baseball Page 226 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

MLB Execs Testify They Had No Idea Cuban Players Were Entering Country Illegally
The federal trial of sports agent Bartolo Hernandez and baseball trainer Julio Estrada is hitting the home stretch. On Tuesday, their defense attorneys called five witnesses, including two executives from the Texas Rangers and one from the Miami Marlins, hoping their testimony would help punch holes...

Piss Off, Tim Tebow
Tim Tebow isn’t a major-league ballplayer, and he isn’t a pro ballplayer in any but the barest, most literal sense. Certainly, if he weren’t famous for playing football and for not having been aborted, no one anywhere would pay him money to play baseball. Look at this shit!...

High School Baseball Player Serves Up Mighty Bat Flip
The bat flip is not the transgressive act of defiance that it once was (the MLB now celebrates them), but a nice nonchalant bat toss is still the best way to show out after a big dinger. To truly differentiate yourself amongst a nation of bat flippers, you have to stand out, as high school player Da...

Bruce Chen Takes The Mound In Business Casual Shoes
Bruce Chen, 17-year MLB vet who currently works for the Indians, is pitching for China at the World Baseball Classic right now. He’s only 39 years old, but he is pitching in some cleats that look like something your cousin lends you for your first job interview. I am literally unsure of what these a...

The First Team To Advance At The WBC Will Be...Israel?!
Barely more than 24 hours into the World Baseball Classic and we’ve got our first team set to advance, and it’s one no one would have expected: Team Israel, which upset South Korea yesterday, walloped Chinese Taipei 15-7 today and is sitting pretty....

The Time Reggie Jackson Got His Ass Whooped In The Clubhouse By A Teammate<em></em>
The following is excerpted from Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, by Jason Turbow. The book is available now on Amazon. Jason will be joining us later today to take your questions, and chat about the book....

Look, Baseball!
I know I’m warmer than most on the World Baseball Classic, but I think it can only be a good thing that there’s actual, competitive baseball being played right now, after a long cold winter. (My enthusiasm will wane by May, when I’ll be wishing they could just skip ahead to September already. But le...

Jason Heyward Rebuilt His Butt Swing From Scratch
Jason Heyward was extremely atrocious last season, the first after he signed a mammoth eight-year, $184-million contract with the Chicago Cubs. His numbers—.230/.306/.325, a measly 35 extra-base hits in 592 plate appearances—were puke, due in no small part to a janky, splayed-out, multi-stage wreck ...

Mexican Baseball Manager "Held" For Three Nights In Crazy Alleged Extortion Scheme
The manager of a Mexican League baseball team, Francisco “Paquin” Estrada, was reported missing Thursday morning, and then found hours later....

Here's Some Ominous News About David Price
Spring training is just underway, and Red Sox fans have already been given something to panic about. There’s something wrong with David Price, and although we don’t have any specifics yet, it doesn’t sound good:...

Report: Five Richmond Baseball Players Suspended For Heinous Crime Of Playing Fantasy Football
The NCAA is known to hand out seemingly arbitrary suspensions for specious transgressions such as byzantine misappropriation of school book funds and drug violations that are actually not drug violations. Here’s a new one: Five Richmond baseball players were reportedly suspended from the team for pl...

Red Sox Introduce New "Sleep Room" At Fenway Park For Players To Take Better Naps
With teams looking to exploit every possibility for a competitive advantage, it’s not surprising that one basic indicator of physical performance has been getting some more attention lately: sleep. The Red Sox are one team that’s taken notice, and they’re getting really into it. ...

Sonny Gray Pulled From World Baseball Classic Over Insurance Issues
Oakland A’s pitcher Sonny Gray has been pulled from next month’s World Baseball Classic due to an oddly specific clause from the tournament’s insurance carrier. ...

The FBI Is Now Investigating Hartford's Disaster Of A Minor-League Stadium Deal
The Rockies’ Double-A affiliate in Hartford, Conn. has run into plenty of problems since deciding to build a taxpayer-funded ballpark two years ago, including but not limited to lawsuits and construction delays. Here’s a new one: an FBI probe into how public money has been spent on the new park....

Jake Peavy Had A Truly Terrible 2016
Jake Peavy’s 2016 season ended with a career-worst 5.54 ERA, a 1.43 WHIP, and divorce papers. According to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, Peavy’s wife Katie, a childhood friend he married at 19 years old, filed for divorce in October, right after the Giants were eliminated in the NLDS by the Cubs....

Baseball's New Intentional Walk Scheme Is A Pointless, Off-Target Act Of Surrender
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, in collaboration with his quisling associates in the players’ union, is apparently ready to do away with the normal and basic baseball act of four balls leading to a walk. He and they have agreed to a scheme by which the intentional walk doesn’t physic...

Wow! Look Upon Colby Rasmus's Beard, And Puke<em></em>
There’s no polite way to say this: These photos of Colby Rasmus are the worst thing I’ve ever seen....

MLB Is Reportedly Introducing An Automatic Intentional Walk<em></em>
According to a report from ESPN’s Howard Bryant, Major League Baseball and the players’ union have agreed on a plan to scrap current intentional walk rules and allow managers to signal from the dugout and automatically send the batter to first base. The rule, like the proposed change to extra inning...

Mike Piazza Shits On St. Louis And Major League Soccer At The Same Time, Achieves Glory
Mike Piazza, Hall of Famer and the best-hitting catcher in major-league history, is having a fine time in Italy these days. Much of it has to do with Reggiana, the third-tier soccer club in which he purchased a majority stake last year, and the New York Times’s Andrew Keh wrote a wonderful story abo...

Youth Baseball Games In Panama Are Rowdier Than Anything In MLB<em></em><em></em><em></em>
PANAMA CITY, Panama — Baseball was on. Real, true baseball. A sweltering Friday night, a flashy casino in the heart of Panama City, an enormous projector looming over the slot machines, showing the game. To this American, whose offseason antsiness is fading into the inevitable letdown of spring tra...