rob-manfred Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Rob Manfred’s dumb ghost runner is here to stay
The start of the World Series always means that whichever ghoul is the commissioner of MLB is going to emerge from the damp and dark dwelling in which he inhabits. That’s the rule for every league of course, so it’s not to single out baseball. A Super Bowl, a Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals always...
I could play this New York Times umpire game for hours
I love umpires. I don’t love to hate them like other baseball fans do, though. I’ve always leaned in the direction of leniency. I know that officiating in any sport is difficult, thankless, and downright hazardous to your health in some situations. Umpires get it the worst though, perhaps because th...
Bombs win in the playoffs, plain and simple
It’s not underground baseball science to say that home runs are the determining factor this time of year. Everyone has known it, and yet every so often someone tries to fool themselves into thinking that there can be another way. Generally, it’s someone clinging to the past, “the way baseball used t...
Rob Manfred strikes again!
MLB entered its last series of the season on Monday, and there wasn’t a game on the schedule worth watching. Wild-card seeding doesn’t really get the blood going, y’know....
There’s at least one MLB fan base who would open-mouth kiss Rob Manfred
The last time the Seattle Mariners made the playoffs, Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)” was atop the Billboard charts, a non-superhero movie (“Don’t Say A Word”) was No. 1 at the box office, and M’s All-Star rookie Julio Rodriguez was not yet a year old. ...
Baseball’s rules changes are more about looks than effect
I don’t envy the task that MLB has. I also don’t trust that anyone in charge of it has any sense of the challenge, but that’s another topic for another time. Baseball’s charm will always be rooted in its history and simply the amount of time it has been part of American culture. While pro football m...
How far are MLB players willing to go for their minor league counterparts?
Before I get tossed in the same bin with Buster Olney or Jeff Passan or some other water-carrying stooge for MLB owners, let me scratch and claw for escape from that right off the bat. The MLBPA reaching out to minor league players, and starting the process to welcome them into the union, is a very ...
C.B. Bucknor drags everyone down with him
It was yet another banner day for C.B. Bucknor behind the plate, as we watched in real time while he lost sense of the strike zone and perhaps indeed any sense of direction at all. The plane which the ball must pass through to be called a strike is imaginary, of course, and tough to judge from a pos...
IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Everything is on fire
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we start to worry that Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker might actually win. It’s a terrifying prospect, especially given that his strategy at the moment consists of “avoiding actual debate at all costs” in addition to his old standby, “say l...
Now pitchers are just showing off
Pitching has become so easy in MLB that relievers can carry a conversation with the booth while getting the last out of the eighth inning in a one-run All-Star Game. No longer content to interview guys in the dugout/not actively in the field, players talked with announcers during the showcase that e...
For right now, there’s nothing Aaron Judge can do
Aaron Judge is a big dude, in every meaning of the word. He’s tall, strong, got lots of money and influence, and he even plays in the Big Apple. However, being a mammoth of a man comes with its downfalls: short door frames are a thing, getting into cars becomes much more of a hassle, it becomes much...
The A’s were ruined by many
Whenever the Oakland A’s move to Vegas — something that feels more like “when” as opposed to “if” — it will be kind of the same story as the Montreal Expos, the last team to move. By the time it happened, the owner and commissioner will tell you it was a poisoned market where no team could flourish....
The San Francisco Giants cannot catch the baseball
There was always going to be a bit of a comedown from a 107-win season for the San Francisco Giants. Unless you’re operating on a higher plane both organizationally and financially like the Dodgers, all the things that have to go right for a team to win that many games one season are not going to do...
Oneil Cruz is in Pittsburgh to provide no hope
The most exciting time, other than any actual championship, for a fan of a team that is supposedly in a total rebuild is when the hopes for the future start to populate that Major League roster. There isn’t any pressure of “having” to win, and no longer are these players relegated to the myth of whi...
Baseballs really went from sticky to slippery in less than a year
Today is the one-year anniversary of MLB’s ban on sticky substances. In that time, we’ve seen a massive decrease in spin rate, a few suspensions, plus a striptease or two from Max Scherzer and company. Even most fans seemed to like the change. Yes sir, everything was going according to plan for Rob ...
Only the Phillies could win 10 of 11 and have it not matter
It’s a given in baseball that every team will have a winning streak and a losing streak. The season is too long, too many games, meaning that the roulette wheel will eventually spin on to even the most hapless for a week or 10 days simply because. It used to be that you didn’t think too much about i...
It's actually OK to root for the Astros' Yordan Alvarez
I’ll admit it. I’ve done it. I’ve rooted for the Astros post-sign stealing scandal. It’s not a habit or anything. When it’s between blatant cheaters and Atlanta, there’s still too much of me that hates Chipper Jones and the whole racist taunt thing to have pulled for last year’s champs in the World ...
Put MacKenzie Gore in the All-Star Game!
Voting for the MLB All-Star Game opened yesterday. While the fans have all the power to send their favorite position players to the Midsummer Classic, pitchers will once again be determined by each of the league’s managers: Houston’s Dusty Baker and Atlanta’s Brian Snitker. While each of them will f...
Rays of darkness
Remember, not so long ago, that one of the reasons it was thought the Colorado Rockies couldn’t win is because the whole organization was dead set on being a weird religious cult? That’s quieted down in recent years, and it just turns out they’re more of a run of the mill, backward, nepotism lousy g...
We found something sports-related that Mike Trout can’t do
Mike Trout being the worst commissioner in sports is not the development I expected from 2022. On the field, the Los Angeles Angels star is finally attaining similar levels of individual and team success. The Angels are competing for the American League Wild Card, their pitching is much-improved and...