tomverducci Page index.xml - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Roger Goodell and the Top 10 sports figures we’d like to...'celebrate' 4/20 with
There’s something communal about smoking weed. Whether at a bar or house party, one of my favorite parts of any evening of imbibing is sneaking off to an inconspicuous alley and passing around a joint while cracking jokes, coughing, and getting that perfect head rush before re-entering the foray daz...

Baseball is getting increasingly liberal with the term ‘perfect game’
There was a perfect game in the World Baseball Classic on Monday. The Puerto Rico pitching staff, led by a perfect 5.2 innings from journeyman José De León, didn’t surrender a baserunner to Israel. Normally, that’d be pretty amazing, even by modern-day pitching standards. But — and I definitely fore...

He’s Joe Bucks now
Joe Buck, the longtime voice of Fox Sports, is bolting for the greener pastures of ESPN, signing a lucrative five-year deal in the $60-$75 million range, according to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand....

WAR isn’t perfect, but don’t disregard it entirely
Advanced analytics are a touchy subject in the baseball world. Some people love how the game has been broken down into a series of numbers that let even casual fans understand the game better. Others don’t share the same sentiment....

Buck & Verducci Are Excited For Baseball's Return To Broadcast TV
Send stories, photos, and anything else you might have to [email protected]....

Saturday Afternoon Baseball Just Isn't The Same Without Blackouts
Send stories, photos, and anything else you might have to [email protected]....

As Greg Maddux Stories Go, This Is A Hard On To Top
When Greg Maddux was elected to the Hall of Fame today (thanks in part to you!!) the news was less that he'd made it, but that someone hadn't voted for him. We're in the second wave now: Maddux stories. Like his arm, they're better than most....

Sunday Sermon: Al Green, Greg Maddux, And The Power Of Softness
Greg Maddux used to talk about throwing softer rather than harder when he was in a tight spot. Back in August of 2004, Mark Prior told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci:...

Should Steroids-Era Sportswriters Be Kept Out Of The Hall Of Fame Voting?
Jeff Pearlman has an interview up with Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, one of the most accomplished baseball writers working. It's long and covers numerous subjects, but it only addresses steroids in two areas: Verducci's groundbreaking 2002 cover story on PEDs in MLB, and whether hindsight makes...

The Verducci Effect Is Overworked And Broken Down
Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci came out with his annual "Year After Effect" column yesterday, based on his hypothesis that that young pitchers tend to break down the season after an increased workload. Specifically, a pitcher 25 and under is supposed to be at risk if he pitched at least 30 more i...

Someone Wrote The Craziest Thing You'll Ever Read About Tom Verducci
Over at Baseball Prospectus, Jason Parks leers literarily at SI's man: "He didn't intend to harass Verducci, although in hindsight the behavior he exhibited did appear suspect to most casual eyes. ... On the walks, he said he would track his (the World) movements, studying his gait and his smile, ho...

If Tom Verducci Thinks Justin Verlander Pitched Like Bob Gibson, Tom Verducci Has No Idea Who Bob Gibson Is
Look, please, for pity's sake: Justin Verlander pitched a mediocre game last night. Craggs already said his piece about the frantic efforts of the sports press corps to sculpt the pile of horse poop Verlander left on the pitcher's mound into a living, breathing unicorn. The relentlessly genial Joe P...

The Tigers Needed A Moment To Spray Champagne In Tom Verducci's Face Before Talking To Him
Your morning roundup for Oct. 7, the day we discovered the toilet bike. Video via Gunaxin. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Tom Verducci Did Vote For Marvin Miller, Despite What Crazy Old Coot Says On His Cryptoblog (UPDATE)
Murray Chass, senior writer for murraychass.com, recently threw heat at HOF Expansion Era committee member Tom Verducci for apparently voting against Marvin Miller. Verducci fired back, and thus the post became unique to the Chass oeuvre in that someone actually read it....

Tom Verducci Has Found His Latest Anti-Drug Mascot: Joe Mauer
Oh, lookie. Here's Tom Verducci, once again on the cover of Sports Illustrated, once again turning real live baseball players into toy soldiers whom he can draft into his own personal war on steroids....

The Evil Umpire: Who Once Called Pitches For Randy Johnson?
Tom Verducci wrote up Randy Johnson in last week's Sports Illustrated and included this odd — and oddly unnoticed — anecdote:...

Roger Clemens Will Be Ready To Pitch...Right After His Sadomasochistic Rubdown
New excerpts from Torre's "The Yankee Years" (insert Tom Verducci yelling "It's not a memoir!" right here) have surfaced. One anecdote tells us how Roger Clemens achieved that anguished look on his face while he pitched....

Media Approval Ratings: Tom Verducci
Even though we can't quite dig up the same outrage he has about steroids, we've always found Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci a must-read during the baseball season....

Tom Verducci Really, Really Wants To Play Baseball
You might remember, from a couple of years ago, when Sports Illustrated baseball guru Tom Verducci played for five days with the Toronto Blue Jays during spring training. It was a clever idea, and well-written, as was his piece this year about serving as an umpire. But, like an athlete who has been ...

So Much For That Fresh Start!
We're actually pretty big fans of Sports Ilustrated's Tom Verducci — who never gets enough credit (or blame, depending on your perspective) for being out front of this whole steroid story from the get-go — but we feel maybe he's gotten a bit too caught up in it all. He's become such an anti-steroi...