baseball Page 369 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Lenny Dykstra's Financial Acumen Called Into Question (Again)
Did that Lenny "Wally Wall Street" Dykstra story from yesterday seem a little fishy? (And familiar?) Well yes, his troubles with a few of his business partners have been well documented, but those were just friendly disagreements over strategy and don't really change the fact that the guy is filthy ...

Lenny Dykstra For Secretary Of The Treasury
It goes without saying that now is not a particularly strong time to be in the stock market. I believe the entire NASDAQ exchange can be had for approximately $42 and a sandwich, but buying it somehow starts foreclosure proceedings on your home. (Finance is complicated.) There is one man, however, w...

1. Get Hit In Groin With Baseball, 2. Scream In Agony, 3. Profit
We now know the going rate for volunteering to be hit in the nuts by a pitching machine baseball: 1 million bucks. Not that Lhyvann Felipe volunteered, exactly. The unfortunate fellow, who was nailed in a batting cage while picking up baseballs, was awarded $1.2 million last week by a Miami jury con...

Diamondbacks Lay Off Dozens of Employees (Not Including Adam Dunn)
The purge of off-field employees has started in earnest this Credit Crunch offseason, with the Arizona Diamondbacks releasing 31 employees (around 10% of the entire front office), mostly from the broadcast side of the business as a result of selling all their games to Fox Sports Arizona. Yet again, ...

Beckett, Lester Take Aim at Charity (and Pull Trigger)
Josh Beckett, putative Red Sox ace, believes the best charity comes at the end of a shotgun. Therefore, he has gathered all his rowdy friends (including fellow hurler Jon Lester-Who-Once-Had-Cancer, comedian Bill Engvall, and singer Troy Gentry) to his ranch this weekend, where they will hold the fi...

All-Purpose Pitching Machine Also Teaches Kids Not to Lie
We had this one really hard teacher in junior high. You know the type of teacher that thinks they're preparing you for the harsh realities of adulthood through tough love, including random screaming and no late papers and picking books about four grades higher than your class' skill set and wonderin...

Stat Nerd Better At Predicting Elections Than Predicting The NL East
If you're a seamhead, you know Nate Silver as the Baseball Prospectus geek who has probably forgotten more about algorithms than you and I will ever know. He invented the PECOTA projection system, which predicted Tampa Bay's first 90-win season way back in February when the Devil Rays were still the...

The World Series Can Eat A Bag Of D—ks. Jamboroo, Week 8.
Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs, well, every Thursday afternoon during the NFL season. Drew's new book, "Men With Balls," featuring 100% new material, hits stores on Monday but is available online right now here. You can email Drew here. Read him during the week at KSK....

World Series Game One Live Blog: Phillies At Rays
Playoff baseball in Florida. Just as Abner Doubleday foretold in his hallucinations. It begins right now as Cole "Settled In" Hamels and Scott "Dialed In" Kazmir will pitch. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver will tell you what you already knew on the Fox broadcast. And this piece? Well, I call it "Lick My L...

Help Us, Baseball, You're Our Only Hope
We have reason to believe that this (or something similar) will be the opening teaser that will greet baseball fans as they tune into the Fox broadcast tonight. I'm not great at reading subtext, but the theme for this World Series seems to be "America: We're Screwed, But At Least We Have Baseball!"Y...

World Series Preview: Rays Vs. Phillies
The World Series is truly my favorite week of the year. Having the World Series going on is an excuse that gets you out of anything, every year. No matter what plans I might be forced into, all I have to say is, "Hey, the World Series is on," and people understand. You know how Will gets about his ...

ALCS Game Seven Live Blog: Red Sox-Rays
Not much more needs to be said, other than "not much more needs to be said." The winner gets to momentum-crush the Phillies in the World Series. Airing (maybe) on TBS, it's Jon "The" Lester for Boston and Matt "Game 7 Scheduled Pitcher" Garza hurlin' fastballs at their respective catchers. It's jump...

LA Sports Bar Bans Dodgers Gear ... Phillies Gear OK, Though
My sports bar of choice when in the Los Angeles area? Big Wangs, of course. Now with two locations — Hollywood and North Hollywood — making it more convenient to head on over to watch Game 5 of the NLCS, and enjoy a heaping basket of Wangs Wings. Of course, if you're planning on wearing your Dodgers...

Mound Visits By Dusty Baker Are Somewhat Unnerving To Nine-Year-Olds
What I learned this weekend: Dusty Baker can mismanage a pitching staff even if it consists of 9- and 10-year-olds. OK, in his defense, his team was enjoying a 25-3 lead when Baker inserted his son, Darren, in relief in the fourth inning on Saturday. Darren proceeded to pour gasoline on the fire by ...

ALCS Game One Live Blog: Red Sox Vs. Rays
It's Friday night. What better time than to drink away your stock market losses and vaguely remember which AL East team dominated the first game of a curiously exciting ALCS. The pitchers are Daisuke "Dice-K" Matsuzaka for Bawston and James "Scot" Shields for St. Tampasburg. The talkers are TBS's Ch...

NLCS Game 1: Dodgers vs. Phillies
Wow, it's already the League Championship Series. If this were the NBA, tonight would be Game 2 of the first round. Instead it's Cole Hamels throwing when Derek Lowe isn't, and it's probably true the other way around. So sit back, relax, then stop. Jumpertime. * * *Top 9th 2 ...

Why Yes, Tim McCarver <i>Does</i> Have An Opinion About Manny Ramirez
The NLCS starts tomorrow ON FOX! We know Joe Buck is amped, but how does Tim McCarver feel about covering the Phillies, the Dodgers, and the story of the moment—i.e., Manny Ramirez Reborn? Well, let's just say Tim should bring some extra towels with him if he decides to head down to the Dodger locke...

ALCS Preview: Rays Vs. Red Sox
It is perhaps a clear indication that I drink a bit more than I should that, when I saw that the Rays and the Red Sox had both clinched on the same night, I thought, "Whew, good. Now one team won't be more hungover than the other one in Game 1." Hey, sometimes these things matter. I have to speak o...

City Of Tampa To Red Sox: "Bring A Snorkel"
Oh, by the way—that other Sox franchise had its World Series dreams crushed yesterday by, let's see here ... Tampa Bay? That's the team that plays behind the orange juice factory, right? Well, even though they won their first playoff series ever like five minutes ago, they (or one Tampa baseball col...

Ill-Tempered Apple Calls Out Nightmare Ant In Fort Wayne Mascot Showdown
No, this isn't a peyote flashback; the above image is of a real minor league baseball mascot. This as-yet-unnamed, furious-looking apple represents the Fort Wayne TinCaps, the newest member of the Class-A Midwest League. You may know Fort Wayne as home of the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, an Indiana Pacers D...