NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BASEBALL      

        CALIFORNIA BASEBALL HISTORY                                           COLLEGE - SEMI-PRO - PRO

"The 10 Kʼs were part of 343 amassed in a single year, a Northern California record that stands to this day. Among his 343 strikeouts were 160 compiled that spring while at college, a school record that led all college pitchers in the nation. All toll, the righty had established more than two dozen records in both the hitting and pitching departments, half of which have withstood the test of time and still stand. For his efforts, the lanky twenty-year-old free agent received an invitation to attend spring training with the Minnesota Twins in Melbourne, Florida. The moment he had been waiting for all his life; his childhood abstraction of becoming a big-leaguer was one step closer to actuality ... but he was a no-show and just disappeared. The game that he loved; the game that he vowed to live and die for; his raison d'être ... just died in his arms that day. What the hell?"

PRO BASEBALL

TROLLEY LEAGUE

COLLEGE

BIOGRAPHIES

northerncaliforniabaseball.com is an ongoing website providing a foundation or framework for a more extensive history of California baseball played in the northern part of the state. Unlike books, magazines, newspaper articles, and other printed matter, the site has the flexibility to enable additions, changes, and corrections. A general overall history can be gained quickly at one site by clicking the highlighted buttons which will lead to stats, biographies, memorabilia, and commentary pertaining to college, semi-pro, and professional baseball that was played from the game's earliest beginnings.

   Sources, or the content of NCB, are mostly from the archives of public libraries, documented on microfilm or digital from Newspapers.com, baseball-reference.com, college and university websites, Jay-Dell Mah's Western Canada Baseball, goodoldsandlotdays.com, and other published matter including Official Baseball Annuals printed by the National Baseball Congress. The contents of NCB are as accurate as a history can be, based on official publications while some content is of the first-hand nature. Several pages remain under construction pending further research.

The Existential Ballplayer -- "The most difficult task in all of sport is to strike a round hardball squarely and with authority using a rounded club, especially when the ball is traveling 90-plus miles per hour, all-the-while dipping, sinking, cutting or sailing; not to mention trying to hit a curveball, slider, splitter, spitter, knuckler, change-up, forkball, screwball or God only knows what else, and if that weren't enough, there's the fear factor, conscious or subconscious, of the brush-back, high-and-tight-one, or the dreaded beanball, whether intentional or not, that can bruise, break a bone, or even kill you. Ah yes, baseball, the non-contact sport -- good for the soul but tough on the body."

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SEMI-PRO

Kurt Russell -- "Baseball shaded my entire outlook on life, because that's how I first saw the world. I looked at everything, even today, through what I learned about the game. Like pacing yourself, focusing yourself, preparing yourself for what you want to do, keeping  yourself healthy. I do all that through the eyes of a  ballplayer."

MISCELLANY

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BASEBALL

       player stats--baseball timeline--baseball history

        teams--records--championships--biographies

The Existential Ballplayer -- "As far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by how an athlete competes while under duress; reacts when the crowd’s screaming at the top of their lungs; how a ballplayer performs when the game’s at stake; when the championship is on the line; when the count is full with the bags loaded in a game that’s all tied up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth -- how a single choice that someone makes can alter not only the career and course of their own life, but that of others as well."