baseball Page 297 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Milwaukee Brewers' Adopted Stray Dog Is The Best Dog
This is Hank the dog. Hank is a stray who wandered into the Milwaukee Brewers' spring training facility last week, and has since become the team's unofficial mascot. Hank is the best dog....

Paranoia: It Really Works
Billy Martin proved what a powerful strategic tool paranoia is. He believed that everyone was against him. And so he spent every waking moment figuring out how imaginary enemies could be defeated in their nefarious plots. And sometimes he not only created strategies to defend against things that wou...

Down With The NCAA's No-Agent Rule
Originally published on Bloomberg View....

The Best Sports Movie You Can't See
Check out this lovely tribute to the late Paul Hemphill by Richard Hyatt:...

Report: The Phillies Ratted Out Two Draft Picks To The NCAA
Oregon State pitcher Ben Wetzler has been suspended since the start of college baseball season. The NCAA is investigating whether he retained the services of an agent to negotiate with the Phillies, who drafted him in the fifth round in 2013 but were unable to sign him. Now it seems the Phillies hav...

Quantifying Hustle: How Many Runs Does Cano's Slacking Cost His Team?
Originally published on Baseball Prospectus...


David Ortiz: "Fuck Them. I'm Tired Of Hearing Them Talk Shit"
Red Sox designated hitter/style icon David Ortiz, who's in the last year of his contract and coming off his best regular season since his mid-aughts prime and an all-time postseason run, has made it clear this winter that he wants money. The world's response has mainly been, "Well, the Red Sox shoul...

Watch This Baseball Player Try To Murder A Pitcher During A Brawl
Last night, there was a ballgame in Cuba, between Matanzas and Villa Clara. Mantazas took a 3-0 lead after a solo home run in the 7th inning, and then shit got ridiculous....

Richard Ben Cramer Takes On Ted Williams
I wrote about Richard Ben Cramer's Esquire story on Ted Williams for the latest e-magazine from The Classical:...

Tony Kubek Once Brought A Camera To Spring Training, Then Mantle Farted
In the 1960s, the likelihood of taking at least one photograph of Mickey Mantle ripping — or pretending to rip — a fart during spring training was, evidently, quite high. Perhaps LIFE magazine's editors weren't aware of this, because in February 1961 they handed 25-year-old shortstop Tony Kubek a pr...

Here's Video Of Tracy McGrady Pitching Off A Mound
We've been hearing a lot about former NBA star Tracy McGrady's desire to become a professional baseball pitcher, and now there's finally video of him throwing off a mound. He doesn't look too bad!...

America's Baseball Writers Mourn The Passing Of Derek Jeter
Like the rest of us, America's baseball writers were surprised when New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter took to Facebook yesterday to announce his retirement. Unlike the rest of us, many of them seem to have been so surprised that they mistook his retirement for his death, and wrote obituaries. Her...

Have You Ever Wanted To Hear Walter Johnson's Voice?
If so, you're a special brand of baseball geek. (And that is a compliment.) You're also in luck....

The '86 Series: Best Of Times, Worst Of Times
Here's Peter Gammons writing about Game Six of the 1986 World Series in the '87 SI Baseball Preview:...

Dude Purposely Ruins Mock Baseball Drafts For Our Delight
Last August, we had a laugh when a guy named Stefan picked NFL players like placekicker Aaron Pettrey first overall in mock football drafts, pissing off people who found it inconvenient to exit and join a new mock draft in five minutes. Stefan is back ruining mocks, but this time, he invaded fantasy...

Tracy McGrady Wants To Play Baseball
During last night's near-unwatchable Thunder-Nets game, Jeff Van Gundy dropped some interesting news about Tracy McGrady. Apparently McGrady, who recently purchased an interest in an independent team in Biloxi, Mississippi, is considering a second career as a pitcher. According to Van Gundy's sourc...

The Ravenously Shameless Pastel Brutality Of The Miami Marlins
The following was originally published in the 2014 edition of Baseball Prospectus. In a departure from established practice, this year's edition features contributions from a wide array of outside writers, who came through with a series of essays that shows off the full stylistic diversity of contem...

