baseball Page 351 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A Million Dollars and No Change for a Perfectly Humble Gamer
You can do a lot of crazy stuff when you win a million bucks. When he did, Wade McGilberry was approached by a long-lost relative with a pitch for buying into a pineapple farm. No thanks, Wade said. What he really wanted was a Harley. And with the dough he won from MLB 2K10, you're damn right he bou...

Pitchers Will Soon Be Able To Protect Their Brains With Wholly-Nerdy Half-Helmets
Last year, a high school pitcher named Gunnar Sandberg was struck directly in the head with a line drive to the pitchers mound. He was in a medically-induced coma for a month following the incident. This week, Easton-Bell released the first helmet specially designed for pitchers, known in-house as "...

Really Tall Pitcher Hopes To Evolve From Open-Heart Surgery Patient To Novelty Story To Pro
Barry University pitcher Frank Szczepanik is 7-foot-2, which is four inches taller than the man he grew up idolizing, Randy Johnson. The novelty aspect has been covered a bunch lately, but the interesting aside is that, while in high school in Linden, NJ, he underwent open-heart surgery because of ...

Big Yankees Fan Reports For Spring Training
Should've seen this one coming. With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training in Florida and Arizona, Big Yankees Fan Michael LaPayower figured it was as good a time as any to break out the camera and start galavanting about....

Rinku And Dinesh Are Coming To A Crappy Disney Movie Near You
Disney has hired screenwriter Tom McCarthy to write the script for "Million Dollar Arm," the inspiring story of two young Indian men who won a reality show and then got signed by the most miserable team in the major leagues. Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel requested in 2009 that we not equate their sto...

HS Baseball Coach Cuts Double-Amputee Pitcher; Quickly Becomes Worst Human Ever
This young man is Anthony Burruto, a sophomore at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando and an aspiring pitcher. Burruto was born without a shinbone in his left leg and without a fibula in his right, and doctors amputated his lower legs when he was just a baby. He's been playing baseball since he was ...

99 Years Ago, A Pitcher Received This Death Threat
This is one of my favorite things I've seen in a while. Toward the end of a 34-win 1912 season, Smoky Joe Wood received this letter threatening his life....

Is There Anything Ken Griffey's Rookie Card Can't Do?
The discovery of a rare Griffey card helped Albany police bust some burglars. The man's a national treasure. [WNYT]...

FIU Baseball Phenom Arrested On Rape Charges In Bahamas
2010 ESPY Award nominee, Garrett Wittels, owner of the second-longest hit streak in college baseball, has been arrested along with several of his friends after some shenanigans with teenage girls apparently took a wrong turn. Messy. [Miami Herald]...

NCAA And Arizona State Both Impose Penalties On ASU Baseball; NCAA's Are Harsher
The Sun Devils' five-time national champion baseball team will endure a three-year probation and a one-year postseason ban for violations that took place during former head coach Pat Murphy's tenure. Murphy, meanwhile, will need a permission slip for his next job....

Today In Unfortunately Named Minor League Baseball Teams: The Sugar Land Skeeters
"The team will be known as the Skeeters, which celebrates the hometown love of warm Texas nights and an itch for baseball." They left out "one who ejaculates all over the place." God help that poor mascot. [ABCHouston]...

Omaha Royals Change Team Name To Storm Chasers; Ensure Lameness With Promo Video
In what could prove to be the year's second-worst re-branding effort, the Omaha Royals announced today that they will now be known as the Storm Chasers. The promotional video almost makes it all pathetically endearing, but mostly it's just pathetic....

Bud Selig Thinks Abner Doubleday Invented Baseball. Of Course He Does.
Is there a better summation of the Bud Selig Era than the fact that the man himself recently declared in a letter, "I really believe that Abner Doubleday is the 'Father of Baseball'"?...

Hall Of Fame Taking Anything Nowadays
Mitch Moreland's bat, which he used to hit a home run in the 2nd inning of the third game of a series Texas currently trails 3-1, will head to Cooperstown. It'll look great next to the shoes Nelson Cruz used to steal a base in late May....

The Result Of A Skate To The Neck Is Quite Frankensteiny
Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter's anchors are too perky for this early in the morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and internets to bring you everything you need to know to start your day....

What Bloggers Are Saying About ALCS Game 2
Here are 10 links to what guys and gals with keyboards are saying about ALCS Game 2 today....

Last Night's Winner: The Greatest Hitter In Japanese History, This Ginger Kid
In sports, everyone is a winner-some people just win better than others. Like Japan's new all-time single-season hits leader, Matt Murton. Yes, the same Matt Murton who washed out in Chicago, Oakland and Colorado....

The Baby-Holding, Foul-Ball-Catching Dads Are Not Going Away
Having learned nothing, a man attending last night's Tigers-Indians match caught a foul ball off the bounce, while holding a baby that may be his and standing perilously close to a railing. Someone put a stop to these monsters. [Sportress of Blogitude]...

Ken Burns High-Fives People When You Cry, And Other Things I Learned While Working On <em>Baseball</em>
In 1993, Alex Belth left college and began working on Ken Burns's Baseball documentary, whose coda, The Tenth Inning, is airing now on PBS. Here, Belth recalls his time with Burns, his encounter with Carly Simon, and Roger Angell's clicking lozenge....

Here's Ted Williams Talking About His Final Home Run
Updike, Schmupdike. Here's The Splendid Splinter in his own words, talking about his last home run, how he knew it was going to happen, and depriving the fans of the hat tip they wanted oh so much....