About

Welcome to hardballcooperative.com. We’ll be talking baseball, and lots of it. Join our Facebook group to receive updates of what we’re doing.

Your hosts:

James Bailey grew up as a Mariners fan in Seattle, back when Julio Cruz and Ruppert Jones were the best the club had to offer. He later worked for the Durham Bulls for three seasons at old Durham Athletic Park, and served a few tours of duty at Baseball America. Since 1995 he’s been a contributing writer for Lindy’s Baseball annuals (previously Ultimate Sports Publishing). Hardball Cooperative is his third baseball web experience, after BaseballAmerica.com and Around the Appy League.

Thom Henninger is a senior writer for STATS LLC. He has edited and contributed to the STATS line of books that published until a few years ago. He now writes a weekly baseball column for STATS Fantasy Advantage, a fantasy tool offered by the company, and also contributed to Jim Bresnahan’s Play It Again, a 2006 book that examined various what-ifs in baseball history. A Minnesota native and lifelong Twins fan, Thom fondly recalls attending the 1965 All-Star Game in Minnesota and later seeing Jim Kaat outduel Sandy Koufax in Game 2 of the 1965 World Series.

Bill Ballew is a freelance baseball writer and editor and the author of eight books. A 1983 graduate of the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism, he has served as a part-time media relations and publications coordinator for the Asheville Tourists since 2002. He writes for numerous publications, including Baseball America and ChopTalk, and serves as a freelance baseball book editor for McFarland & Company. His books include Brave Dreams, The Pastime In The Seventies, Rounding The Bases, Baseball In Asheville and, his most recent, A History of Professional Baseball in Asheville, published in February 2007 by The History Press.

Bill Begley is a newspaper veteran of more than 25 years, a lifelong Reds fan and a relocated Buckeye now working in Texas for the City of Fort Worth. Before bailing out on the “paper biz” he earned more than 60 state, regional and national writing awards. During that time, he witnessed first-hand his childhood hero break Ty Cobb’s record and then saw his hero’s heart broken when he was banned for life for gambling on the game. Bill will not use his hero’s name … it’s far too painful a memory.

Elizabeth Finn is a fourth-generation Yankees fan who occasionally admits under duress that there are 29 other major league teams. A native Western New Yorker, she has a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from LeMoyne College and the bad habit of spending all her money on minor league ballgames. Elizabeth maintains a Yankees-focused blog, Blogging The Mystique, and you can follow her on Twitter @ElizabethFinn

Jeff Parker blogs regularly about the Royals at Royally Speaking and is an occasional contributor to Dugout Central. He can be reached at jeff@royallyspeaking.com.

Pete Sabatini is a writer, editor, and third-generation Yankees fan bringing newspaper and publishing experience to his news, notes and commentary. Born, raised, and living in North Jersey with his wife and hound dog George, Pete covers the Yankees at Examiner.com and can be reached at YankeesExaminer@gmail.com. You can follow Pete on Twitter: www.twitter.com/YankeesExaminer or find him wandering the halls of the Stadium.

Jeremy Tiermini grew up as a Yankees fan as soon as his grandfather bought him his first pack of baseball cards, with the first card he saw being a 1979 Topps Ron Guidry. He lives in the Finger Lakes region of New York and is the certified athletic trainer and an assistant professor, focusing on athletic training, at Finger Lakes Community College. He has a bachelor’s degree in Sports Medicine from Mount Union College and a Master’s degree in Sports Medicine from the United States Sports Academy, where he focused his research on the biomechanics of baseball. He enjoys all things baseball, including fantasy baseball and collecting baseball cards, and hopes to retire to Cooperstown, NY, where he can have daily access to the archives in the Baseball Hall of Fame.