The internet is a wonderful thing, so much so that we frequently ask ourselves how we ever got along without it. But the simple truth is that history is history no matter how we access it.

For those old enough to remember, rarely did a week go by without an Encyclopedia Britannica salesman knocking on our doors trying to convince our parents that without their wonderful collection of vaunted research books, their kids – i.e., us – would never be successful in life. But while the famous encyclopedia publisher has been around since 1768 (that’s not a typo), history is an on-going and ever-changing thing and the famed research source would essentially become obsolete the moment they were printed. (Author’s note: The final print edition of Britannica was released in 2012, after which they, too, transitioned to the internet).

But alas, if the parents of us baby boomers (and older) declined to make the lofty investment for an encyclopedia collection, we were forced to visit a placed called a public library for our research projects. Now we just Google it, which is a marvelous thing – especially for sportswriters and bloggers.

Were it not for great websites like Baseball Reference Elias Sports Bureau, and MLB.com, the average fan might not know that Dodgers rookie phenom Cody Bellinger is rewriting baseball history on a near daily basis. They would not know that:

“Cody Bellinger homered for the Dodgers in their 5–1 win over the Cardinals in St. Louis on Monday. Bellinger now has 11 home runs on the season, including nine since the start of May. With two games left to play this month, Bellinger has a shot to become the first rookie player to reach double-digits in home runs in a calendar month for the Dodgers, a franchise that joined the National League in 1890. For now Bellinger’s nine longballs in May are tied for the most in a month by a Dodgers rookie; that total was previously reached by James Loney (Sept. 2007) and Joc Pederson (May 2015).” – (source: Elias)

Bellinger’s fourth-inning solo home run on Monday afternoon was the 11th of his career and the ninth in the month of May. The 21-year-old Scottsdale, Arizona native has two more days to become the first Dodger rookie in franchise history to hit double-digit home runs in a calendar month.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

Simply put, we as Dodger fans and baseball fans in general are on the cusp of witnessing 21-year-old Cody Bellinger break a record that is 127 years old. And when you think about it, that’s not just a remarkable thing, it’s a historical thing that you will never find in a printed version of Encyclopedia Britannica.