players Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Tennis doesn’t want Naomi Osaka around
Naomi Osaka loves tennis, but tennis doesn’t seem to love her back. ...

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....

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....

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...

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 ...

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....

Joey Gallo: Will strike out for food
The Major League Baseball lockout isn’t ending anytime soon. There was some hope that the Jupiter meetings could lead to a new CBA, but those meetings proved as useless as Pat Light against anyone not named Mike Trout. Now, with Opening Day canceled along with the first two series of the season, som...

Hear me out: Derek Jeter for MLB Commissioner
We’re going to be without big league baseball for the foreseeable future, launching a sport that’s already been on the decline into what feels like its death throes....

We've been Robbed!
Rob “Piece of Metal” Manfred came out into the Florida sun, made an announcement that everyone knew was coming about the cancellation of Opening Day, as well as the first two series of the season, and then proceeded to tell some lies, which everyone should have known was coming....

What if Serena Williams did what Alexander Zverev did?
Before this week, for most sports fans, German tennis player Alexander Zverev’s name didn’t ring a bell. Others likely remember the domestic abuse allegations levied against him before the 2021 U.S. Open. But now, everyone should be aware as a recent video showed him cursing out an umpire and smashi...

Tennis menace Alexander Zverev whacks umpire with racket
When in doubt, blame the officials. It’s a common behavior in sports. When in doubt, smash a tennis racket against an umpire’s chair, nearly striking him, which could’ve caused major harm? Deeply disturbing and pitiful. And that’s exactly what German tennis player Alexander Zverev did Tuesday....

If the talks are productive, why are we back to square one?
The latest episode of the soap opera that is the MLB lockout featured a five-hour meeting between the players and owners to discuss a collective bargaining agreement for the upcoming season. The two parties have been at each other’s throats since the lockout began on December 2 of last year....

USWNT settlement was 30 years in the making
The U.S. Women’s National Team has spent its entire existence not just battling opponents from abroad, but its own soccer federation. After a nearly three-year-long legal battle, U.S. Soccer settled in court with the U.S. women’s soccer team. The settlement, which was agreed to six years after five ...

Angels exec found guilty of causing pitcher Tyler Skaggs’ death
Nearly three years after Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in his Dallas hotel room on July 1, 2019, a jury found former team executive Eric Kay guilty of distributing fentanyl-laced narcotics and causing the death of the 27-year-old. ...

The trial of the man accused of causing Tyler Skaggs’ death is flying under the radar
Three years ago, Tyler Skaggs’ death rocked Major League Baseball. Yet, the trial of Eric Kay, the Los Angeles Angels’ ex-Communications Director who allegedly sold Skaggs the opioid he OD’d on, has taken place on the fringes of the sports media sphere. Kay is facing felony charges of distributing o...

Deion Sanders can’t make up his mind about how long he’ll be at Jackson State
No one has mastered the art of talking without saying anything like coaches. It’s called “coach speak.” Deion Sanders, however, is his own man. Instead of saying as little as possible, he always seems to find a way to say too much — even when it contradicts things he’s said in the past....

Rob Manfred claims he wants to help young players, then threatens to eliminate hundreds of MiLB jobs
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred claimed that while MLB and the MLBPA were far removed from an agreement on several key topics, one topic everyone supposedly agreed on was that minor leaguers were not paid well enough. ...