Baseball Page 1180 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

"What A Joke This Sport Is!" Jeff Van Gundy Is Not A Fan Of The Designated Hitter Rule
The Thunder's beat-down of the Lakers last night got a little boring towards the end, as beat-downs will, and unlike some spectators, Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy were contractually obligated to remain in their seats. Naturally, talk turned to the designated hitter, and—like many people, but in h...

Meet Pud Galvin, The Monkey Testicle-Drinking Rebuttal To The Argument That PED Users Shouldn't Be In The Hall Of Fame
Many hours have been lost this winter writing (and deliberately not writing) about who deserves to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and why everyone else is wrong about that. One contentious point: Shouldn't amphetamines—or "greenies"—which were widely used in the majors for decades before...

MLB.com Sells An NBA Headband For Cheaper Than NBA.com Does
Reader Zachary had a desire for an NBA logo headband, because he's cool like that. He looked it up at the NBA Store, and found it for $7.99. Then he found it at the MLB Shop, and it's a dollar cheaper. Why? We don't know. Why does MLB.com sell NBA stuff? We don't know....

Sammy Sosa Has The Best Pinterest Page Ever
I can't even. This is amazing. Sammy Sosa is making an effort to get his name back out there, and that includes joining social media. He set up a Twitter account in October (it's confirmed as him), and a few weeks ago joined photo sharing site/social network for middle-aged women Pinterest. So forge...

Who Was On The Ballots Of The Hall Of Fame Voters Refusing To Go Public?
For just the second time, the Baseball Writers' Association of America has given its voters the option of having their Hall of Fame ballots made public. Of the 569 voters who cast ballots, only 108 chose to reveal who they voted for. (Of course, many more discussed their selections in their own colu...

To Get You To Come To Cooperstown, The Hall Of Fame Will Re-Honor Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby
See that guy over there? That's James "Deacon" White. He played mostly third base and catcher, and had a .740 career OPS. His best years came in the Ulysses S. Grant administration. He's the only baseball player entering the Hall of Fame this year....

Hall Of Famers Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Curt Schilling, Tim Raines, Mike Piazza, And Edgar Martinez Not Elected To Hall Of Fame
A grand total of zero perfectly excellent baseball players have been deemed worthy of joining luminaries like Tom Yawkey, Ty Cobb, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis in Cooperstown....

MLB To Introduce "Interview Caps." You Know, For Interviews.
How funny! I was just saying to myself the other day, "MLB needs more caps. Sure, they've got home caps, road caps, alternate caps, throwback caps, second alternate caps, batting practice caps, road batting practice caps, fashion caps, and playoff caps for each round, but that's not nearly enough ca...

Bullpen Cell Phones Are Coming To Major League Baseball Next Season
MLB and T-Mobile just announced a new deal here at CES that'll (maybe? hopefully?) cut down on embarrassing miscommunications between the bench and the pen. Starting next season, clubs will have the option of using dedicated, in-dugout cell phones to help get their relievers up and warming. Although...

Roger Clemens Will Teach Young Astros Pitchers Everything He Knows
I hope everyone is ready for Roger Clemens to make the long, painful transition from controversy-dogged outcast to wizened baseball mentor, because it's going to happen. With two bizarre perjury trials and a flirtation with an MLB cameo in the rearview mirror, Clemens is turning his thoughts to coac...

2012 Deadspin Hall Of Fame Nominee: Oddibe McDowell's Water Bill
Has it really been close to two years since we first said hello, and a full 10 months since we had to say goodbye? We miss our old friend more than we can say....

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...

Here's A 29-Team Roundup Of Fans' Dumbest Giancarlo Stanton Trade Proposals
Originally published in Baseball Prospectus....

The Poor Astros Will Be Sent To Slaughter On Baseball's Opening Night
MLB just announced which two teams will be facing off in the first game of the 2013 season, and the matchup is a curious one. On one side there are the Texas Rangers, a team that has proven itself to be one of the most exciting and watchable squads in baseball over the course of the last three seas...

2012 Deadspin Hall Of Fame Nominee: Fat Chipper Jones
He showed up for spring training looking like a fat ass. His fatness touched off a debate about whether he was fat. Eventually, Fat Chipper himself chewed the fat, and soon there was no denying what everyone else could see. He tried masking it. He found himself a Playboy-model girlfriend. He even ar...

According To Exit Polls, Nobody Will Make The Baseball Hall Of Fame
The results of 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame voting will be announced on Wednesday, and this year represents a unique ballot. Steroid users, suspected steroid users, a cocaine user, a catcher, Jack Morris. Want a preview? Baseball Think Factory has compiled the votes from every writer that made their v...

Torii Hunter Says Homosexuality Is "Not Right" (Then Claims He Was Misquoted)
On Saturday, Kevin Baxter of the Los Angeles Times wrote a column about the obstacles that a potentially gay athlete still faces in today's locker room culture. Included in the piece is the following quote from Detroit Tigers center fielder Torii Hunter:...


ESPN Writer Has The Single Best Strategy For Dealing With The Hall Of Fame's Steroid Problem
Though we blast the self-important BBWAA members who deal in absolutes, there's no denying that the Hall of Fame has itself a pickle. Bonds and Clemens, the consensus best hitter and pitcher of MLB's last 20 years, are eligible this year, the most obvious examples of players who would get in based s...

Venezuelan MLB Players Spend More Time Worrying About Being Kidnapped Than Most Professional Athletes
Becoming a professional baseball player should mean you're pretty much set, right? Forget the odds that a fringe (or star) professional athlete will go broke before he's a certain age—if you spend much of your twenties and thirties making millions or near millions of dollars for playing a game, you'...