players Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Sports claims just a little more of its soul
Though I’m from the Midwest, the Oakland Athletics were always a fascination for me. It started well before the Moneyball era. When I first became a baseball fan was the rise of the Mark McGwire-Jose Canseco A’s. Even beyond McGwire and Canseco, when the A’s would be on the national game…they just l...
Another notch in Clayton Kershaw's belt
We already know Clayton Kershaw is headed to Cooperstown, but the Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher just hit a nice milestone en route....
Ump gives us Idiot of the Month-able moment during Dodgers-Cubs game
One would think that with MLB seriously considering a switch to robot umps, the humans currently doing the job would show a little urgency and at least try to display why they’re better suited than a machine. Case in point, Friday night at Dodger Stadium when Cody Bellinger was given a standing ovat...
Javier Báez is already in some kind of form, but it’s not ‘midseason’
We’re 12 games into the MLB season, so no good team should panic, and no bad team is too far gone — one would think. The Detroit Tigers were projected to be especially awful, but you’d hope to at least get through *checks calendar* April 14 without the manager having to intervene like A.J. Hinch did...
And they say nothing good happens after 2 a.m.
For about three years now, most of the baseball world has wanted various current and former Houston Astros to just admit what happened in 2017. It wouldn’t change much, but everyone wants to be right to the biggest level possible. It wouldn’t really sully these players any more than they already hav...
Does anyone truly believe Jacob deGrom can stay healthy all year?
Has there been a closer franchise to winning a World Series ever that never reached the pinnacle than the Texas Rangers? The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex’s Major League Baseball team had multiple squads good enough to be the sport’s last team standing over the last 15 years and never got it done. Sta...
With NBA stars (mainly) healthy, lOaD mAnAgEmEnT wOn
The people over at the National Basketball Players Association have the bubbles on ice with “Mission Accomplished” banners and balloons ordered. We’re about a week and a half away from the end of the regular season, and the only star players in jeopardy of missing playoff games due to injury could r...
Sean Gibson says MLB hasn't gone far enough when it comes to the Negro Leagues
With opening day in Major League Baseball upon us, there’s no better time to remember baseball’s heroes of yesteryear. Such nostalgia shouldn’t only extend to past eras of MLB but also to those who paved the way in the Negro Leagues for players of color to make their way into the Majors. One of thos...
How every MLB division will shake out
Welcome to Opening Day! It was a long, cold winter, but Spring is, at last, officially upon us. Sure, the ivy at Wrigley might be sparse and brown, and your favorite broadcaster might be wearing Gore-Tex for the next few weeks, but baseball is back. As Bart Giamatti once said, “It breaks your heart....
The best and worst TV broadcasts in MLB: Your guide to watching other baseball
As hard as MLB tries, baseball remains pretty parochial. That’s mostly due to the daily nature of it. If you’re a fan of a team, you basically spend every day from the beginning of April to the end of September watching your team and then going to bed, or maybe cramming in some sort of worthless soc...
The fans Rob Manfred is trying to service are prudes
This year’s MLB Opening Day feels different than recent iterations because the media doesn’t have (most of) its usual talking points to complain about. The rule changes are going to shorten the games, discontinue the dialog about shifts, and provide baserunners with throw pillows to slide into. Yay!...
Can the Arizona Diamondbacks come from the clouds?
When baseball writers get done complaining about how late their games are on, most of baseball’s attention this season will be on the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Padres kneecapping the Dodgers in last year’s divisional round gave this tango some stakes instead of the Padres jus...
You gonna do anything about this, MLB?
Take a look at the face of MLB umpire Randy Rosenberg in the image above. If that’s not the face of someone who is slowly realizing that they may have *slightly* overreacted, I don’t know what is. But before we get into it, please take a second to view Rosenberg ejecting Phillies catcher J.T. Realmu...
The Angels will make the playoffs...or at least let’s figure out a way they can
As badass as the moment was of seeing Shohei Ohtani face Mike Trout with the World Baseball Classic on the line last night, you could forgive Los Angeles Angels fans if they were rubbing their temples a bit during it. The cry whenever either or both of those names come up in conversation has been, “...
You can’t script baseball, but sometimes it can seem like it
What they tell you about baseball a lot, is that because everyone gets a turn, you can’t guarantee that your best player will get to the plate with the game on the line. Sometimes it’s your second baseman with no concept of the strike zone who wets himself at the sight of any fastball over 96 MPH. S...
How much difference can it make to have a manager who is awake?
How much tangible difference a manager makes on a baseball team over 162 games has never been quite nailed down. It’s generally thought the best ones might only add a couple wins, and a truly bad one might only take away a couple wins. Most are just there, which is kind of why front offices stopped ...
Meaningless baseball continues to thrill millions
I think maybe what I might take most out of the World Baseball Classic is its insistence on portraying the entire scope of the best moments, what makes baseball the most artful game. ...
Is it finally time for the Toronto Blue Jays?
Once the Toronto Maple Leafs get Andrei Vasilevskiy’d in the first round again, it’s not like the angst level in the T.O. will fade all that much through the summer months. That’s because the Toronto Blue Jays have reached the same threshold as the Leafs passed a few years ago, where you go from you...
No, Keith Olbermann, we should not 'kill' the WBC
If you ever wonder why much of the world views Americans as arrogant and uninterested in anything that happens outside the United States’ borders, look no further than Keith Olbermann’s recent tweets about the World Baseball Classic....