Baseball Page 1522 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Mariners Fan Loses Bet, Dignity
Last weekend, the Padres and Mariners faced off at Safeco Field. San Diego took two of three, and one fellow on the wrong end of a bet produced this oddly whisper-filled love letter to the Padres. H/T Theodore Donald Kerabatsos....
Renaissance Man Joe West: Umpire, Singer, Attention Whore
Doesn't it seem like umpire Joe West is in the news a lot lately? That's no accident, thanks to his publicist. Yes, an umpire, who's only doing well when he's not being noticed, has a publicist. And a country record!...
College Baseball's Going To Fool Around With A Shot Clock
Today the SEC will begin using a scoreboard-mounted clock in an effort to speed up bases-empty situations during its conference tournament. Oh, please let it go off with a thunderous foghorn....
Taunting Tony Horton The Day After He Slit His Wrists: A Cleveland Fan Repents
The following is excerpted from Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time, edited by Sean Manning and featuring essays by Matt Taibbi, Stefan Fatsis, and others. Here's Scott Raab, writing about former Indian Tony Horton....
An Interview With Mike Cetera, My Literary Cubs Foil
If you've read Are We Winning?, you know my friend Mike, a Cubs fan who goes to the game with my father and me and worries about his young son becoming a Cubs fan. Well, he still exists....
Ozzie Guillen Has No Sympathy For Clevelanders
Guillen was nice enough to autograph a ball for an Indians fan before last night's game. He also put a personalized message on there. (Other side, just as knife-twisting, after the jump.)...
The New Tim Lincecum Cartoon Will Give You A Contact High
Another day, another baffling sports figure TV show appearance. Today we have the inaugural episode of Timmy & Bus, a cartoon that is for children in the way that all unicorn-vehicular-manslaughter cartoons are for children. [Tauntr]...
Aural Secs: David Ortiz's 30-Second Tater Trot Explained With Music
In honor of David Ortiz's Roger Bannister moment last night, an Aural Secs is in order. Unlike frequent Aural Secs subject Usain Bolt, Ortiz is quite slow, so we're going with the final chord in "A Day In The Life."...
Hideki Irabu Resurfaces With A DUI
Raise your hand if you knew Irabu was living in Los Angeles, let alone still alive. Well, he's living it up, getting busted on suspicion of drunken driving last week. [KTLA]...
Fat-Ass Baseball Players Get Their Roger Bannister Moment
Per Wezen-Ball's wonderful Tater Trot Tracker, David Ortiz rounded the bases after yesterday's solo shot in 30.59 seconds, a new record by nearly eight-tenths of a second. Yes, mankind has at last shattered the 30-second barrier. [Wezen-Ball]...
Sabermetrics Prove Mom Always Loved You Best
Psychologists believe that younger siblings take more risks than their older brothers and sisters. The proof: Among Major League Baseball-playing brother duos, the youngest one stole more bases 90% of the time. Oh, science. You're adorable. [NYTimes]...
Minor Leaguers Mercilessly Teased For Their Giant, Goofy Heads
Big helmet or tiny head? Francisco Cervelli fans (hey, he has some!) have been wondering that for a few weeks now, but in the coming years an entire corps of MLB players may look like futuristic, yet dorky space travelers....
Nolan Ryan Buys Texas Rangers (Who Still Owe A-Rod Money, By The Way)
The Texas Rangers declared bankruptcy today, which was merely a procedural matter on the road to a $575 million sale to team president/good 'ol boy Nolan Ryan and his group of investors. First step? Pay off some really lousy contracts....
Nyjer Morgan Could Swear He Heard A Whistle
Morgan makes a case for the first four-base error, deciding to spike his glove in a fit of rage — as the live ball sits on the warning track....
40-Year-Old Video Exonerates A-Rod In Dumb Mound-Crossing Controversy
This is a screengrab from the 1971 World Series. And will you look at that? A batter runs across the mound, and somehow the world doesn't launch into a spasm of cock-waggling outrage over a breach of baseball's supposedly inviolable unwritten rules....
Juan Rivera Goes 1-For-4, Falls Into Temporal Wormhole
Here's a mind-melting Juan Rivera infinite regress from Tuesday's Angels-Rangers game. [Screengrab via reader Josh; video at MLB.com]...
Basebrawl Season Is In Full Swing
Thursday's Angels-White Sox game at U.S. Cellular Field featured two things you often see on the South Side these days: a White Sox loss, and a bunch of White Sox fans beating the shit out of each other. H/T BullFightsOnAcid...
Private Stache: Ken Griffey Jr. Has A Senior 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....
Last Night's Winner: The Rest Of The NFC North
In sports, everyone is a winner-some people just win better than others. Like Tarvaris Jackson's chances of starting, which look pretty bright since Brett Favre has hitched his latest comeback to the hopes of a long-shot college baseball team....
Playing The Blue Jays In Toronto? Leave Your Felons At Home
The MLB Players Association sent a warning to all their player agents that Canadian immigrations officials have recently detained non-Canadian players at the border, due to prior criminal records. Not that agents would know anyone like that, they're just sayin'....