What’s Happening in Baseball Today

The First Pitch: November 27, 2025

Happy Thanksgiving from This Great Game! We’ll be off this Friday through Sunday to take a holiday rest, while the site may be down briefly during this time as we switch servers. Enjoy the weekend, be kind to others, and always remember: Baseball and oxygen!

Up-and-down pitcher Dylan Cease is feeling very up after signing a seven-year, $210 million contract with Toronto. Although the right-hander, who turns 30 next month, has enjoyed durable consistency by rarely missing a start, the results have been more oscillatory. He went from a 3.91 ERA in 2021 to a 2.20 the next season—then back up to 4.58, down to 3.47, and up to 4.55 this past season. In short: You don’t know what version of Cease you will get in any given year, except that one year’s results may be much different than the previous. But the Blue Jays are betting that the yo-yoing will stop and that Cease will be consistently superb going forward.

It Was Whatever-Something Years Ago Today

1947: For the second time in six seasons, Ted Williams is denied the AL MVP despite winning the hitters’ triple crown by leading the league in batting average, home runs and RBIs. The Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio wins the award instead by a single point—because a sportswriter apparently at odds with Williams refuses to list him on the ballot at all.

You Say It’s Your Birthday

Happy birthday to:

Jimmy Rollins (47), three-time All-Star shortstop; 2007 NL MVP; recipient of four Gold Gloves; four-time league leader in triples 

Ivan Rodriguez (54), Hall-of-Fame catcher who’s played more games at the position than any other major leaguer; 1999 AL MVP; 14-time All-Star; 13-time Gold Glove winner 

Mike Scioscia (67), two-time All-Star catcher, followed by 19-year tenure managing the Angels; led the team to 2002 World Series title and six divisional crowns 

Dave Giusti (86), pitcher who won 100 games and saved 145 others 

Born on this date:

Bullet Joe Bush (1892), pitcher of 196 wins over 17 seasons with seven teams; 26-game winner from 1922

Shameless Link of the Day

What do Tarik Skubal, Dutch Leonard, Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, Corbin Carroll and Freddy Peralta all have in common? They’re all new members within our lists of each MLB ballclub’s best hitters and pitchers in our Teams section. Check it out!

Book Review: “Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays”

Edited by Louis H. Schiff and Robert M. Jarvis

One of the things I’ve always loved about baseball literature is its expansive and diverse nature of subjects. For every book that focuses on, say, the storied but familiar history of the New York Yankees, there’s another that digs deeper into the weeds and nudges you with a subject that leaves you thinking, “Huh—I didn’t know that.”

Such a book is Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame: A Collection of Biographical Essays. Published by MacFarland Books—the North Carolina-based baseball book factory—this collection of articles overseen by retired judge Louis Schiff and law professor Robert Jarvis is a meticulously researched book that focuses on a fascinating collection of 11 people who played, managed or ran the game of baseball and, at some point in their lives, took up law. Fun fact, as revealed in this book: Eight managers in the history of major league baseball acquired law degrees—and six of them are in the Hall of Fame. All six are profiled in this book.

What makes Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame such an intriguing read is how these 11 people used their law experience to great benefit during their time in baseball. Branch Rickey, almost overqualified for a life in law school, used his lawyerly instincts to trailblaze his way through baseball history, perfecting the art of the farm system, overhauling failing franchises and, of course, shattering baseball’s race barrier by bringing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larry MacPhail, less the law prodigy than Rickey, nevertheless leveraged what he learned into a far more successful calling as a businessman known for turning companies (and major league teams) around. Walter O’Malley fused his knowledge of the law with his father’s past as a corrupt New York City politician to become the man that tactfully stole the Dodgers from Brooklyn. And Tony La Russa, failed major league ballplayer, eagerly pursued a law degree to empower his stature as a rising manager—first in the minors, then at the major league level where he collected more wins than anyone not named Connie Mack.

Some of those featured in the book are not surprising for their inclusion, like O’Malley or Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Federal judge turned baseball’s first commissioner. One unexpected subject is Hughie Jennings, who from past reading always struck me as the whoop-it-up baseball character who would have least thought of a career in law. Less ironic but still surprising is Miller Huggins, manager of the Yankees during the 1920s who, as a child, was encouraged by his working-class father-in-law to get a law degree because of his penchant for arguing—and was fortunate enough to be taught by, among others, future President William Howard Taft. There’s also Jim O’Rourke, the man who struck the first-ever hit in National League history whose lofty use of “five-syllable words”—which would have made even George Will blush—gained him the nickname “Orator,” lending himself all too naturally to a post-baseball career in law.

The 10 writers who contribute to Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame are not lightweights; they’re highly experienced lawyers, professors and judges who know their craft—and they know their baseball, too. This double-barreled knowledge results in a smooth, self-assured narrative, not delving too deep into law linguistics that might wear down the many laymen among us (to which I count myself as one). And while most of the authors play it buttoned up and refrain from overt opinion, Elizabeth Marquez’s write-up on Bowie Kuhn stands out for her critical views of the former commissioner, writing that he “often…turned out to be on the wrong side of history” with his rulings and opinions.

Some readers adverse to long books may feel compelled to back away from the 253 pages offered in Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but nearly half of the content consists of footnotes and addenda, greatly shortening the core writing while being made available as an option for further digestion of the facts. The book can be useful for reference, or simply enjoyed as 11 well-written bios on some of baseball’s most influential men, and how their appetite for the law helped mold their place in the game.

Attorneys in the Baseball Hall of Fame can be purchased from MacFarland Books, Amazon, and other online book sellers.

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To Whom It May Concern

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