mlb Page 86 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Amid Trade Rumors, Marcus Stroman's Twitter Is Driving Everyone A Little Nuts
Marcus Stroman is going somewhere. The Blue Jays starter is having an excellent season, putting up a 3.18 ERA for a woebegone Toronto team in the first half and earning his first all-star election. He’s also still got another arbitration-eligible year left, making him an attractive trade deadline ta...

Does Rob Manfred Even <i>Like</i> Baseball?
Baseball giveth, and baseball taketh away. In these perilous times when every little moment is a referendum on whether the game will survive until Christmas, and every act of untrammeled joy comes with two asterisks that scream, “Yeah, but they’ll screw it up because it’s baseball and only old peopl...

CC Sabathia's Mound Visit Made Everyone A Little Nervous
An uneventful All-Star Game had a few nice moments, none more confusing to everyone involved than when AL manager Alex Cora sent out CC Sabathia to talk to Aroldis Chapman after two batters in the ninth. “I thought he was going to take me out of the game,” Chapman said through a translator. “I looke...

Let's Remember Some Guys: Matt Nokes Was Literally The Pilot Of The Schaumburg Flyers
Schaumburg, Illinois has no shortage of spectacle. A cursory Google search reveals that this suburb of Chicago has an indoor water park, an Ikea, and a Rainforest Cafe all stuffed within its city limits. But despite all of those commercial pleasures, I can’t imagine any of them fill the gaping spiri...

Let's Remember Some Guys: The Proper Use Of Flip-Down Sunglasses
To understand how and why the Guys that have lodged in my mind are where they are, you must remember that this was the 1980s and 1990s, and that I lived in the suburbs, and that I am an idiot. There were things to do there, and various places within a moderate bike’s ride at which to do them; I had ...

Down A Hole: When Mike Piazza Told Everyone He Wasn't Gay
I don’t remember where I was going or why I was going there, but given the neighborhood I was in and when in my life I was there, I was almost certainly going to a bar. It was raining, and as I hustled down a street that was briefly in that golden New York state of being both smelly and shiny, I saw...

Let's Remember Some Guys: They Enlarged Greg Minton's Teeth
There is something about a mustache that disorients a person. It is a grooming decision first and foremost, but also and in a broader sense it is a choice. Growing a bunch of hair on your upper lip and then getting like marinara sauce and old bits of cake in it is, at bottom, a decision that you mak...

All Coaches Should Wear Uniforms
Today, we’re talking about bathroom boogers, Law & Order, forgettable football teams, office beers, and more....

The Mets Think They've Outsmarted The MLB Draft And You Know How That Usually Goes
The New York Mets: honestly who ever even knows with these guys. ...

Hey, Look At That, Dallas Keuchel Has Landed With The Braves
Former Astros ace Dallas Keuchel was the last man standing from the grueling free agency winter of hell that followed the 2018 season. Craig Kimbrel, the other glaringly overqualified but evidently unemployable pitcher, landed with the Cubs Wednesday night; Thursday night, at last, Keuchel scored a ...

Pirates Announcer Takes A Few Awkward Stumbles To The Dog Whistle
The Pirates played the Braves last night, and in the fourth inning Pittsburgh pitcher Steven Brault hit Braves slugger Ronald Acuña Jr. on the elbow with a fastball. In response to this wholly unremarkable occurrence, Pirates broadcaster Steve Blass started sputtering a bunch of heated nonsense abou...

Let's Remember Some Guys: 1992 Donruss Dudes
Donruss. The very name calls to mind a time and place instantly accessible to all who have experienced it—a world of generally adequate photography and ornate portraiture, a land ruled by Diamond Kings and defined by the yeomen pluggers and middle-of-the-order lieges and squinting mustachioed reliev...

Here's A Fun Activity To Do While Your Team Doesn't Sign Dallas Keuchel Or Craig Kimbrel
When Sunday, June 2, turns to Monday, June 3, the 30 Major League Baseball teams that declined to sign 2015 American League Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel and seven-time All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel as free agents last winter will simultaneously lose their last and best remaining excuse for n...

One Of The NL's Best Sluggers Isn't On The All-Star Ballot
Brand-new Cincinnati Red Derek Dietrich is smashing the hell out of the baseball in the early part of the season, quickly going from Marlins Castoff On Minor League Contract to elite pinch-hitting threat to must-start infielder in just a few weeks. After his titanic three-dinger performance against ...

Can Sports Show The Way To Smarter Voting?
Electoral reform is coming to America. This year in MLB, a simple first-past-the-post voting system will no longer determine all-star starters. Fans will instead select three finalists in a Primary Round and then vote from among those finalists on a single Election Day....

The Mighty Josh Bell Just Keeps Smashing Monster Dingers
A loyal reader reached out this morning with a fantastic question:...

Reds Announcer Suggests Ozzie Albies Doesn't Know The Difference Between $35 Million And $85 Million
The Braves became the target of many people’s ire earlier this month when they signed Ozzie Albies to a seven-year, $35 million contract extension that will, if Albies turns into the kind of player he looks destined to become, go down as one of the most appallingly team-friendly contracts in basebal...

Let's Remember Some Guys: Topps "Big" Baseball Card Guys
I would like to begin this edition of Let’s Remember Some Guys by noting that I was right. Not about the many decisions I made as a youth and young man that led me to remember not just who Tom Brunansky and Juan Nieves are in 2019 but even/also a few things about what kind of baseball players they w...

Why Are Mets Fans Mets Fans?
The freezing rain that was forecast for later in the day of the Queens Baseball Convention never really materialized. It was still unpleasant out, but this was winter in New York City. It was at least near to the end of the worst part of winter—before pitchers and catchers were even obliged to get t...

MLB Presents A Championship Belt To The Team That Keeps Salaries Lowest In Arbitration
An agent mentioned The Belt to me once, and I thought he was joking. This is not me doing that thing where reporters try to downplay someone else’s scoop by letting you know they already knew a thing, even though they didn’t report it, which makes them completely useless. This is me trying to convey...