Baseball Page 1274 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

M's Celebrate Japanese Heritage Night By Firing Manager Of Japanese Heritage
Great timing, Mariners. You promise fans "a fun-filled night of Japanese culture," and hours before first pitch you ax Don Wakamatsu, the majors' first Japanese-American manager. To make amends, Chone Figgins will be performing seppuku before tonight's game. [Mariners.com]...

Craigslist Satisfies Your Minnesota Twins Jockstrap Fetish Needs
Someone claiming to be a Minnesota locker room attendant is offering jockstraps from "handsome players," including Joe Mauer and Kevin Slowey. For an extra few bucks, he won't throw in Ron Gardenhire's. [Craigslist]...

Chivalry Is Dead: Man Ducks Foul Ball Before It Hits Girlfriend
You've got three options when confronted with a liner: catch it, protect your seatmates, or dive for cover as it ricochets off the woman you love. Astros fan Bo chose that last one....

A Musical Tribute To Brandon Morrow's Almost No-Hitter
Brandon Morrow became the pitcher he never was for the Mariners yesterday, bedeviling the Tampa Bay Rays and striking out 17 in maybe the most dominant pitching performance of the year. Music via Annie....

Desperate For Excitement, Pirates Announcers Melt Down After Big Win
This is Greg Brown (play-by-play) and Steve Blass (childlike enthusiasm) calling the Bucs' walk-off win on Saturday. If Pittsburgh ever has a good season, Blass's head may explode. [h/t Steve]...

Nationals Pitcher Shaves Mustache, Gains Ability To Pitch
Collin Balester was having trouble. He had a great mustache, but he wasn't pitching well at all. He had beaned Rickie Weeks and Mark Reynolds in the head. He needed to make a radical change. The mustache, unfortunately, would have to go....

Why Aren't There More Good Baseball Movies?
The following is excerpted from Emma Span's 90% Of The Game Is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom, an account of one woman's love of baseball—from cheering along at home to being on the team beat and everywhere in between....

Last Night's Winner: Bankruptcy Auction Enthusiasts
In sports, everyone is a winner—some people just win better than others. Like the reporters working the Texas Rangers bankruptcy auction, who got quite a showdown last night between two of the biggest figures in Texas sports....

The Worst Kind Of Recycling: Rays Re-Using Beer Cups
Hey buddy, enjoying that beer you just bought at the Trop concessions stands? Well, so did the last guy to drink out of that plastic cup....

Fan Won't Let A Little Downpour Chase Him From His Seat, Dilute His Beers
Braving the daily torrent of South Florida last night was this stalwart Phillies fan, who refused to move from his seat during a rain delay, and refused to take his thumbs out of his beer bottles. [Thanks to Nick for the video]...

Can Statistics Prove Once And For All Who Used Steroids?
Two labor economists released a study showing an increase in power numbers by Canseco's teammates which abruptly stopped when MLB instituted random steroid testing. Unfortunately, it also predicts another cycle of "I Guess We Have To Listen To Jose Canseco" talk. [Slate]...

I Don't Care About Alex Rodriguez's 600th Home Run
As a Yankees fan, people have been asking me for the past few weeks what I thought about A-Rod's chase for 600. Okay, nobody's asked me that. But my girlfriend did ask if 600 is a lot. Yeah, I suppose it is....

Andre Ethier Gets Ridiculous Kobe Bryant Treatment From <em>LAT Magazine</em> — You Know The Drill
In an interview and photo shoot with LA Times Magazine, who've got this thing down, the Dodgers' Andre Ethier reveals himself to live in Hollywood and be a foppish dandy....

Kerry Wood to the Yankees? Kerry Wood to the Yankees.
The Yankees will get Kerry Wood from the Indians, agreeing to pay about $1.5 million of the $3.6 million left on Wood’s contract. [SI.com] Wood was activated from the DL today. Mark Prior wasn’t. Brian Hickey cried while typing that. Joba Chamberlain cried while reading it....

Strasburg Usurper Manages To Offend Beauty Queen
Miguel Batista managed to offend hundreds of Washington D.C. baseball game attendees Tuesday when he had the gall to make a spot start in place of D.C.'s Lord and Savior, the very much injured Stephen Strasburg. Then he went and dissed Iowa....

Private Stache: John-John And The Say Hey Kid Share A Tender Moment
As keeper of Sports Illustrated's indispensable Vault, Andy Gray spends a lot of his time sifting through the sports photography of another time, when athletes wore short shorts and facial hair, and everyone looked vaguely uncomfortable. Here is one such photo....

Raul Ibanez's Hitting Makes Another Philly Fan Cry
But this time it's tears of joy for a girl who caught his home run ball, not tears of "we're paying him how much next year?"...

Man In A Banana Suit Using A Citi Field Urinal? Man In A Banana Suit Using A Citi Field Urinal.
When you're emailed a picture with the subject line "Mets game tonight" and the body reads "Banana suit" and the text is highlighted, you post the picture of the man wearing a banana suit using the urinal at Citi Field....

Attention Nationals Fans: You Don't Deserve Stephen Strasburg (Disappointed Newlywed Update)
I don't mean that in some kind of larger, cosmic sense. I just mean that if you came out to the ballpark Tuesday, expecting to see Strasburg pitch, the team doesn't owe you anything after scratching him from his start....