A Perfect Dodger Game, Minus the Dodgers

For One Weekend a Year, High School Baseball Gets Its Moment on L.A.’s Biggest Sporting Stage

There’s very little iconography around high school baseball games. They lack the under-the-lights, cheerleaders-and-band spectacle of high school football. They have little of the noise and intensity of high school basketball played in the home gym. They are often small events, quiet and pastoral, played on out-of-the-way fields sprinkled with the players’ families and close friends. No one is painted head-to-toe in school colors.

But in Los Angeles, for one weekend a year, high school baseball gets its moment on our biggest sporting stage: Dodger Stadium. Some of the final games …

California State Water Resources Control Board Chair Felicia Marcus

She Can Hear You If You Speak Softly. And She Carries a Wooden Baseball Bat.

Felicia Marcus is the chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board. Before participating in a panel on bringing clean water to communities around the world, she talked Star …

Retrosheet Founder David W. Smith

I Scoff at Your RBIs

David W. Smith is the founder and president of Retrosheet, a nonprofit that collects, computerizes, and distributes play-by-play data for Major League baseball games. In 2013, he retired from the …

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ Barry Axelrod

A Longtime Sports Agent on Jerry Maguire and How Mortals Can Win at Negotiations

As a longtime sports agent, Barry Axelrod represented baseball players including Jake Peavy, Jeff Bagwell, and Craig Biggio. He is currently a special assistant to the general manager of the …

The Lonely Life of an L.A. Sports Fan

For Decades, Rooting for Southern California’s Teams Was Painful and Even Lonely—but I Persevered

A Los Angeles radio sportscaster who billed himself as “Super Fan” used to end his broadcasts saying, “In the department store of life, sports is in the toy section.” That’s …

‘USA Today’ Baseball Columnist Bob Nightengale

The King of Procrastinators Loves Peanuts, Coffee, and Chicago

Bob Nightengale has been covering baseball since 1986 for the Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, The Sporting News, MSNBC, and USA Today, where he is a columnist. Before moderating …