Baseball Page 947 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Marlins Claim British Virgin Islands Citizenship In Attempt To Avoid Miami Court
If I asked you which MLB franchise is claiming foreign citizenship in a Caribbean tax haven, and is doing so in order to get out of a lawsuit, you’d have answered the Marlins before I finished asking the question, wouldn’t you?...

Chris Davis Went Full Bo Jackson
Chris Davis hasn’t had an especially great start to the season; he entered today 3-for-30, and going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts during tonight’s game against the Blue Jays certainly didn’t help matters. But that second strikeout—which came as he led off the sixth inning for Baltimore, down 2-1—was ...

Pirates Closer Felipe Rivero Has Changed His Name To Felipe Vázquez
Pirates reliever Felipe Rivero has changed his name to Felipe Vázquez, matching the surname of his sister, Prescilla Vázquez....

Check Out Branch Rickey's Early Scouting Reports For Hall Of Famers
Branch Rickey, who is best known for signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, spent decades of his post-playing career evaluating baseball talent. He instituted the first minor league farm system (an innovation born of out of a desire to lock up top talent for cheap) and encouraged t...

It All Feels Possible For Shohei Ohtani
We’ll start with this: No living baseball fan has ever seen anything like Shohei Ohtani....

It's Been A Nightmare Start For Giancarlo Stanton
Bottom of the 12th, Yankees down 8-7 to the Orioles, bases loaded, nobody out, and Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton coming up. If you’re going to be down a run, this is the situation you want, right? Here’s what O’s closer Brad Brach did:...

Shohei Ohtani Is Very Clearly Not From This Planet
I feel like if you’re even remotely a sports fan, you must tune in to watch Shohei Ohtani. What he is doing so far this season is genuinely insane. Listen to me! He leads the Angels in home runs, batting average, and OPS, and is second in runs batted in, and today he took a perfect game into the sev...

Benches Clear In Diamondbacks-Cardinals When Yadier Molina Goes After Opposing Manager
A balls-and-strikes argument between Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo and home plate umpire Tim Timmons went in an unexpected direction this afternoon, when Lovullo apparently said something to Timmons that pissed off Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina:...

Anthony Rendon Lays Into Umpire Marty Foster For Erratic Strike Zone And Quick Temper
Marty Foster’s ejection of Anthony Rendon Saturday was puzzling enough that it immediately overshadowed the circumstances of the pitch that caused the conflict. Let’s get to that: it looked inside to Rendon; it looked inside on the broadcast; it, in fact, was inside—Foster’s strike zone was a little...

Hoo Boy, The Padres Lost In The Dumbest Way Imaginable
You really will not believe this one. The Astros had a man on second with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning last night, against the Padres, in a scoreless game. Batter Alex Bregman popped a rising 3-2 fastball from Padres pitcher Phil Maton straight up in the air. Easy out! Guaranteed out. R...

Indians Fans Taunt, Mock, And Scream Obscenities At Native American Protesters At Home Opener
The Cleveland Indians finally made the decision to at least scale back the use of the Chief Wahoo logo, starting next season, when the racist caricature will be removed from Indians uniforms, mostly so that the Cleveland Indians will be allowed to host the 2019 MLB All-Star Game. It’s a half-measure...

Shohei Ohtani's Third Dinger Was A Mighty Bomb
The Angels opened a home series against the Athletics Friday night, in a game in which 14 total pitchers were used, and neither starter made it past the fourth inning. Wait, hang on, 15 total pitchers were used—Shohei Ohtani, a pitcher, started at designated hitter for the Angels, and smoked this he...

Entire U.S. Men's Curling Team Combines For Total Of One Respectable First Pitch
The gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic men’s curling team stopped by Thursday’s Minnesota Twins game to throw out the first pitch, and boy were their deliveries crummy. The combined efforts of (from left to right) Joe Polo, John Shuster, Tyler George, Matt Hamilton, and John Landsteiner resulted in one...

Corey Knebel's Injury Sure Is A Bummer
Last night was a rough one for the Brewers. They got shut out by the Cubs at home. They made two ugly errors in a three-run inning. And they lost closer Corey Knebel, who took the mound for the ninth in a game where he wasn’t really needed and went down with a hamstring injury that’ll keep him out f...

Six Games In, Everyone Already Hates Gabe Kapler
On Thursday, the Phillies won their home opener for the first time since 2011. They did so easily, in a 5-0 win over the Marlins where Miami had just four baserunners. The game even ended in 3 hours, 3 minutes. Pretty quick for a game where the Phillies saw 177 pitches! It was a great day at the bal...

Tim Tebow Has Risen To Double-A, Goes The Distance On First Pitch<em></em>
The Bronco has become the Rumble Pony. Tim Tebow has moved up a level in his minor-league baseball career, and in his first pitch of his first at-bat with the New York Mets’ Double-A affiliate Binghamton Rumble Ponies, he took one deep for a three-run homer:...

Jon Lester's Weird One-Hop Pickoff Move Succeeds
Cubs pitcher Jon Lester’s complete and utter inability to successfully deliver a pickoff throw has been well-documented and exploited over the years, so he began trying something new in spring training this year: one-hopping the ball to first base. (Or more-than-one hopping it, if necessary. “I don’...

What Did Gabe Kapler Fuck Up This Time?
Phillies manager Gabe Kapler had a hell of a first week on the job. First he mismanaged the bullpen to the point that he needed to put a position player on the mound just a few games into the season, and then he tried to make a pitching change before anyone had been given a chance to warm up. The se...

Guy Fails To Catch Foul Ball, Neighboring Beer Suffers Consequences
Tonight’s Mariners-Giants game was rough for quite a few people. There’s Felix Hernandez, who allowed eight runs in four innings on the way to a 10-1 loss; there’s all of the Seattle fans who had to watch that; and there’s this guy, who brought his glove to the game but completely whiffed on this fo...

Rockies Extend Vivacious, Pure, Witty, Suave, Athletic, Cordial, Bearded Strategist<em></em>
The Rockies have extended leadoff hitter Charlie Blackmon with a six-year deal, ensuring that at least one part of the team’s core will be around for the long haul. Blackmon, who was drafted by the club in 2008 and has been with them since, was otherwise set to become a free agent this winter. He wo...