spring-training Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Chien-Ming Wang Injures Himself Attempting The Always-Tricky "Step On First Base" Play
Wang left in the third inning of today's spring training start after breaking down while attempting to beat a runner to the bag. It's funny, but it's not funny, because it was another non-pitching related activity—running the bases in interleague play—that turned Wang from a 19-game winner into a ...

Cardio And Pooping: A Chart Of Every MLB Player Who Reportedly Lost Or Gained Weight This Offseason (And Why)
Every spring training, seemingly every other ballplayer shows up to camp and declares himself "in the best shape of my life." Our pal Craig Calcaterra over at HardballTalk has done yeoman's work on this phenomenon over the years, but we wanted to know more: Who gained weight? Who lost weight? How mu...

Giants Eject Angels Scout From The Ballpark, And Now Everybody's Angry
You might not realize it, but the most interesting place in the baseball universe is Scottsdale, Arizona. Last week saw a mass bee attack hold up a Giants game, and yesterday brought us our first feud of the 2012 season as Giants manager Bruce Bochy kicked out an Angels scout....

The Data Behind Yu Darvish's Brief But Devastating Debut
Texas Rangers hurler Yu Darvish made quite the spring training debut today against the San Diego Padres. (Of course, he cost the team more than $107 million, spent the last seven years pitching competitively in Japan, and these were the Padres, so you'd think he would do OK.) Still, thanks to some f...

Aw, Hell, Here's One More Tim Kurkjian Imitation From Rays Infielder Elliot Johnson
With Linsanity dying out, we needed something new. Call it Kurkjianomie....

Red Sox Minor Leaguer Pete Ruiz Has His Own Tim Kurkjian Impression
It's more understated than Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia's, we'll argue. Arencibia's is perhaps funnier—he brought Kurkjian's voice to a comically high pitch—but Ruiz's seems more precise. He's Darrell Hammond to Arencibia's Will Ferrell....

Inside The Spring Training Market For $4 Porn
Excerpted from former Padre and Blue Jay Dirk Hayhurst's splendid new book, Out of My League, a true chronicle of life as a pitcher bouncing between the minor leagues and the show. Some names have been changed....

Giants And Diamondbacks Wait Out 41-Minute Bee Delay
A cloud of bees settled near the Giants dugout at the D-Backs training facility in Scottsdale, halting play until the grounds crew came up with a brilliant plan. They bought a bunch of lemonade and cotton candy from the food stands, smeared it on two golf carts, and used that to lure the bees away. ...

Jeff Samardzija Would Like To Eye-Hump You For A Moment
Spring training photo day is a second (or fifth) chance to make a first impression. No matter that Jeff Samardzija had had four largely irrelevant seasons in Chicago. This is 2012, and it's a new start, and a hairy intense Samardzija wants you out of those pants and in his bed before he's done smell...

Sadly, Albert Belle Could Not Drop Father Time With A Forearm On The Basepaths
Quick, guess how old Albert Belle is, without looking it up. He's 45. This is what happens when you chug coffee like water and are angry all the time....

Cubs Fan Cybersquats The Red Sox
The Red Sox's new spring training facility is called JetBlue Park. But if you go to Jetbluepark.com, you end up at the Yankees official website. What's the big idea, here? A Cubs fan with $8, of course. [News-Press]...

The Bad Spring Training Twitpics Site Is The Best Thing On The Internet Today
Every baseball beat writer has a cameraphone and a Twitter account, and they've all descended on lush, verdant camps without direction. Bad art happens. Bad Spring Training Twitpics has captured the best of it, with hostile captions. It's great. [BadSpringTrainingTwitpics]...

It Sure Looks Like Brian Wilson's Pal The Machine Had A Lovely Day After The Closer's Hair-Metal Birthday Bash
About an hour and a half after the Brian Wilson Hair-Metal Birthday Extravaganza gallery was posted this time yesterday, tipster Kevin F. chimed in to say, "the beard's b-day has some nice pics, but the video from the baseball game the next day was better. The Machine streaks through the bleachers...

Watch Manny Ramirez Almost Kill Roy Oswalt
Roy Oswalt was struck "in the upper body" with a line drive hit off of Manny Ramirez's bat today in Port Charlotte, Fla. Crossing Broad captured the video, and while at first glance it appears to hit him in the back of the head, initial reports state that he was struck above the right shoulder and...

Scary: Braves Coach Airlifted To Hospital After Being Struck By Foul Ball
Former major league and current Braves single-A manager Luis Salazar was standing at the rail of the dugout when he was hit by a foul ball off the bat of Brian McCann in the first inning of today's game.. Salazar was given oxygen, taken off the field on a stretcher, and airlifted to Orlando Regional...

American Hero Catches Flying Bat, Doesn't Spill Beer
David Goldman of the AP caught this magical snapshot on Friday at the Jays-Braves game in Kissimmee. Mitch Davie is the Gators fan with the quick hands, protecting his seatmates and protecting his drink. Props to him for stepping up and preventing something like this, and props to the Braves for ser...

It Must Be March If The Cubs Are Fighting Each Other In The Dugout
After giving up a six-run inning courtesy of a handful of errors, Carlos Silva returned to the dugout and got into a fight. It was broken up, he was removed from the game, and kept away from reporters afterward because he was "not in the right frame of mind to talk." Cubs Spring Training, people! [C...

Jason Kendall Blows Up At A Reporter, Is Kind Of An Asshole
Yesterday, Nick Wright of 610 AM was interviewing Royals prospect Mike Moustakas when he asked him a wholly innocuous question about possibly starting the season in AAA to delay his arbitration clock. That's when Jason Kendall, not even part of the conversation, jumped in....

Joba Chamberlain's Fatness Goes Down The Memory Hole
This morning's conventional wisdom: "Joba's out of shape." Headline just posted on Yankees.com: "Added muscle has Joba Chamberlain eager to throw."...

CC Sabathia Lost Weight, But Don't Worry: Joba Chamberlain Found It
The circus is back in town! Just when you thought it might be a quiet Yankees Spring Training, with everyone under contract and saying the right things, here comes Joba, larger than ever....