ball Page 1726 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Welcoming The Pill In A Leathery Embrace ... No!
Slate's Robert Weintraub, like many of us, loves the old purple prose of early 1900s sportswriting, the Grantland Rices, the men who painted epic tales of warriors, grizzled combatants and lardywarks too manly to wear gloves. In an occasional series, Weintraub writes about the week's best baseball g...
Washington Little Leaguers Don't High-Five Like You And I Do
I used to wonder about the Washington State Little League motto: "Revenge is a dish best served cold." Nothing about honesty and fair play? But now it makes perfect sense. And I used to think that the post-game handshake line wasn't worth recording ......
You Can Own Babe Ruth's Hair
We don't know about you, but we've grown tired of your traditional baseball cards, with their stats and biographical details and pithy anecdotes. We would like our baseball cards to include actual human hair, so that we might clone our favorite players and raise them as pets. Is there any way that c...
Oye Como Va! Twice The Santana Means Twice The Fun
Please do not confuse Johan Alexander Santana Araque, pitcher for the Mets, with Ervin Ramon Santana, pitcher for the Angels. One is from Venezuela (chief exports: Petroleum, bauxite and aluminum) and one is from the Dominican Republic (predominant religion: Roman Catholicism). Unfortunately, we ar...
We Must All Protect Alfonso Soriano's Feelings
You know the Cubs are competitors this year because their fans are getting ornery. And the target of their orneriness has been Alfonso Soriano, who plays left field as if he's crossing ice with eels as slippers. But the Cubs organization has had just about enough of fans' darned negativity....
Worst. Spider-Man Sequel. Ever.
I've always thought that this was an urban myth, but no, apparently it really exists. A couple of observations about this old Electric Company TV classic episode of Spidey Super Stories: 1. Why is Spider-Man relegated to the Shea Stadium bleachers? He doesn't at least rate a box seat like Seinfeld? ...
Piling On The Mets
We know Rick already covered this this morning, but we really can't quite get over what has happened to the New York Mets. We don't think Willie Randolph belongs in Isiah Thomas Country — for example, Willie Randolph, as far as we know, has not encouraged an atmosphere where interns can sleep with p...
Former Major Leaguer Killed By Lightning, As We Are Left To Ponder, WTF?
As we open the file of stuff you never in a million years thought would happen: Former major leaguer Geremi Gonzalez was killed by lightning on Sunday while riding a personal watercraft on a lake in his native Venezuela. You may recall that Gonzalez won 11 games for the Cubs as a rookie in 1997, but...
Willie Randolph Still Employed, But Watch This Space For Further Developments
New Yorkers keen on saving the environment can dig up all of that old Fire Isiah signage, and with a few quick edits, can make fun, functional Fire Willie signs. It's the least you can do to help save the planet. Only moments after top brass announced that he will not be fired (at least not this min...
You Mean The Speed-Up Rules Began THIS Weekend?
Hopefully you caught wind of Major League Baseball's new directive to enforce rules that speed up the game, if from no other source, from Jim Leyland's awesome rant. But apparently the Red Sox didn't get the memo. Correction: they read it, they just didn't read it....
Beckett And Boston Get ________ed
Justin Duchscherer was joking around before his start against the Boston Red Sox: ''I said, 'Those guys don't want none of me today 'cuz I'm going to pull a Lester on 'em,'' Duchscherer recalled with a grin. ''In the sixth inning, I was thinking, 'Did I really say that before the game?' '' Yes, Just...
Gary Carter Wonders If He Should Let The Mets Know He Wants To Manage Them
Willie Randolph could very well be Art Howe-ing his way out of a job in New York, but what's kind of important is the fact that he still has employment with the Mets. That hasn't stopped Gary Carter, who's currently managing an independent minor league team in California, to start inquiring about wh...
Wait, They Traded Blue Moon Odom?
It's not very gratifying to be traded for an inanimate object. Unless my ex-girlfriend breaking up with me so she could spend more time with her vibrator counts, I have no idea what it must feel like to be traded for 10 baseball bats....
Is Baseball Ready For Its Closeup?
As much as I dislike the idea of umpires with their heads stuck under black hoods to make games even longer, the momentum of force and time may finally be giving baseball instant replay whether we like it or not. Thank you, umpires, for being so consistently, stupidly wrong on outfield home runs cal...
Apparently, The Jennie Finchification Of Softball Is Under Way
So, has Jennie Finch completely transformed softball from a sport once overtaken by rampant lesbianism to one more appealing to bubbly straight girls ? It depends. You can talk to one person and they'll tell you about how half the people they knew on their college and high school softball team wore ...
Johnny Lawrence Can Still Sweep The Leg
It's time for Minor Enterprise, which celebrates Minor League baseball and all else that is good and great about America. And now, please rise as William Hung sings his rendition of our National Anthem ......
Kelly Tilghman, Doris Burke, Erin Andrews And The Confessions Of A Not-So-Closeted Sports Sexist
This is BALLS DEEP With Big Daddy Drew (Balls® is a registered trademark and has been used with the expressed written consent of AJ Daulerio). It's gonna be like an SI Point After column, only with dick jokes. You can email him here....
Beware The Handrails Of Death
It appears there is no more a dangerous threat at the ballpark than staircases or escalators. If 2001 was famously called the "Summer Of The Shark," after numerous Floridians smelling like chum or dressed in seal costumes were chomped, this 2008's TV news fear bait might be "Spring Of The Handrail."...
Latina Mary Pickford, First Lady Of The Cagers
Slate's Robert Weintraub, like many of us, loves the old purple prose of early 1900s sportswriting, the Grantland Rices, the men who painted epic tales of warriors, grizzled combatants and lardywarks too manly to wear gloves. In an occasional series, Weintraub writes about the week's best baseball g...
MLB.tv Now Selling You More Stuff
MLB.tv, for which we pay $110 annually, introduced a new feature on its games yesterday: House ads for MLB.tv, played in-between innings, imploring fans to "keep watching." Well, OK, we'll keep watching, as long as you promise the games are coming back on. They are, right? OK, cool: The watching sha...