baseball Page 254 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Madison Bumgarner Can Dominate Without You Even Noticing
Last night's game between the Giants and Phillies was interrupted by a rain delay in the 4th inning that lasted nearly an hour. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a good time to just abandon watching the game altogether, but Madison Bumgarner was on the mound for the Giants, and that...

Barry Bonds Was An Alien God Who Destroyed Space-Time To Bring Us Joy
Today is Barry Bonds's birthday! The greatest player in baseball history is turning 50. Here is a list of scarcely believable facts about his career, accompanied by videos of him performing impressive feats of speed and strength:...

Johnny Damon: An Idiot in Exile
Pat Jordan's latest for Sports on Earth:...

Andrelton Simmons Makes Another Superhuman Defensive Play
Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons has a habit of not just making spectacular defensive plays, but making spectacular defensive plays that you've never quite seen before. Last night against the Marlins, he did his thing again....

Hanley Ramirez Had A Real Shit Day At The Office Yesterday
Based on the box score from yesterday's game agains the Cardinals, it looks like Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez had himself a perfectly fine game. He got on base four times in five at-bats, didn't strike out, and scored a run for his team. Lost in those numbers, though, is the fact that Ramirez ...

Wily Mo Peña Hits Massive Home Run In Japanese All-Star Game
Wily Mo Peña has been playing in Japan since 2011 and represented the Orix Buffaloes for the Pacific League in this year's All-Star Game, played Saturday at Koshien Stadium. Peña smoked the first pitch he saw from Hanshin Tigers 20-year-old pitcher Shintaro Fujinami and damn near hit it out of the...

He Once Had A Baseball Empire
Erik Malinowski delivers this fascinating story of how Tom Emanski dominated youth baseball with his instructional videos (like the one promoted by Fred McGriff) and multiple championships — until he disappeared. ...

Tracy McGrady's Baseball Career Ends After About Two Months
Roughly two months after Tracy McGrady's debut as a baseball player, the former NBAer has retired. Looking back at his career, one thing's certain: Tracy McGrady was definitely a person who played minor league baseball for two months. ...

The Mystery Of The Vanishing Screwball
Nice story by Bruce Schoenfeld in the New York Times Magazine on a pitch we don't see anymore—the screwball:...

Yasiel Puig Nearly Dies Of Fright In Thunder Storm
There's a lot going on in this video from Yasiel Puig's Instagram account, but its real value lies in the last one or two seconds....

Luke Scott Kicked Off Korean Team For Reportedly Calling Coach "Coward"
In case you were wondering what former MLB player/birther Luke Scott was up to these days, there is word from East Asia: He's getting kicked off his South Korea baseball team for yelling at the manager....

Baseball Marks On The Green Monster
Over at National Geographic dig this cool article by Sarah Polger on the photographs CJ Gunther takes of the baseball marks on the Green Monster at Fenway Park. ...

The Astros Are Trying To Dick Draft Picks Out Of Their Money
The Astros selected high school pitcher Brady Aiken with the first overall pick in this year's amateur draft, and quickly came to a verbal agreement that would pay Aiken a $6.5 million bonus, a notch down from the $7.9 million slot value that was assigned the No. 1 pick. But now the Astros are tryin...

Jose Offerman's Bat-Assault Lawsuit Heads To Trial
Jury selection begins this week in a civil trial brought by a former catcher who alleges Jose Offerman ended his career by hitting him in the head with a bat during a 2007 brawl. ...

Watch This Botched Baseball Slide In Agonizing Slow-Mo
Baseball players: Do not slide like Lotte Giants infielder Hwang Jae-Gyun did into third base. This is not how to slide. Not only will you wreck your face, but you likely won't get to the bag in time anyway, and then you'll lay in the dirt, wondering where it all went wrong. (It all went wrong when ...

Sexologists Masters And Johnson Were Cardinals Fans. Duh.
"Particularly for young people," Thomas Maier noted in a recent essay, "unaware of Masters and Johnson, it's difficult to appreciate how much has changed between the mid-'60s and today. But at the time they were becoming famous, the couples' graphs, charts and photos of human sexual response—learnin...

First Pitch From Taiwanese Baseball Game Is Weird As Hell
What the hell?...

How This Year's Home Run Derby Hitters Stack Up
The Home Run Derby rosters were just announced—or at least, most of them were—and ESPN Stats & Info put together some really nice graphics of how each team's in-game homers would look if they were hit at Target Field, site of this year's All Star Game....

Bronson Arroyo Was About As Pretty OK, I Guess, As Anyone Ever
Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Bronson Arroyo announced on Monday that he will be undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair the torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. The news that a 37-year-old pitcher who has never really warranted a descriptor any more generous than "OK" is out for the fo...

The "Average Professional Baseball Player" Who Changed Sportswriting
Jim Brosnan, the pitcher whose book about his 1959 season offered an uncommonly candid look at life within baseball, died last month at the age of 84. In 2007, Brosnan was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals. Writer John Schulian gave the following speech on Brosnan's beha...