baseball Page 457 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Was This Why Harold Got The Axe?
We can't say for sure why Harold Reynolds was fired from ESPN yesterday, because ESPN hasn't put out a statement or anything (and they don't have to), but we can tell you what the chatter in Bristol is: Everyone is hearing sexual harassment. Every single email we've received from the inside about ...

A Short Note On The Royals
It's the sentence we never thought we'd live to hear. But there it was, just sitting there in the notes column of the Kansas City Star's Royals gamer on Sunday. It is at once awesome in its randomness, and frightening for the images it conjures. Even more terrifying: we know that someone, somewher...

He Homers In Peace
For all the talk about how baseball's All-Star Game has become boring and irrelevant, it appears the Japanese All-Star game has figured out how to liven up matters: Aliens in the dugout....

The Closer: It's A Joe, Out Of Control
Notes from a day in baseball ......

It's Carl Monday Night At The Ballpark
As you know, we're big fans of minor league baseball, particularly the odd promotions they put together from time-to-time. (We still think our favorite is the time a team gave away free vasectomies on Father's Day.) And a couple of weeks ago, we pointed you to the Dunedin Blue Jays' professional w...

Where's The Love For Jered Weaver?
The headline on SI.com this morning reads, Weaver-Mania hits LA. As well it should: Jered Weaver won his seventh straight start on Sunday for the Angels ... that's seven career starts, and seven wins. Not since Fernando Valenzuela started 8-0 as a rookie for the Dodgers in 1981 has something like ...

The Closer: Can't Anyone Follow A Simple $%#&%! Order?
Notes from a day in baseball:...

A Game Grows In Brooklyn
One of our favorite places to watch a baseball game is KeySpan Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones. It's small, intimate and yet still has the carnival atmosphere we love minor league baseball games to have. Well, yesterday, they had the ultimate baseball experience: They...

Chalk One Up For The Little Guy
And so the debate rages: Does Johnny Damon, or doesn't he, suck? We refuse to take sides, but one thing we can report is that our nation's babies are now involved. A New Bedford housewife, still miffed over Damon's defection to the Yankees, had been trying to sell "Johnny Damon Sucks" baby bibs on...

"Indictment? What Indictment? Let's JAM!"
As it becomes clear that Barry Bonds will indeed not be indicted today, with the possibility it could still happen hanging out there, we can look forward to a few more weeks of will-he or won't-he? The parlor game often distracts from the real story, and the real story, we can proudly say, was Bonds...

Exit, Stage Right
For the record, we would have done the same thing: Here's a video that's old, but has never appeared here, of pitcher Masanori Ishikawa of the Yakult Swallows, plunking former American major leaguer Tony Batista of the SoftBank Hawks in a Japanese League game. When it appeared that the rather imposi...

Boy, This Busch Stadium Place Is Great
Five minutes before first pitch at 7:05 at Busch Stadium last night, all was well. We were sitting in the bleachers with our father and our fiancee, scorebook and four pens in hand, watching David Eckstein toss pop-ups with a kid who had won some contest. It was hot, but it had been hot all week, ...

Sammy And The Cubs, Together Again?
In case you thought Sammy Sosa was out of baseball for good, and you were really broken up about that, well, there's hope. Sosa told a radio station in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday that he is not retired, and would resume his major-league career for the right offer. That, according to ESPN....

The Closer: In Boston, Less Is More
Notes from a day in baseball ......

Minor Enterprise: Now Batting, Father Time
Welcome to Minor Enterprise, where we preview, and occasionally review, the great events of minor league baseball. Each Wednesday we'll take a look at the promotions, players and mascots which populate our minor league ballparks; the unsung heroes of our national pastime. (Minor Enterprise not res...

Come On Down And Boo Our Guests!
You know how audience coordinators at "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith" are always trolling Web message boards trying to get people to come to their shows? Well, now it's getting rather extreme....

The Closer: Exploring The Melky Way
Notes from a day in baseball ......

Our History At Busch Is Off To A Roaring Start
In the first two games at the brand new stadium of the team for which we have directed a considerable amount of our psychic energy over the last 26 years, the home team has been outscored 29-8. When a baseball team is blown out, it is often to referred to as a "football score;" the final tally was...

Chasing History: Bobby Cox
The excellent A Trivial Pursuit points out something we didn't know: Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox is but eight ejections away from breaking John McGraw's record for lifetime ejections. McGraw was ejected 131 times; Earl Weaver has the AL record with 98. Those are extremely impressive numbers. ...