baseball Page 441 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Logical Extension of "Moneyball"
OK, this is pretty awesome. From our friends at The Griddle comes this video of the world's first baseball playing robot. When they all unite and take over the earth, we will remember this as the first warning sign. Like you wouldn't take him over Tony Womack....

The First 2006 Baseball Recap Book Is Out
Of all the sports we cover around these here parts, it's probably pretty obvious to you that our favorite, the one that warms our cockles the most, is baseball. We pretty much buy every baseball book we can find, particularly around this time of year, when it's cold and we miss the game the most. A ...

Pearlman About As Pleased With Rocker Right Now As Rocker Is With Him
You might have missed our interview with John Rocker yesterday, but there's one person who didn't: Jeff Pearlman, the man who wrote the initial SI story on Rocker (and one-time Deadspin interview himself)....

Joel Zumaya Puts His Life In Rock's Hands
Remember in the American League Championship Series, when flamethrowing, red-eyeballed righthander Joel Zumaya was sidelined with a "right wrist and forearm inflammation?" It turned out not to matter, because the Tigers blitzed the A's in four games, but had there been some tighter games late, it co...

The Matsuzaka Has Landed
Well, the world of Red Sox fans can breathe a sliver easier this morning; Daisuke Matsuzaka has signed his (reasonable, really) deal and is now officially a target of the Boston faithful. We find it amusing that one of the first things he had to do when his plane landed was undergo a physical; tur...

Our Interview With John Rocker
Two days before Thanksgiving, at Local 138, one of our favorite watering holes in New York City, we sat down with, of all people, famed immigration expert John Rocker, and talked for about an hour. Really. We did this. See? Sometimes we interview people....

D-Mat, D-Mat, Come Home To Us, D-Mat!
Because the land of Red Sox fans is an intense one, one that we approach gingerly and with palms spread wide open, we don't want any trouble here, we feel like we should check in on the Daisuke Matsuzaka business. We enjoy that the Red Sox Nation is up in arms and screaming about a player who sudden...

Come Celebrate Mo Vaughn's Birthday!
If you're hanging around the Meatpacking District of Manhattan tomorrow evening, we encourage you to drop by the 39th birthday extravaganza for former Red Sox and (gasp!) Met first baseman Mo Vaughn. (Oh, and the Angels: Don't forget, he ate up their clubhouse spread plenty too, and probably hit an ...

David Eckstein Is One Scrappy, Gutty Wrestler
We don't cover much professional wrestling around here, because, as athletic an enterprise as it might be, it's not really, you know, sports. But — shockingly! — tons of professional athletes love wrestling; we think it's the tights....

Bonds Back In Only Place That Truly Loves Him
Well, now we can breathe easy over here; Barry Bonds won't be going to St. Louis. (And now that he's not, we'd like to note that we would have never sold out our principles to root for him. Nope! No way! Obviously! Of course not!)...

Buy Dontrelle Willis Some Dishware
We don't want to be known as some kind of Negative Nellie in the world of sports; we like sunshine and rainbows and all kinds of pretty things that might or might not have tails. We support nice happy stories, like anything involving the Marlins' Dontrelle Willis, whom could very well be the most ...

Bonds In St. Louis, And What It Could Mean For The Human Condition
Part of being a sports fan is making internal deals with yourself. Sure, you might despise, say, Charles Oakley when he's on the other team, but when he's on your team, he's indispensable and the guy you scream for. No matter what he has done in the past, no matter how much he has hurt your team or ...

Tony LaRussa's Wife Cashes In Some Chips
You know, when you manage a baseball team, you're away from your family most of the year, so when the offseason comes, and you go home, you kind of owe your wife and family some favors. They've earned them....

Jeffrey Maier Wants To Return And Screw Over The Orioles Again
You might remember that Jeffrey Maier, the infamous Yankees fan who might have cost the Orioles a win in the 1996 American League Championship Series, was hoping to be selected in the amateur draft earlier this year. Well, it didn't quite happen the way he wanted, so now, at the Winter Meetings — ...

It's Never Too Early In Wrigleyville
Honestly, the Cubs are kind of freaking us out with all this spending business. The overspend for Aramis Ramirez, they really overspend for Mark DeRosa and they REALLY overspend on Alfonso Soriano, and now they're supposedly going after Jason Schmidt. We're not necessarily concerned that these acq...

Albert Pujols Not Only Wants MVP, He Wants Your "Best Boss Ever" Coffee Mug
It might not be the most pleasant matter for us to bring up here, but we kind of have to come out and say it: Our man Albert Pujols came off as a bit of a jerk yesterday....

The OTHER Japanese Pitching Prize
In a much lower-profile — for the Yankees, anyway — announcement yesterday, the Yankees have won the bidding rights to Kei Igawa, a lefthanded pitcher in Japan, for the apparently bargain-rate discount of $26 million....

The McGwire Maelstrom Is Upon Us
Well, as pretty much everyone has weighed in on now, Mark McGwire is on the Hall of Fame ballot, and it's got everybody's panties in a bunch. We typically get exhausted by Hall of Fame debates anyway — they're like regular sports debates, except it's about stuff that ended a decade ago — but this on...

Wait ... Are Those Pesos Or Something?
Everyone's dumbfounded by all the money being thrown around in baseball these days, from the Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez contracts to our new favorite, the Dodgers signing Juan Pierre for $9 million a year for the next five years. (They did watch last season, right?) Remember, three years a...

Will No One Ever Appreciate Derek Jeter?
In a considerable surprise, the American League MVP award today was given not to the Face Of Baseball Derek Jeter, but, in fact, Twins first baseman Justin Morneau, who is not the face of baseball and therefore would seem unworthy of the MVP....