Baseball Page 1206 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Vin Scully Raced Jackie Robinson On Ice Skates
For those of us living on the East Coast, there's no better teller of bedtime stories than Vin Scully. The embodiment of a man who has forgotten more about baseball than any of us will ever know, Scully weaves narratives from his 63 years with the Dodgers into his description of the events on-fiel...

Yu Darvish Is A Flamethrower On The Mound, Needs To Light A Match In The Dugout
Texas barbecued Baltimore last night 14-3, but it was Japanese pitching phenom Yu Darvish who appears to have smoked out the dugout with some nasty flatulence....

Adam Jones Reaches For Home Run, Gets Glove Stuck In Wall
Brandon Snyder's three-run homer in the sixth helped the Rangers blow open last night's 11-run win against the Orioles. Adam Jones had no chance to keep the ball in the park, but he certainly tried his best. The wall at Camden Yards, however, had much less appreciation for his effort....

What If Every Pitcher In Baseball Were Mariano Rivera?
Trying to compare Mariano Rivera to other pitchers is like trying to compare a photon to other sprinters. Out for out, the difference between him and Pedro Martinez is the difference between Pedro and a league-average player. He hasn't had a full season much better or worse than any other, but he's ...

A Reader Reports: The Real Loser Of The Orioles-Red Sox Marathon Was MLB.tv
Time will tell what yesterday's 17th-inning Chris Davis-Darnell McDonald pitching showdown means for the 2012 American League East race. But for the world's scattered Red Sox and Orioles fans, it already proved one thing: MLB.tv can't do the job. Not long after both teams ran out of pitchers, MLB.tv...

Chris Davis Is A Better Closer Than Heath Bell
On Saturday, after Marlins closer Heath Bell had blown his fourth save of the season on Friday night, Ozzie Guillen demoted him to a setup role....

The Story Of The 40 Phillies Fans Who Took A Bus To Nationals Park (And The 38 Who Returned)
There's a smoking section near the first-base gate of Nationals Park. On Saturday, it hosted a mixed batch of fans. You could tell who was whom by the lettering on their red-and-white gear....

Editor's Note: Jonny Gomes Is Awesome
Over the weekend, our own Sean Newell asked if Jonny Gomes, the Oakland A's outfielder and designated Rob Deer, was "the biggest douchebag in baseball." Gomes's apparent crime was admiring a go-ahead home run. Here are some things to know about Jonny Gomes: He was occasionally homeless as a kid. He ...

"Here's Our Resident Nerd, Picking His Nose"
The backlash against advanced statistics in baseball by so-called "purists" can get tiresome, but there's no denying a few of the stereotypes about those dealing in the numbers game sometimes hold true. Here's a shot of Astros Director of Decision Sciences (seriously, that's his job title) Sig Mejd...

Cole Hamels Says He Threw At Bryce Harper
Phillies-Nats, earlier tonight: Cole Hamels drilled Bryce Harper with two outs in the first. Harper then stole home, so joke was on Cole. But none of that would matter much, since Nats starter Jordan Zimmermann buckled in the fourth, and the Phillies won 9-3....

Albert Pujols Finally Hits Home Run, Is The Nicest Human Being In The World
It was bound to happen and it could not have happened to a better player human being. One day after Mike Scioscia sat the struggling first baseman, Pujols came back and knocked one out of the park-his first of the year. It was just the kind of classy and professional move expected of a player of Al...

Here Is A Drawing Of A George Brett-Faced Half Man-Half Unicorn Creature
Sometimes you're just plugging along, minding your own business when out of nowhere you get a tip that includes a drawing of a nude-colored George Brett/Unicorn with a rainbow flowing out of his/its horn....

Is Jonny Gomes The Biggest Douchebag In Baseball?
The scene: May 5, 2012. The 13-14 Oakland Athletics and the 19-8 Tampa Bay Rays are all tied up in the 10th 12th inning in Tampa when Jonny Gomes steps to the plate. Gomes would give the Athletics the lead when he hit a baseball the smallest distance possible for a ball to be hit and still be consi...

"I Was The First Man On The Moon": Pete Rose Still Lying About Things On Autographed Baseballs
We've already seen the Pete Rose signed baseball whereupon he apologized for betting on baseball. His contrition was questionable, however, as he turned a buck on the balls. Nevertheless, It seems the Pete Rose apology/weird novelty signed baseball has turned into a bit of a cottage industry. ...

Hawk Harrelson Went Silent For 63 Seconds After Jhonny Peralta's Walk-Off Home Run Beat The White Sox Last Night
The good folks at Awful Announcing have the video from the Tigers' walk-off win over Hawk's beloved White Sox last night. For 63 seconds (I counted) beginning moments before the ball goes over the wall, there is pure silence from the Chicago White Sox feed. The last thing we hear is the ball was h...

Someone Just Paid $418K For The Bill Buckner World Series Ball
The Buckner ball has a weird and winding history since it changed the baseball world on October 25, 1986. Until today, it had been in the possession of songwriter Seth Swirsky for the past 12 years, but its initial history is a little more interesting:...

Jeff Francoeur Tossed Royals Fans A $100 Bill With A Note That Read, "Buy Some Beer On Me"
Three weeks ago, Jeff Francoeur had 20 pizzas sent to fans in a right-field section in Oakland. And last night, at a game in which he was part of the promotion, Francoeur did a little something for the home folks in Kansas City....

How The Red Sox Goose The Numbers To Maintain Their Sellout Streak
The Boston Red Sox have Major League Baseball's longest streak of consecutive sold out games, at least according to the Boston Red Sox. The Sox claim their mark stands at 723 games, extending back to May 2003, and the notion of it probably strikes most people as somewhat reasonable: The team has enj...

Every U.S. Sports Championship, In Convenient Infographic Form
Our friends at Slate have created a slick infographic that lets you use a sliding bar to see the year-by-year chronology of every championship won in the four major professional sports. Click any given city and a stat box appears listing each championship, when it was won, and the percentage of the ...
