baseball Page 52 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Familia latest Phillies’ free agent folly
The Phillies had a 4.60 bullpen ERA last season, sixth-worst in the major leagues. Philadelphia relievers’ 2.36 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranked 19th in the majors in 2021. And the Phillies’ bullpen corps served up 89 homers last year, tied for seventh-most in baseball....

Stream shows consciousness
When I told my mom about the reports of NBC’s impending $30 million deal to stream a dozen and a half Major League Baseball games on Peacock, she groaned. More streaming, more annoyance when all you want to do is just turn on the TV and see the ballgame....

He’s Joe Bucks now
Joe Buck, the longtime voice of Fox Sports, is bolting for the greener pastures of ESPN, signing a lucrative five-year deal in the $60-$75 million range, according to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand....

MLB free agency predictions - who will go where?
With over 200 names still facing free agency and less than one month to go before the start of the MLB season, we are in for an absolute flurry of moves. There are still dozens of big names on the table for any team looking to make a game-changing acquisition. Those teams that were right on the bord...

Baseball is back, but the DH is everywhere, and that’s awful
There’s only one bad thing about the MLB lockout being over: The game is changing forever....

Now that baseball is back, which free agents are still out there?
Yes, yes, yes, we’re all excited that baseball is back, but this is only the beginning. The main job is done, but now attention turns back to everything we missed over the last three months — i.e., free agency....

So baseball won’t die, after all
Turns out, neither side had the stomach to really put the game in peril in order to radically change how the business of baseball works. Fans will get a 162-game season, just about a week later than scheduled. They’ll get a reduced spring training, which is probably needed every year anyway but we’l...

Devil’s Advocate: Banning the shift shows that MLB is moving in the right direction
I’ve never had too strong an opinion on whether or not Major League Baseball should ban the shift....

NFT hacks Jeff Passan at height of lockout negotiations, completely whiffs opportunity
You know, back in the day, when things made sense and air was fresh and all french fries were crispy, when you hacked someone’s Twitter or Facebook or email, you did it for entertaining reasons. Remember the days of “Wetbutt” breaking Cubs trades (“Days Of Wetbutt” was an underrated Cinderella album...

MLB Owners looking to expand draft to international players
The concept of an international draft has become a big one in the collective bargaining talks between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, with the league reportedly trying to get a global entry system in place, in exchange for eliminating draft pick compensation for free agency....

Clock is ticking on 2021-22 NBA season for Kawhi Leonard and Paul George
The Wednesday-morning-blogger reason to have watched the Warriors clown the Clippers was for the Chris Haynes sideline reporter update on Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The Yahoo Sports reporter said Leonard participated in an extended workout in front of media members for the first time since havin...

Now seating: Simmons, party of one
Count me among those who enjoy a good soft opening. You get to check out the restaurant space, try a newly created menu, and judge the decor while waitstaff fumble over pronunciations and the back of the house yell at each other over ticket times. There are no real consequences because nothing is at...

For MLB players, streaming deal is rotten Apple
MLB’s new streaming deal with Apple is why the Major League Baseball Players Association needs to scrap its entire bargaining strategy and go for a salary cap....

Integrity is a funny word
The first rule for any professional sports athlete is that you can’t bet on the games. Technically it’s called Rule 21 and you can find it hanging in every Big League clubhouse. Pete Rose would walk past it every day for decades as a player and manager, paying it no mind, so his lifetime ban is the ...

Singles were already available
Negotiations in MLB didn’t really get any better yesterday. There was buzz that the players gave up even more in their quest to get the luxury tax threshold raised, even though they still haven’t really asked for any guarantee that more than a few teams would even approach it. This was met with mor...

Big Baby got caught on candid camera at the Celtics game today, and he deserved it for that lame shirt
We may not have this opportunity this year, but who hasn’t purchased a bleacher seat at a Major League Baseball game and then sometime after the third inning — or third beer, whichever comes first — tried to find a better view, or received some free concert tickets at their high school part-time job...

It’s happening to the Maple Leafs again
Even though we Chicagoans don’t get a spring — it’s winter until one day somewhere in May when it’s just suddenly summer and we’re all instantly drunk outside — that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the signs of spring approaching elsewhere. Sure, we’ve been robbed of one of them in spring training. ...

Shades of 1994
As the MLB lockout turned from days to weeks to months with negative progress on the new CBA, it’s become abundantly clear that we’re not going to get the start to the MLB season anytime soon....

Let’s talk the Lakers, the Magic and HBO's '<em>Winning Time'</em><em></em>
Before the Los Angeles Lakers drafted Earvin “Magic” Johnson with the first overall pick in 1979, the league was on the verge of a fate worse than death — irrelevancy. ...

So what happens if you have tickets to Opening Day?
So far, the Major League Baseball lockout is only really hitting home for 19 of the 30 franchises. That’s because, with only the first week of games canceled – so far – there still are 11 teams who don’t yet have to deal with the mess of rescheduling a home opener....