mlb Page 386 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Phil Coke's Story About Striking Out Miguel Cabrera Is Hilarious
Phil Coke jumped squarely into the postseason spotlight when he took over as the Tigers' closer during the ALCS. His newfound notoriety earned him an interview on the MLB Network's Intentional Talk last week, and he took the opportunity to tell a story about having to remind Miguel Cabrera that he...
Dale Murphy Saw Pablo Sandoval's Homers Last Night And Wished He Had Been Fat When He Played
The pudgy Pablo Sandoval spanked lean, mean Justin Verlander during Game 1 of the World Series last night. Fat Ichiro—that's one of his nicknames—hit three home runs. This was improbable. Sandoval hit only 12 all season. Verlander allowed only 19 all year. But Fat Ichiro can do that to you....
The Dodgers Might Open The 2014 Season In Australia
Australia, while not on the level of Japan, does love it some baseball. The history of the sport there dates back to the 1850s, and the domestic Australian Baseball League is profitable for the first time ever—thanks in part to funding from MLB. The ABL is increasingly becoming a legitimate winter l...
That Damn Marlins Fan Was Behind The Plate Again Last Night At The World Series
Perhaps you noticed a douchey-looking gent behind home plate during NLCS Game 7, wearing a bright orange Marlins jersey and Marlins visor worn sideways. If not, you definitely saw him in the same seat tonight, still wearing the Marlins shirt though in a panda hat (that he later changed to a differe...
The Hilarious Greatness Of Pablo Sandoval, As Glimpsed In Three Swings That Shouldn't Have Been
A 95 mph chest-high fastball. Another 95 mph fastball, this one at the knees on the outside corner of the plate. A tumbling breaking ball headed for the dirt. These are the three pitches that Pablo Sandoval hit out of the park last night. It's very likely that no other player in baseball would've hi...
Pablo Sandoval And The Giants Rocked Detroit For A Shocking Game 1 Win
There were many predictions being tossed around in the minutes before Game 1's first pitch, but what most folks generally agreed upon was that Tigers ace Justin Verlander would have little-to-no problem with this Giants lineup. By the same token, there was no chance (right?) that Barry Zito, who ...
Pablo Sandoval Smashed Three Home Runs In His First Three World Series At-Bats Tonight
The only men to ever hit three home runs in a single World Series game? Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson, Albert Pujols ... and now Pablo Sandoval. The San Francisco Giants are now up 6-0 in the fifth inning of Game 1, having already knocked out Justin Verlander. And it's only the second three-HR game ever...
Your World Series Game 1 Open Thread
The World Series is upon us! Game 1 starts at 8 p.m. EDT, and this is where you can yak about the game as it unfolds before your eager eyes. Tonight's pitching matchup is Barry Zito vs. Justin Verlander, which means that you will be simultaneously soothed by Zito's totally chill curveball and elect...
The Last Center Fielders Standing Are Two Damn Good Ones
You've assuredly heard lots about the players who will be most important in this World Series. Buster Posey, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Matt Cain, Pablo Sandoval—they were deserved all-stars in July, and they've been talked to death this October. But why think of the World Ser...
The Pirates Lied About A Prospect Who Got Hurt During Some Team-Sanctioned Military-Type Exercises
When details got out about the Pittsburgh Pirates putting prospects at their fall instructional league through Navy SEALs-type training last month, it was easy to point and laugh. That pointing and laughing was made even easier because, around the same time the SEALs regimen was being reported, an e...
Grantland's Jonah Keri Picks The Giants In Seven; ESPN's Jonah Keri Likes The Tigers In Five
Today on Grantland, a pair of World Series preview pieces: Rany Jazayerli on why the Tigers could win, and Jonah Keri on how the Giants could take home the championship. Both men predict the series will go seven games—Jazayerli takes Detroit; Keri, San Francisco. Also on ESPN.com: a list of experts'...
Someone In Detroit Wants To Trade His House For World Series Tickets
Here are two things that Detroit has:...
The Giants Are Headed To The World Series Without One Of Their Best Players Because They Are Stupid
The San Francisco Giants will play in the World Series with a stupid, self-inflicted handicap. They will be without Melky Cabrera, their best regular-season hitter. Cabrera, whose 50-game performance-enhancing-drug suspension just ended, was left off the Giants' postseason roster for the dumbest of ...
The Marlins Have Fired Ozzie Guillen
The Marlins have fired manager Ozzie Guillen, reports everybody, after a hilarious 69-93 season that included a five-game suspension, a feud with his closer, and a premature reality-show cancellation, and fell short of everyone's expectations. The Marlins were apparently unaware of Guillen's body of...
The Giants' Pennant Run Ended Right As Rain
How many LCS clinchers, not involving your team, do you actually remember? Carlos Beltran standing stock-still, Aaron Boone going deep, Sid Bream's slide, Chris Chambliss's homer...and that's probably about it. It's probably fair to add last night's Giants win, a 9-0 drubbing that was decided by th...
"3 words... FIRE MIKE MATHENY": The Best Fans In Baseball Are Having A Major Meltdown
Cardinals fans are known the world over as the best fans in baseball. This is, of course, indisputable but it makes what has to be a fandom-wide psychotic break after watching their beloved Cardinals get shellacked by the Giants in Game 7 of the NLCS troubling indeed....
The San Francisco Giants Are Going To The World Series
The Giants trounced the Cardinals by a score of 9-0, completing an impressive comeback from a 3-1 series deficit and managing to kill the previously immortal St. Louis Cardinals. Even a team as resilient as this Cardinals team can only be carried so far by the likes of Daniel Descalso, Pete Kozma, ...
Hunter Pence Had Three Hits On One Swing
OK, so technically that's impossible, but look at this thing! In the bottom of the third, as Hunter Pence's bat explodes in his hands, the ball makes its way down the barrel of the bat, hopping all the way like some kind of concussed bouncing Mickey Mouse head in a Sing-Along Song. Pence wound up w...
Aural History: How An Old Lady In Brooklyn Ensured That The "Shot Heard 'Round The World" Call Was Heard 'Round The World
It was Oct. 3, 1951, and the New York Giants were about to lose the pennant to the Brooklyn Dodgers two games to one in a best-of-three series. In Brooklyn, a 26-year-old travel agent asked his mother to flip a switch on his reel-to-reel machine, and few moments later at the Polo Grounds in Upper ...