baseball Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Sports claims just a little more of its soul
Though I’m from the Midwest, the Oakland Athletics were always a fascination for me. It started well before the Moneyball era. When I first became a baseball fan was the rise of the Mark McGwire-Jose Canseco A’s. Even beyond McGwire and Canseco, when the A’s would be on the national game…they just l...
Tell me you want out of Oakland without telling me you want out of Oakland
One city’s trash is Las Vegas’ treasure. The Oakland Coliseum has been a steaming pile of a ballpark for decades. After numerous skirmishes with the city over Byzantine budgets, funding, public subsidies, and potential sites for a new Oakland-area stadium, the Athletics announced the purchase of 49 ...
Just pre-tack the baseball already
You have to give MLB and its umpires credit. There really isn’t anyone more hilarious to eject over sticky substances on his hand than Max Scherzer. No one’s going to look more ridiculous arguing their case, everyone in the stadium is going to know exactly what’s going on, and if you want to make an...
All talk, no substance
I know money isn’t really a thing to ESPN. $400 million a year certainly sounds like a lot of cheese, but it’s not really anything more than just an accounting number to them. So I shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t put much effort into their NHL coverage, despite that being the cost. ...
Great news — Rob Manfred has more ideas on how to 'fix' the game
Major League Baseball has certainly gotten its plaudits for the rule changes for the 2023 season, mostly because it’s sped up the game to well under three hours. Strikeouts and walks are still about where they’ve always been, but more grounders are getting through (strangely from right-handed hitter...
Another notch in Clayton Kershaw's belt
We already know Clayton Kershaw is headed to Cooperstown, but the Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher just hit a nice milestone en route....
Can we really trust the NFL when it comes to Damar Hamlin?
The NFL has done very little to earn the benefit of the doubt from the public. Dan Snyder still owns the Washington Commanders, the league settled a lawsuit for $765 million that alleged it hid data on the dangers of concussions, and Deshaun Watson received a fully guaranteed $250 million contract i...
It’s never enough for Rob Manfred and his greedy pig bosses
You’d think after negotiating a CBA, before which Rob Manfred got to live out his lifelong dream of canceling baseball games, where the owners got a new level of luxury tax penalties, didn’t really have to pay younger players all that much more than the pennies they already were, and certainly didn’...
Half of the road teams took 1-0 leads in the First Round of the NBA Playoffs — welcome to April Madness
Just weeks after March Madness gave us an NCAA Tournament that provided multiple historic upsets during its first weekend, it looks like the pros in the NBA took that personally. Four of the eight matchups from this past weekend’s Game Ones were won by the road team. And one of them was the Miami He...
Brian Burke is the biggest fraud in the NHL
Before we pivot later today to the NHL Playoffs, we can kick a little more dirt on the regular season, and specifically, the Pittsburgh Penguins. After missing the playoffs for the first time since before the Obama administration, the Penguins fired GM Ron Hextall — rumored to be an inside agent sen...
The Chicago White Sox are not getting any less creepy or gross
Those labels would be applicable to whatever’s going on on the field for the Chicago White Sox, and most fans would prefer it were restricted to that. They’ve started 6-9, half their lineup is rotating stints on the IL just like last season (along with Joe Kelly who hurt himself sprinting toward wha...
Ump gives us Idiot of the Month-able moment during Dodgers-Cubs game
One would think that with MLB seriously considering a switch to robot umps, the humans currently doing the job would show a little urgency and at least try to display why they’re better suited than a machine. Case in point, Friday night at Dodger Stadium when Cody Bellinger was given a standing ovat...
Javier Báez is already in some kind of form, but it’s not ‘midseason’
We’re 12 games into the MLB season, so no good team should panic, and no bad team is too far gone — one would think. The Detroit Tigers were projected to be especially awful, but you’d hope to at least get through *checks calendar* April 14 without the manager having to intervene like A.J. Hinch did...
Which is more impressive: Tampa Bay's win streak or Jordan Walker’s hit streak?
The best team in baseball has one of the hottest hitters of this young season, but there’s a young hot hitter also on his own 12-game streak, so I thought it’d be fun to debate over whose accomplishment is more impressive: The Tampa Bay Rays’ 12-game winning streak, or St. Louis Cardinals rookie Jor...
Toronto sports, man
On one level, I get it. I bet Toronto is a lot like Chicago. Whenever the first warm stretch hits, you’re looking for any excuse to be outside. And most likely drunk as shit when you are. Usually that streak doesn’t hit until somewhere around Memorial Day, so to get it in April feels like you’re ste...
And they say nothing good happens after 2 a.m.
For about three years now, most of the baseball world has wanted various current and former Houston Astros to just admit what happened in 2017. It wouldn’t change much, but everyone wants to be right to the biggest level possible. It wouldn’t really sully these players any more than they already hav...
The Tampa Bay Rays can sure beat the tar out of awful teams
You can only play who is on the schedule. That’s an axiom as old as baseball, and it’s mostly true. The Tampa Bay Rays got to start their season with nine games against MLB’s kids with mittens pinned to their jackets year-round, and they’ve done all they can do. Which is to beat the ever-loving piss...
MLB’s rule changes have made baseball more like itself
One week into the MLB season, the rule changes are by and large a huge success. It seems that fans and players alike overwhelmingly like the changes. ...
The baseball may be Flubber again
The baseball season not even being quite a week old is probably not the best time to draw conclusions. That’s not going to stop us though, as within these walls is where logic goes to die. But if you’ve been paying even cursory attention so far, you might have noticed some boxcar numbers being tosse...
Manny Machado getting run over arguing a pitch-clock K is objectively funny
There was bound to be an adjustment period as MLB entered the pitch clock era, and my question is, did basketball handle the implementation of the shot clock as poorly as this? Manny Machado was the first player to earn a strike via clock violation in spring training, and he became the first player ...