baseball Page 24 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Read an excerpt from MLB pitcher Joe Kelly's new book: A Damn Near Perfect Game — Reclaiming America's Pastime
White Sox pitcher Joe Kelly’s book, “A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime,” delves into many of the issues frustrating fans of major league baseball, and is on sale tomorrow wherever you get your books. Here’s an excerpt:...

It's Day 2 of spring training games and the pitch clock is already wreaking havoc
The new rules set for the upcoming MLB season are sure to change baseball forever, and the most impactful change will undoubtedly be the introduction of the pitch clock. Twenty seconds maximum between each pitch. Games are flying by, and with pace-of-play being an enormous talking point surrounding ...

How could you root against the Czech Republic's World Baseball Classic team?
March 7 marks the beginning of the World Baseball Classic as the best players from around the world compete in what is essentially baseball’s Olympics. Yes, baseball was an Olympic event in 2020, but let’s be real, that was a bigger joke than anything Marvel has put in its movie scripts recently. Th...

Wow, that MLB pitch clock seems obnoxious
The introduction of the pitch clock to Major League Baseball is a long overdue change necessary to entice younger viewers. We already know it won’t have a major impact, if any, on offensive output, but it will make games faster-paced and easier to watch. Or at least, that’s what we hoped it would do...

New Yankee Carlos Rodón thinks the Bronx faithful are more passionate than SF Giants fans
The New York Yankees head into 2023 as favorites to win the AL East and the second-biggest favorites to win the World Series. Yes, expectations are high for this team, but that’s nothing new. When a brand as iconic as the Yankees fails to meet its lofty season goals, fans get mad. Despite consistent...

Baseball arbitration is even dumber than you think
The idea of arbitration for determining a baseball player’s salary has never sat right with anyone, other than maybe the front offices that get to save a few hundred grand here and there. There was a time when a few scribes would keep a scoreboard, and some still do. But the concept of two sides try...

These are the most obnoxious fan bases in sports (and pop culture)
The easiest way to protect yourself from outside criticism is to critique others. Negativity begets negativity, and I don’t even know where this is going because I’m here to tell you about insufferable fan bases....

Some MLB owners are ready to pick a fight with other MLB owners that they’ll take out on the players and fans
For as much worship as billionaires seem to get around here, and the runway they receive to shape our society to benefit them more and more, they are a cranky bunch. There’s always more money to be made, money they’ll never know what to do with, there’s always someone else to fuck over, and as it se...

The good and bad of college football's potential rule changes
As part of what appears to be a player safety initiative, the NCAA Rules Committee is considering changing a few rules in order to limit players’ “exposures” on the field. What does that mean exactly? Well, according to reports, these changes are intended to protect player health, and could, in turn...

Deion Sanders’ recruiting philosophy perpetuates racist stereotypes — and contradicts his family structure
After still being unclear as to what his style of play is on offense and defense after three seasons at Jackson State University, Deion Sanders has now informed us on what he looks for when he’s recruiting, as he prepares to enter his first season at the University of Colorado. Unsurprisingly, his i...

No one cares about batting practice
I get it. In a lot of the country, it’s that part of the winter where it seems like it might never end (though it’s been quite mild here). The charm of spring training, whatever anyone tells you, is merely seeing the sun and warmth (though it was quite cold in Arizona recently). When the games start...

Get to know your new MLB rules
Leather is popping, grunts from a mound are being emitted, and GMs are already coming up with lame excuses in the sun — it must be spring training! Pitchers and catchers have reported in Florida and Arizona, and very soon there will be actual games played. They won’t count, of course, and will be ac...

I’d rather get in a ring with Greg Hardy than play pickup with D.K. Metcalf
Albert Pujols and D.K. Metcalf aren’t in the same universe athletically at this point in their lives. Yet, they shared a basketball court Friday as part of the NBA Celebrity Game, and I gotta say, it is startling that one of the greatest baseball players of this century — coming off a 24-home run sw...

The Milwaukee Brewers are why small-market baseball is dying
How much money is $750,000 to a baseball team, hm? According to Spotrac, the Milwaukee Brewers have already determined the 2023 salaries for 20 of their players. All of them will be earning more than $1 million. Given that MLB rosters can consist of 26 people, we can say that, at most, six Brewers w...

Nothing ever improves when MLB takes control
We stand here today on the precipice of one of the largest downfalls in broadcasting. Diamond Sports Group, the company that owns all of Bally’s regional sports networks, announced Wednesday that it would be skipping its $140 million payment for February. ...

The White Sox want you to know they’re just dumb, not evil
One of MLB’s biggest problems, and it spreads to other leagues as well, is the amount of buck-passing that seems to take place when there’s a serious issue. Whenever there’s someone like Mike Clevinger being investigated for domestic abuse or something else awful, a team is waiting for the league to...

MLB cares more about middle relievers — and money — than the fans
No one comes up with a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist quite like MLB. It’s their specialty....

Tampa Bay Rays trying to pull usual scam for new stadium in place no one wants to go
By now pretty much everyone is wise to the publicly-funded stadium scam. Teams threaten to leave, local and state politicians buckle, citizens pour their tax money into a new stadium, and only the team owner and their high-ranking employees see the benefits. And generations of taxpayers end up askin...

Don’t worry, the Pro Bowl won’t be the future of football
The NFL ran its Pro Bowl weekend, sinking into the party theme that it’s always been for everyone in any sport really. It used to be that players didn’t mind the free trip to Hawaii, though when it got to be they could all easily afford a trip to Hawaii that sort of lost its charm. So the NFL made t...

Tom Brady's not the only star who couldn't quit the spotlight
For the second straight Feb. 1, Tom Brady retired from the National Football League. His first retirement lasted all of 40 days, coming back to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers minutes after the NCAA Tournament field was chosen on Selection Sunday. He’s now retired “for good” and the entire sports world kno...