Best of Baseball Crank 2007

I’ve been writing on the web since 2000 and blogging since 2002, and in all those years, 2007 has been perhaps the toughest in terms of being satisfied with my ability to produce consistently new and interesting content for my readers – so with things a little quiet here over the past week or so and probably staying that way for the next few days, I hope you will indulge me here if I run a retrospective look back at my best work from this year, or at least the posts I enjoyed the most. For newer readers, it’s a chance to catch up on things you may have missed. Posts are grouped in three subjects and listed chronologically within those. As you can see, the 2008 presidential election is somewhat overrepresented here, while the baseball postseason is underrepresented.
Sports
A look at Hall of Fame and Hall of Fame candidate middle infielders.
Critiquing Baseball-Reference.com’s translated statistics.
Review of Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side.
Taking a victory lap on the BALCO leak.
EWSL review of 2006 and EWSL age analysis.
EWSL previews for the AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL West and NL Central.
A brief history of the rise of lefthanded pitching.
Assessing Scott Boras.
Is Billy Wagner the best lefthanded reliever ever?
That high-flying Mets defense, before it collapsed down the stretch, and after.
Baseball’s most impressive records. Probably my favorite post of the year, and definitely my favorite baseball post.
Tom Glavine’s 300th win, and the career path of the average 300 game winner.
My BBC Radio debate with David Pinto on Barry Bonds.
Michael Vick and the NFL players union.
Reviewing The Bronx is Burning (the book).
The role of pitching in the history of the Detroit Tigers.
Willie Randolph: the motivational poster.
The home run imbalance between the leagues.
The greatest late-season runs of all time, including the 2007 Rockies.
The horrible almost Yorvit Torrealba signing.
The Milledge deal.
The Cabrera/Willis deal.
The Hall of Fame ballot: Yes on Gossage, No on Dawson.
Isiah Thomas: the most hated figure in NY sports history?
Tim Raines and the Tablesetters.
Politics, War and Law
The wrong way for Rudy to argue about abortion.
Why I’m with Rudy.
Obama’s plan to withdraw from Iraq beginning May 1, 2007.
Mike Huckabee: the right man for the wrong job.
The Iranians in Iraq.
The case against a national minimum wage.
John Edwards’ amnesia on Iran and Israel.
Barack Obama, pandering to cannibals.
Bill Richardson, sucker for tyrants.
A culture war roundup from the courts.
On Imus and the Rutgers press conference.
A look at campaign finance laws through the lens of Torii Hunter’s bat.
Those tax hiking Democratic governors. More here and here.
Eliot Spitzer’s pro-abortion zealotry, and the Seven Stages of Liberal Legal Activism.
Tax amnesty for illegal immigrants.
John Edwards’ fantasy foreign policy.
Obama’s health care plan.
The elements of a third party presidential run.
Harry Reid, the Insult Comic Senate Majority Leader.
The Libby pardon. I’m not even sure if I still agree with this post, but I did put a lot of thought into it.
A satire on the (then-)sinking McCain campaign.
Trying to nail the Hillary jello to the wall on Iraq.
Two cheers for the hypocrites.
John Edwards doesn’t want to know.
A taxonomy of the presidential candidates.
Why Fred Thompson needed to get specific. (He since has).
Uncivil litigators.
The Spitzer/Hillary posts on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, here, here, here, here, and here.
The Trouble With Mitt Romney, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Smearing John Edwards.
Expanding the battlefield.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Michael Gerson.
Yes, Hillary will win the nomination.
Pop Culture and Other Fun Stuff
The Star Wars prequels as they should have been.
Predictions and a wrapup on the end of The Sopranos.
Reviewing the fifth Harry Potter film and the final Harry Potter book.
Pennsylvania Travelogue.