Baseball Page 1508 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
How The Crazy-Ass AL Division Races Unfolded: Visualizing Momentum
The Athletics and the Yankees clinched their respective division titles on the same day, but the paths they took to get there were very different. The A's budget freight train slammed through a Rangers squad that had sat atop the AL West for over 170 consecutive days, while the Yankees barely edged ...
Michael Wilbon Just Can't Decide How Much He Hates DC Sports Fans
Michael Wilbon has a problem. There's been all this winning and fun times going on with DC sports this year, so some major magazines are starting to tout DC's merits as a Great Sports Town. Problem is, when ESPN The Magazine rolled out its DC lovefest this week, we learned that Wilbon supplies the ...
Right After Bobby Valentine Gets Fired, ESPN Runs A Segment About Why He's Still The Manager Of The Red Sox
ESPN was covering the breaking news of Bobby Valentine's firing when the network accidentally aired a pre-recorded Tim Kurkjian segment, one that was presumably meant to air under the (unlikely) condition of Valentine returning as the Red Sox's manager for 2013. Oops. Chris McKendry did her best to ...
Curt Schilling Might Have To Sell His Bloody Sock In Order To Pay Down His Debt
The Red Sox have had a bad year, but Curt Schilling's has been worse. At least the Red Sox have money. Schilling's video game company, 38 Studios, filed for bankruptcy in June. Even worse, 38 Studios owes around $150 million to creditors, including a $100 million loan from the state of Rhode Island....
The 7 Stages Of A Bobby Valentine Meltdown
The worst part of Bobby Valentine's soon-to-be-over slow-motion train wreck with the Red Sox is its predictability. To say that Bobby Valentine has never gracefully handled a losing season would only obscure the fact that he's never gracefully handled any season. (Even during the salad days with the...
A's Pitcher Pat Neshek's Newborn Son Has Died
On Monday, the Oakland Athletics clinched a playoff spot, and just a few hours later pitcher Pat Neshek's wife went into labor. Neshek flew to Florida and was with his wife when she gave birth to a baby boy....
Holy Shit, The Athletics Just Won The AL West
In April, Baseball Prospectus picked the Oakland A's to finish 73-89. In June, we called the team "hopeless," and said they were playing out the string. Today, they beat the Rangers, 12-5, to finish 94-68, one game better than Texas. In first place. The Oakland A's. They won the AL West. Holy shit. ...
An Exhaustive Audio History Of The "Yankees Suck" Chant
This week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast is super-timely. It's got the Red Sox, the Yankees, and people who say the Yankees suck. Can't ever get enough of them. Massholes, like Sully. Gotta love Sully. And there's politics! There's some kind of political affair tonight, isn't ther...
"What Do You Want Me To Do—Tell You How Bad My Life Is, How Shitty It Is?": Adam Greenberg's Journey Back To The Majors
In 2005, Adam Greenberg was struck in the head with a fastball in his first major-league at-bat. He's spent the last seven years trying to get back to the majors. Last week, he signed a one-day contract with the Marlins and got his second career at-bat to a standing ovation in Miami last night. He s...
The Cleveland Indians Can't Stop Grabbing Each Other Inappropriately
A few weeks ago, Lonnie Chisenhall hit a walk-off single to give the Cleveland Indians a ninth-inning win over the Detroit Tigers. His teammates thanked him by mobbing him and trying to put their fingers in his butt....
David Cone Made An Unfortunate Reference To Ichiro's "Chopstick"
More than anything, I wager that David Cone's choice of words has more to do with the insatiable pressure that some announcers put on themselves to fill dead air or to feel as if they're adding their perspective to the telecast (especially if they happen to be a former player). Nonetheless, the fi...
When Vin Scully Starts Quoting Dylan Thomas, You Pay Attention
We can all agree Vin Scully is a national treasure, but if anyone dares to question that status, you just have them consider who else would be classy and confident enough to start throwing out Dylan Thomas lines in the more dramatic moments of a Giants-Dodgers NL West showdown with playoff implicati...
Adam Greenberg Finally Got To Swing The Bat In A Major League Baseball Game
Adam Greenberg finally got his first official MLB at-bat tonight, seven years after getting hit in the head in his only plate appearance. Unfortunately, it came against R.A. Dickey, who whiffed him on three pitches, something the presumptive NL Cy Young Award-winner specializes in. Regardless, good ...
Ben Sheets Will Pitch Tomorrow, Then Never Again
Today, Ben Sheets announced that he will start for the Braves tomorrow against the Pirates, and then retire. Tomorrow will mark Sheets's fifthninth start for the Braves this season after missing nearly two calendar years with a torn flexor in his pitching elbow....
Curt Schilling Is Trying To Sell His Massachusetts Home Again
The new season of 30 for 30 kicks off tonight with Broke, a look at pro athletes' penchants for burning through their fortunes. One of them is Curt Schilling, whose video game company not only went bankrupt, but blew tens of millions of dollars worth of shady taxpayer-funded loans. So it's maybe coi...
Top Yankees Prospect Who Had Innings Limit Now Needs Tommy John Surgery
The big Stephen Strasburg shutdown debate seems ancient now, with beads of cheap champagne lining plastic sheeting in the dumpsters out behind Nationals Park. But recall that Nationals GM Mike Rizzo—and Strasburg's agent, Scott Boras—insisted that the "doctors" supported their conclusions to end Str...
Albert Belle Wants To Be The Indians' Next Manager
The Indians have two pretty good candidates to helm the team next year, after firing Manny Acta with six games remaining. First, Sandy Alomar Jr., the bench coach who is acting as interim manager these last couple days—a beloved former Indian who was something of a field general dating back to his b...
How A Career Ends: Jay Bell Homered Off A Hall Of Famer In His First At-Bat, Flied Out In His Last
Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they knew their playing days were over. Today: former major-league infielder Jay Bell, who scored the winning run in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. ...
Derek Holland Claims His Twitter Was Hacked And He Didn't Call Anyone A "Fag"
Derek Holland was pulled from the Rangers' game on Sunday after getting knocked around, and retreated to the clubhouse. It hasn't been a great year for Holland, and the Rangers are desperately clinging to both the league's best record and the AL West lead, and since Holland's very active on Twitter,...