Hello 👋 I’m Tom Stone.

Welcome to Now Taking the Field, a baseball email newsletter and blog that includes the in-season daily feature, The Baseball Buffet.

I’ve had a successful 25+ year career in corporate HR and learning and development, but have also been a long-time freelance baseball analyst and writer. (I welcome connections on LinkedIn.)

After writing for several years at a previous personal blog and Seamheads.com, I finally published my first baseball book with ACTA Sports in early 2019: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises (see the book also on Amazon). I plan to write several more baseball books, but for now this email newsletter and blog is my primary baseball writing outlet.

The Baseball Buffet

Starting with the 2025 season I significantly expanded my newsletter writing with a new, daily series called The Baseball Buffet. The goal is to provide the best daily dose of relevant baseball info in a smart-brevity format (headers, short bullets, getting to the point, with quick analysis/insights.) Think of it like what baseball fans of a certain age would look forward to in their morning newspaper’s sports section each day! Included in each issue will be sections covering:

• Quick highlights of the previous days’ games

• Standings

• On the Move - transactions including significant injuries, demotions, call-ups, etc.

• League leaders - rotating statistics leaderboards each day

• Daily trivia question

• On this Day in Baseball History (3-8 events that took place on that date in years past)

• Today’s Birthday Boys (writeups about star players from the present or past who have birthdays today)

• Previewing Today’s Games

  • Top games of note

  • HR Watch

  • Hits Watch

  • Who is Streaking?

  • Who Might Struggle Today?

• Quote(s) of the day

• Trivia Answer!

• Good reads - one or more recent baseball articles by others that I really enjoyed

I’ll probably add more features in time, especially if I can find more time to dedicate to this. Let me know what you think of The Baseball Buffet by rating each issue or directly via email at [email protected].

Beyond this daily series, if you are new to my work at Now Taking the Field, consider taking a look at the archive for some of what you’ve missed, such as:

• All-Time Dream Teams for players born in each of the 50 US States, as well as various countries

• All-Time Dream Teams for players born in each of the 12 months

• Unique player profiles called “Best, Worst, Outliers, and Oddities” on players such as Rickey Henderson, Dave Parker, Brooks Robinson, Joey Votto, Gaylord Perry… and more to come!

Thank you for reading my email newsletter and blog, Now Taking the Field, including the daily series, The Baseball Buffet. Please subscribe so that you get each issue directly in your email inbox, and don’t miss out any of the fun!

Please also feel free to send me a note with any feedback you have—I can be reached by email at [email protected].

Tom Stone