Daniel I am sitting in my night class and Mr. Crutchfield, the instructor, is talking about time lapse photography and how you can manipulate an image by the amount of light you permit to enter the camera. I’m not too clear on what this means, for…
Read More »Spinners Photo Essay By Jennifer Myers This has been a tough year for baseball, particularly minor league baseball. Earlier this week, Major League Baseball announced that the entire minor league season had been cancelled. But even before the pandemic, MLB had started contracting the number of minor league teams which…
Read More »Guilty Pleasures of the Fourth by Henri B. Marchand An essay from Henri Marchand, updated from its original 2006 version. As another Fourth of July holiday approaches the nightly cannonade of assorted firecrackers and whistling skyrockets has been steadily intensifying. These illegal blasts and crackles usually reach a crescendo over…
Read More »When the San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series, Dave Perry composed the following essay about his longstanding affection for that team and one player in particular . . . ‘Willie’ By Dave Perry – Nov 2, 2010 I dreamt of Willie Mays last night. It was the first…
Read More »We dig into the archives for this story by Paul about a teammate of Tony Congiliaro’s on the 1967 Boston Red Sox. ‘This Is Dalton Jones’ By Paul Marion on June 6, 2012 Last Friday, I received a surprise call at my UMass Lowell office. I was in a meeting…
Read More »Life is all about contingencies. In this story, legendary baseball writer Chaz Scoggins explains how a former major league player, frustrated in his effort to purchase the professional baseball team in Lowell, settled into a scouting job with the Red Sox and helped bring Babe Ruth to Boston. Ruth and…
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