dusty-baker Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Ron Washington’s hiring is a bizarre move for the Los Angeles Angels
The hiring of Ron Washington is the type of short-term thinking that has come to define the Los Angeles Angels since Arte Moreno officially bought the franchise during the spring of 2003. Those Anaheim Angels were the defending champions. Washington is taking over a club with a hellish trajectory. T...

Your MLB team is out, so who do you root for?
Playoff baseball is in full swing. As we move closer to crowning a champion, who do you root for if your team has been eliminated? Do you stick with a club in your favorite squad’s league? Support the underdog? Or just watch football or whatever else is on TV? ...

The Astros are just going to win again, aren't they?
There’s been a lot to get excited about in the American League, and a lot of new....

A Major League Baseball team in Utah is a terrible idea
At a time in which it appears that Major League Baseball is seemingly doing all it can to keep African-Americans from being on Big League rosters, a group in Salt Lake, Utah is throwing its hat in the ring to land a franchise in the coming years. Remember this the next time MLB Commissioner Rob Manf...

Opening Day is a reminder of how little Major League Baseball thinks of African-Americans
Hot dogs. Peanuts. Cracker Jacks. Racism. It can only mean one thing — Opening Day of a new Major League Baseball season is here. And today, of all days, is a great example of how things haven’t changed and remain the same, or gotten worse. ...

Read an excerpt from MLB pitcher Joe Kelly's new book: A Damn Near Perfect Game — Reclaiming America's Pastime
White Sox pitcher Joe Kelly’s book, “A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime,” delves into many of the issues frustrating fans of major league baseball, and is on sale tomorrow wherever you get your books. Here’s an excerpt:...

Sports is sometimes disheartening as a profit-margin-focused enterprise, but it does produce some great stories
Yes, sports is like all other major American industries — run by a handful of people who made out like bandits in this economic system of great wealth disparity. Because they have accumulated such vast wealth, they believe that is a sign of intelligence and that hubris frequently leads to poor decis...

Sportswriter Jerry Sullivan delivers awful, misogynistic take on podcast
Playing gotcha with misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, and any other form of discrimination can do a disservice to the actual harm that it causes....

UNSUNG GENIUS: Dissecting Dusty Baker's bullpen brilliance for his sabermetric critics
Dusty Baker “ought to be part of the conversation around MLB’s best-ever managers,” concluded Neil Paine from FiveThirtyEight after studying the most overachieving managers, and “shouldn’t need a ring to validate his career.” Agreed. Let’s go further....

The only African-American participants in the World Series were Dusty Baker and the pregame entertainers — baseball is pathetic
When Nick Castellanos fouled out to right on Saturday night during the top of the ninth inning of Game 6 of the World Series in Houston, it meant that the Astros were once again world champions and that Dusty Baker had finally won one as a skipper....

The 2022 Astros don’t absolve the 2017 Astros of anything
When the Astros’ 2017 cheating scandal was exposed in 2019, team owner Jim Crane wanted to make sure everyone knew the championship wasn’t tainted. “Our opinion is that this didn’t impact the game,” Crane said. “We had a good team. We won the World Series and we’ll leave it at that.” Then-right fiel...

Hear me out: Cristian Javier should’ve remained in Game 4
Last night, the Houston Astros’ pitching staff combined for the second no-hitter in World Series history. Cristian Javier, Bryan Abreu, Rafael Montero, and Ryan Pressly allowed only three baserunners (all walks) while striking out 14 Phillies en route to evening up the World Series. There were only ...

They say a good fastball is still the best pitch
It still amazes me how quickly a baseball playoff series, especially one of the seven-game variety, can pivot. ...

Dusty Baker is doing that thing again
The funny thing, no matter what Dusty Baker’s rep is, and will be, is that he’s gotten more looks at the postseason than many. While he’ll always wear the epic choke jobs of the Giants in 2002 and the Cubs in 2003 — fair or not — his time in D.C. and in Houston has shown a guy who has learned how pl...

This World Series is a beautiful juxtaposition
If styles make fights, then this World Series is for you. While the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies have their similarities (like green mascots), they also occupy opposing poles in a lot of ways. And also the perception of them is actually opposite to reality in some ways as well. There are...

If ya can't beat 'em, hire 'em
If you can’t beat ‘em, hire the manager that beat you. Yeah! That’s the phrase. At least it is for the Texas Rangers, who successfully courted Bruce Bochy out of three-year retirement to become their new manager. Bochy is best known to Texas as the mafioso who picked them apart in the 2010 World Ser...

So it’s root, root, root for the Yankees
It has happened only once in recorded history....

God bless Johnny Cueto
There’s just something about a veteran pitcher whose stuff isn’t the same and yet finds a way. The joy is in knowing every opposing fanbase is screaming, “HE’S SPINNING IT ON HIS FINGER! JUST TAKE IT!” or some such derivative while he’s on the mound as they watch hitter after hitter be bewitched by ...

What does it take for the Seattle Mariners to get a starting All-Star spot?
Come on, MLB fans. Take a seat at the dinner table. We’re going to have a little chat. I’m not mad, just disappointed....