Baseball Page 862 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Brett Gardner isn’t a Yankee right now and it makes zero sense
Brett Gardner was the Yankees’ third-round pick in the 2005 draft, debuted in pinstripes in 2008, and has been in the Bronx ever since. He’s the last remaining player with the Yankees from their last championship team in 2009… except that right now, even he’s not remaining....

Hold on to your Grapefruits, it’s time for pitchers and catchers
Spring training starts this week, with pitchers and catchers day arriving on Wednesday for eight teams, and the rest of the majors getting going on Thursday or Friday. Hopefully, this year’s ramp-up to the season will go more smoothly than 2020, when the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues had to shut dow...

Supercool MLB pitcher Jared Hughes plays amateur Bill Nye with 'liquid nucleation' in his car (We'll explain)
As a free agent, days before spring training, Jared Hughes has some time on his hands. So, the 35-year-old pitcher, who had a 4.84 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 18 relief appearances for the Mets last year, is doing a little home science....

Atlanta Braves fail to read their own room, or logo, or name, or...
Twitter is a lot of bad things, mostly bad things, but every so often its capacity to astound and encapsulate an entire time period in a matter of seconds is truly stupefying. Even if that encapsulation is most of the things at once....

MLB safety’s plan for 2021 has a major minor hole in it
For all the trouble that the NBA and NHL are having with their current seasons, it’s all the more remarkable what Major League Baseball was able to achieve outside of a bubble last year....

MLB's biggest question answered as Twins add promising pitcher; also, Dodgers sign jerkwad Bauer
The wait is over, and one of baseball’s top contenders can move toward spring training confident that its new addition to the pitching staff will be just the man to put them over the top....

Story, Lindor and Tatis are the best crop of shortstops since A-Rod, Jeter and Nomar
People really like to post rankings, because they generate a lot of conversations and tend to rile people up with strong feelings about players or teams. “You have WHO ranked at No. 1? You have to be kidding. No way.” It’s a good time. In fact, I love posting rankings. I love sharing my opinions and...

For better or worse, Dustin Pedroia was Boston
There’s an easy-to-reach joke when someone really old dies. “Oh he died years ago, he just fell down yesterday.” That’s basically how it feels with Dustin Pedroia announcing his retirement today. He’s only played nine games in the past three seasons, so his retirement basically announced him. ...

Billionaire Mets owner Steve Cohen takes bath on GameStop stock, then cleanses himself of Twitter
Everyone loves Steve Cohen, the new owner of the Mets who tweets with fans and is willing to spend money to put a winning team on the field!...

Catching up with a guy who was once traded for Hank Aaron
Right-handed pitcher Roger Alexander never faced Hank Aaron on the field, but is forever linked to the Hall of Famer who died on Jan. 22 at age 86. That’s because he was the player to be named later in a trade that sent Aaron to the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers sent outfielder Dave May (an All-Sta...

Masahiro Tanaka to return to Japan, why this Yankee fan is happy for him
It sucks that Masahiro Tanaka will no longer be a Yankee, but at least I don’t have to root against him on another MLB team....

Masahiro Tanaka won’t make it to Cooperstown, but — like hoops' Hall — there should be room for stories like his
In seven seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers, Arvydas Sabonis averaged 12 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. His biggest accomplishments were being the NBA’s Player of the Week at the end of March in 1996, and finishing 12th in the league in total rebounds in 1997-98....

The GameStop revolution <i>probably</i> won’t sink Steve Cohen and the Mets, but
The hope for the little guy, which all of us are, is that one day hell would come to breakfast for the hedge-fund tools that are pretty close to ruining baseball, the country, and the globe. And at that point, through some inexplicable force that could only be karma, they would all have to work at W...

Curt Schilling isn’t whiffing on Cooperstown because he’s a Trump supporter, it’s because he wasn’t good enough
Curt Schilling is a fraud....

Phillies forced to bring back J.T. Realmuto because they made a decade’s worth of mistakes
The Phillies acted as if the franchise — which has lost more games than any professional team in the world of sports since its inception — didn’t have to bring back J.T. Realmuto. However, the 138-year old organization with just two World Series championships to its credit, had no choice. After trad...

Curt Schilling’s putrid mouth continues to keep him out of Cooperstown…. good
The good news is that Curt Schilling isn’t going into the Hall of Fame this summer. In fact, no new players will be joining last year’s class of inductees this summer in Cooperstown after the results of the Baseball Writers Association of America’s balloting were announced Tuesday evening....

Just contract the Pirates already
I know how that sounds. Just another big market resident showing up just long enough, take a brief look around, turn my nose up, and declare Pittsburgh not worth the time. ...


The power and lasting impact of Hank Aaron's 44
Hank Aaron made the number 44 cool for power hitters in the MLB. There are a handful of greats that have donned the number in his wake, carrying the tradition forward, and they have done so for decades. ...
