Anybody who knows the Shark knows that the Shark knows Baseball. Coming back into the fold after boycotting the Major Leagues in the 1995 season (but certainly not the Minors), the ol' shortstop is keeping this Page as green and trimmed as Bill Miller kept the infield grass at the famous DAP.It has to start here: The Durham Bulls Baseball Club, right here in scenic Durham NC. This is one of the premier Baseball club sites in America - if you have the right browser and agents installed, you can view a helicopter fly-by of the new Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Listen to the Bulls' WDNC (AM) flagship radio team of Steve Barnes and Rod Meadows describe the play-by-play of every game on RealAudio (the only Minor League team you can hear on the Web) or just download Wool E. Bull's Fun Page, print it out and color it in.The Bulls, an affiliate of the World Champion Atlanta Braves, play in the "extended season" (or "Advanced") A classification in the Carolina League, which is home to eight teams from Wilmington DE to Winston-Salem NC.
Don't forget to stay current with the Carolina League Standings!
Basic information and rosters for the entire Braves Minor League System is available. Some day soon, we hope all the affiliated farms will have their own Web presence!
For the complete overview of Minor League Baseball, the one site to bookmark is the NAPBL "Minor League Baseball - Big League Fun" page.
Put on your game face and go on a dream tour of the hundreds of Minor League teams playing the game. They have it all, from League listings to Team lists.
If it's numbers you want, they have Standings, News and Schedules.Another, smaller-but-developing Minor League link site is FanLink. Pay attention to it as they grow.
The independent professional leagues have their own umbrella site, too, at RealBaseball.com. You'll find eight of the scrappiest indy leagues in North America here, playing the "equivalent" of Rookie to AAA classifications from the northeast to the Gulf Coast to the great northwest.
One of the denizen's of the "Let Bubba Pitch" box at the DBAP (also known as the "Nobody's Safe at First" box), Aaron the Aardvark, is maintaining a fan's perspective report on the Bulls' season. Check out his well-written (and constantly updated) Notes from the Bubba Box.
The Shark is genetically a Boston Red Sox fan and makes no apologies for it. The Dream World Serious would have to be the Sox v. the Braves! (That coulda happened in the International League Governor's Cup finals in the Strike Year of '94 when the Richmond Braves should have met the Pawtucket Red Sox, but the PawSox did the old "el foldo" and gave the Northern Division championship to the Syracuse Blue Jays in the playoffs.)
The Red Sox have finally put an "Official" site on the Web, which opens with pure poetry from Carl Yastrzemski and exhibits rare photographs from the Brearley Collection.
Take a guided photo tour of Fenway Park, one of the most storied and beautiful ballyards in the history of the Game. The closing benediction from Bill ("Spaceman") Lee is worth the price of admission.There are also many fine unofficial Sox Sites out there as well: the NESN Red Sox Page (which also carries a page for the Boston Bruins NHL hockey team), the Providence (RI) Journal's Off The Wall Red Sox Page, the Boston Red Sox page on @Bat from Major League Baseball's own Web site, and our very own NandO.net's Boston Red Sox page. If you have the time, spend a little of it on the N&O's Sports Server, widely regarded as one of the finest in the world. The top Baseball Server page is found here.
From right here in Durham comes Baseball America, one of the finest newspapers to ever record the game and its people. The world is richer for their insight. Sadly, it's not online anymore, but the appreciation for NL umpire John McSherry in Jerry Crasnick's Death of an Ump was a true work of journalistic art. We should all be so lucky to die on our own field of dreams... You should look for the April '96 issues in your local library and read it.
Looking for Baseball information for the 1996 Summer Games at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium? Look no farther than here. Baseball will be played at the Games from 20 July through 2 August. Stay tuned and we'll keep you as up-to-date on the results of those games as the site sponsors provide.
Speaking of Baseball as an international sport, take a time out and check into the International Baseball Association page from Lausanne, Switzerland. The world loves Baseball and it shows!
Ballparks? You want Ballparks? Those hallowed cathedrals of both our youth and old age? Paul Munsey and Cory Suppes have collected the whole set at Ballparks. From Braves to Griffith to Baker to Crosley to Memorial to Seals and Sportsman's, they're all here, just the way you remember them.
They've got the new parks, too, from Fenway to Camden Yards and Jacobs. They've even got those wretched abominations, the domed parks with the plastic "grass." This is quickly becoming our favorite site as it has all manner of information you're not going to find in your "normal" ball club press releases.It made its debut at the 1996 All Star Game in Philly and it's one site you shouldn't miss. Total Baseball is the online Baseball Encyclopedia that'll answer any question you have about "every player who's put on a professional uniform." Any site that includes Willie Tasby has got to be listed here.
In addition, don't miss a subset of the site, Total Braves where you can peruse the history of the team from the beginnings in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings through yesterday's game.
Sadly, the whole package requires a proprietary-features browser, namely Netscape. Some day, this arrogance will disappear, but if you've got the spare HD space to keep Netscape around, these sites make it worth it.Finally, the best overall Baseball links page in the known universe: Skilton's Baseball Links. You'll find everything from the amateur Leagues all the way up the ladder to The Show here. If it's not linked, it's not on the Web (yet). If you're a Baseball fan, you already have this one bookmarked, but for the three of you who haven't found it yet, we included it here.
Did we bobble an easy one? Score us E-6 and send Email so we can, as the Umpire's Manual so eloquently puts it, "Keep [our] eye everlastingly on the ball." (Or as former Bulls' manager Leon Roberts was once overheard to say, "Find the ball. Somehow.")
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