Baseball Page 1185 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Pablo Sandoval Smashed Three Home Runs In His First Three World Series At-Bats Tonight
The only men to ever hit three home runs in a single World Series game? Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson, Albert Pujols ... and now Pablo Sandoval. The San Francisco Giants are now up 6-0 in the fifth inning of Game 1, having already knocked out Justin Verlander. And it's only the second three-HR game ever...

Your World Series Game 1 Open Thread
The World Series is upon us! Game 1 starts at 8 p.m. EDT, and this is where you can yak about the game as it unfolds before your eager eyes. Tonight's pitching matchup is Barry Zito vs. Justin Verlander, which means that you will be simultaneously soothed by Zito's totally chill curveball and elect...

The Pirates Lied About A Prospect Who Got Hurt During Some Team-Sanctioned Military-Type Exercises
When details got out about the Pittsburgh Pirates putting prospects at their fall instructional league through Navy SEALs-type training last month, it was easy to point and laugh. That pointing and laughing was made even easier because, around the same time the SEALs regimen was being reported, an e...

Grantland's Jonah Keri Picks The Giants In Seven; ESPN's Jonah Keri Likes The Tigers In Five
Today on Grantland, a pair of World Series preview pieces: Rany Jazayerli on why the Tigers could win, and Jonah Keri on how the Giants could take home the championship. Both men predict the series will go seven games—Jazayerli takes Detroit; Keri, San Francisco. Also on ESPN.com: a list of experts'...

The Marlins Have Fired Ozzie Guillen
The Marlins have fired manager Ozzie Guillen, reports everybody, after a hilarious 69-93 season that included a five-game suspension, a feud with his closer, and a premature reality-show cancellation, and fell short of everyone's expectations. The Marlins were apparently unaware of Guillen's body of...

The Giants' Pennant Run Ended Right As Rain
How many LCS clinchers, not involving your team, do you actually remember? Carlos Beltran standing stock-still, Aaron Boone going deep, Sid Bream's slide, Chris Chambliss's homer...and that's probably about it. It's probably fair to add last night's Giants win, a 9-0 drubbing that was decided by th...

The San Francisco Giants Are Going To The World Series
The Giants trounced the Cardinals by a score of 9-0, completing an impressive comeback from a 3-1 series deficit and managing to kill the previously immortal St. Louis Cardinals. Even a team as resilient as this Cardinals team can only be carried so far by the likes of Daniel Descalso, Pete Kozma, ...

Hunter Pence Had Three Hits On One Swing
OK, so technically that's impossible, but look at this thing! In the bottom of the third, as Hunter Pence's bat explodes in his hands, the ball makes its way down the barrel of the bat, hopping all the way like some kind of concussed bouncing Mickey Mouse head in a Sing-Along Song. Pence wound up w...

Lil Wayne Sang "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" At Last Night's Cardinals-Giants Game
A lady in a ridiculous hat singing "God Bless America" wasn't the only crazy thing to happen during the seventh inning stretch last night. The San Francisco Giants also welcomed Lil Wayne onto the field, where he led the crowd in a less than rousing rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."...

Here Is A Terrible Performance Of "God Bless America" By A Woman Wearing The City Of San Francisco On Her Head
The Beach Blanket Babylon is one of this country's longest-running and best-known musical revues, and features performers who wear ridiculous hats. These performers regularly make appearances singing at San Francisco Giants games, so nobody was too surprised when the company's Misa Malone arrived ...

The Marlins Ate $8 Million Worth Of Salary To Get Rid Of "Bitter Pariah" Heath Bell
The Miami Marlins traded Heath Bell away to the Arizona Diamondbacks—well, gave him away and promised to pay part of his salary, more than traded—and the Miami Herald dispatch announcing his departure made sure to give him a good kneecapping on the way out....

The Red Sox Pull Off Trade For John Farrell, Will Get "Marginal" Piece Not Named John Farrell In Return
John Farrell will be managing the Boston Red Sox next year and Mike Aviles (reportedly) will be an infielder for the Toronto Blue Jays. The decision to trade an actual professional athlete for a guy whose primary responsibility is to put professional athletes in a certain order for hitting purposes...

Missouri Man Holds Up Bank, Yells "Go Cards" As He Makes His Getaway
Fans of the St. Louis Cardinals are just the best in baseball, aren't they? While everyone else robs banks in the greater St. Louis area in such a negative, surly way, Cardinals fans do it with gusto and spirit and enthusiasm....

The Red Sox Are Preparing To Trade An Actual Player For A Manager
ESPN Boston reported today that the Red Sox are in serious negotiations to acquire former pitching coach John Farrell from the Blue Jays. Farrell is the Blue Jays' manager, and the Red Sox, well, they're looking for one....

The Detroit Tigers Are World Series-Bound After A Dominant Sweep Of The New York Yankees
There will be many dissections and analyses of just how much of a drubbing the Tigers laid into the Yankees during this 2012 American League Championship Series, but if you even watched an hour of any given game, you saw near-complete domination of the Yankees, something we probably haven't seen sin...

Everything You'd Ever Want To Know About Kyna Treacy, The Girl In The Stands A-Rod Was Macking On
Last Saturday, Alex Rodriguez allegedly attempted to woo a pretty lady in the stands during his team's Game 1 loss to the Detroit Tigers. Now, the object of A-Rod's affection has been identified as Kyna Treacy, Australian model and owner of her own swimwear line. If Australian tabloids are to be bel...

Here's How A Year-Old Aerial Shot Of St. Louis Ended Up On Last Night's Fox Broadcast
When we noted earlier today Fox's apparent use of old video during last night's NLCS broadcast from St. Louis, we asked how such a thing might happen—and if it was simply a mistake or a revelation that much of what we assume is a live broadcast is, indeed, not live at all....

The Nationals And Orioles Are Not Refunding The "Service Charge" On Playoff Tickets For Games That Don't Exist
There is some cognitive dissonance in purchasing tickets for a round of the playoffs that your team has no guarantees of even advancing to. The presale is a must, of course—the teams need time to sell out, and ticketholders would probably like to know more than a day or two in advance if they're goi...

Fox Needs To Update Their St. Louis Stock Footage, As Last Night's NLCS Closing Shot Featured A "Go Pujols" Sign
As Fox ended its broadcast of a much-delayed ending to last night's NLCS Game 3, a curious thing seemed to scroll across the gaudy videoboard atop the Lumière Place casino: "GO PUJOLS." While it's possible the person in charge of such messages never learned of the slugger's exit from the Cardinals ...