Baseball Page 1099 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Curse Of Ben Affleck's Birth Strikes Red Sox Again
By now, you may be tangentially aware that a Ben Affleck Birthday curse exists for the Boston Red Sox. It goes like this: since Good Will Hunting debuted in 1997, the Red Sox have never won a game on August 15th, Ben Affleck's birthday. Why Good Will Hunting? Probably because no one saw Chasing ...

Rob Manfred Is Your Next MLB Commissioner
After some confusion and sidetalks between Bud Selig and Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, leader of an insurrectionist element among MLB owners, baseball has its successor to Selig: Rob Manfred will take over as the next commissioner after Selig retires in January....

How To Fix The Baseball Hall Of Fame Elections
Admission into the Baseball Hall of Fame has been called baseball's highest honor. Lately, it's also been baseball's most controversial....

Joe Nathan Tells The Home Crowd How He Really Feels
The Detroit Tigers are in a miserable tailspin right now, having lost seven of their last nine games and the division lead going into last night's contest against the Pirates. The Tigers won that game 8-4, but not before struggling closer Joe Nathan heard it from the home crowd. Nathan, it seems, ...

Today, MLB's Owners Decide How To Wage War
MLB's 30 owners will meet in Baltimore today to elect the first new commissioner since Bud Selig took the reins in 1992—unless there is enough discord and politicking to prevent any candidate from receiving the required 23 votes. Which there almost certainly is! Today will see the first open, public...

Twins Prospect Byron Buxton Carted Off Field After Outfield Collision
Byron Buxton, baseball's top prospect, suffered a concussion in his first start in Double-A tonight, playing center field for the New Britain Rock Cats. In the fifth inning he collided with right fielder Mike Kvasnicka and remained motionless, in a heap for several minutes immediately after....

White Sox Boned By Catcher-Blocking-The-Plate Rule, Ventura Loses It
It feels like we haven't had a manager freak out and start kicking dirt all over home plate in ages. We can at least thank the unnavigable abyss of Rule 7.13 for that. ...

Yoenis Cespedes Bashes Homer One Pitch After Nearly Getting Beaned
Cincinnati Reds reliever Jonathan Broxton started his matchup against Yoenis Cespedes in the eighth last night by whizzing a fastball up near his chin. Broxton ended up paying dearly for it....

Edinson Volquez Snags Comebacker With Nifty No-Look Move
The grab is excellent, but I particularly like Volquez bending over in exasperation, as if to say, "Holy shit, did that really just happen?"...


David Ortiz Tracking Down A Pop Fly Could Take All Night
David Ortiz is a designated hitter who only really plays first base in interleague contests away from Fenway. Tonight, the Red Sox were in Cincinnati, which sports a decent amount of foul territory by first base. David Ortiz moved his legs, one in front of the other, at a higher rate of speed than...

Yasiel Puig Almost Hits Matt Kemp With Angry Bat Toss
Yasiel Puig popped up on the first pitch he saw from Mike Minor in the third inning in Atlanta and tossed his bat away in disgust. Unfortunately, he threw it right at the on-deck circle where Matt Kemp was getting himself ready for his at-bat. Celebratory bat flips for all, angry bat tosses for none...

Chris Sale Flexes His Comprehensive Vocabulary After Starts
After nearly every start this season, White Sox pitcher Chris Sale has met a specific objective: Incorporate a predetermined word into his postgame conference....

Chris Davis Is A New Breed Of Mendoza Line Hitter
Hitters at the Mendoza Line are almost definitionally not very good, and players with poor averages usually don't hit a lot of home runs. You have to hit the ball to hit it out of the yard, after all. Lately, though, there have been more exceptions to those rules than ever before. ...

South Korea's Biggest Royals Fan Throws Out First Pitch
We've been keeping track of Sung Woo Lee, a cool-ass dude from South Korea who somehow ended up rooting for the Kansas City Royals and finally got to see a game in Kansas City thanks to a generous group of fans. He was a guest of honor of sorts at last night's game, and even got to throw out the f...

Giancarlo Stanton Can Put On One Hell Of A Show
If you watched a baseball game last night that wasn't between the Cardinals and the Marlins, you watched the wrong damn baseball game. That's because the game you watched didn't have Giancarlo Stanton in it, who turned the evening into his own personal highlight factory....

Injuries Are Laying Waste To The Tigers; Not Even The Bat Boy Is Safe
Things are not going well for the Detroit Tigers. Earlier this evening, Justin Verlander left the game with right shoulder soreness after just one inning. Anibal Sanchez was placed on the disabled list Sunday and is expected to miss up to four weeks. Joakim Soria also wound up on the DL yesterda...

Old Cubs Fan Makes Great Catch On Home Run, Throws Dummy Ball Back
This old guy made a great play to grab Mark Reynolds's second-inning blast in Chicago. He scaled the fence and leaned almost as far over as possible to snag the ball, much to the delight of the folks around him. And, just like his fellow fan from a month ago, in nearly the exact same spot, he kn...

Meet A-Rod's Cousin, The Guy Everyone Blames In The Biogenesis Mess
Every group has one. The loyal one. The guy who does the dirty shit. The guy who takes the blame. The guy who keeps taking it and taking it and coming back for more because, to the loyal one, it makes sense to suffer and have money than break away and go broke. ...

Chart: Which MLB Teams Have The Best And Worst Benches?
The chart above from August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs shows which teams this season have had the most and least productive benches. ...