Monday's five for fightin

Published Jun. 15, 2015 1:53 a.m. ET

foxsports

Working on these links whilst wondering why the Pirates don't just go with their throwbacks all the time, since they're so much prettier than anything they've donned since...

— Here's a really nice story in the Times about Mo'ne Davis's traveling baseball team, which this month is traveling along the Freedom Trail in a 1947 bus. I've made a few of these stops -- specifically, the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, and Little Rock Central High School -- and I can testify to their power.

— If you didn't know better, you might figure Rob Bradford's column about Hanley Ramirez and his terrible defense (among other things) might be at least a bit overwrrought, considering that Ramirez, for all his faults, does lead the Red Sox in both homers and slugging percentage. If you believe the fielding stats, though? Ramirez has been brutal in left field, so brutal that he's been replacement-level at best, all things considered. Oh well. He's signed for just another three or four years.

— Hey, here's something I never knew before! Rollie Fingers would have pitched one more season in the majors. Except the Reds wouldn't let him keep his mustache. This and much more is detailed in C. Trent Rosecrans' fine story about Greg Vaughn and the demise of the organization's longstanding policy.

— Once more, and let's all say it together with gusto, Alex Rodriguez has not driven home more runs in his career than Babe Ruth. Despite what you might be reading. Here's the skinny on Ruth, via Baseball-Reference.com (and Mr. Rodriguez, however impressive his 2,000-plus RBI, remains more than 200 behind the Babe).

— So apparently this was not a neighborhood play, and thus was reviewable (and was, in turn, overturned). It wasn't a neighborhood play because the fielder came off the base because of the throw, and not because he was trying to avoid a sliding baserunner. I still don't understand how MLB can carve out the neighborhood-play exception, even if it's rarely observed. I thought the exception wouldn't last, but it's already lasted longer than I expected.