Lee Carbo? Pretty sure Toots Mondt used to book him all the time at the rickety Sunnyside Garden Arena.
And Bill Lee would like to keep the ball in play too, “talk about speeding up the game, use the same seven or eight balls during the game, what is the story? Tell the Fox Network not to run long commercials. And don’t have the girl with the tweater thing, the twit thing between innings, I don’t care what anyone says calling in - unless it’s the Flying Stilarsky Sisters.”
That’s how far Albert Pujols has fallen in the year-and-change since moving from St. Louis to Orange County. Last year, he was a victim of a very poor start to the season which colored everyone’s perception the rest of the way, but come June he hit his stride, with a .941 OPS the rest of the way. This June has also been his best month of the year so far, but whereas last June he hit .326/.409/.568 (.977), this June has only seen him hit .262/.327/.548 (.874) so far. A slugging-heavy .874 OPS is ...
I happen to think Puig was perfectly within his rights to fly off the handle Tuesday night. But that’s not to suggest there aren’t reasons to fret that he is a ticking time bomb in the Dodgers clubhouse.
After his past two games, Puig has refused to speak with reporters. It kind of sounds like no big deal. He hasn’t had much to say anyway and the questions would have undoubtedly been repetitive.
But it’s a bit troubling that, at age 22, with less than two ...
Congressional Democrats handed Republicans a stinging 22-0 shutout during the annual Congressional Baseball Game at the Washington Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. on June 13, 2013. The game marked the 52nd edition of the modern version of the game, amounting to major bragging rights in the halls of Congress.
Seems like everyone wore the jersey of the closest minor or major league team to their district, which is pretty cool.
The ladies of CougarLife.com were eager to help Mr. Wright reach third base — until things went all wrong.
The web site’s lineup of “sexy older professional women” was romanced by a Mets official to help land star infielder David Wright a starting spot in the upcoming All-Star Game at Citi Field.
The hunky third baseman was recently voted the most desirable major leaguer by the site’s members — leading the marketing executive to propose an outpouring of cougar love for Wright. ...
Summary:
Ian Kennedy 10 games
Eric Hinske 5 games
JP Howell 2 games
Skip Shumaker 2 games
Mark McGwire 2 games
Ronald Belisario 1 game
Don Mattingly 1 game
Kirk Gibson 1 game
After 10 MLB games, Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig has inspired a brawl, many nicknames and T-shirts, crazy merch sales, a fresh round of “small sample size” rants and now this — a new rock band called Puig Destroyer.
Riley Breckenridge, who is most famous for playing drums in the hard rock band Thrice, has announced he’s starting a “baseball-themed grindcore” side project and ...
Cue the dugout camera to Kevin Long nursing his genius.
Most of all, the game was lost because of numbers like this: Mark Teixeira, 0-for-5 and four runners left stranded; Travis Hafner, 0-for-8 and seven runners left stranded; Vernon Wells, 0-for-8 with three strikeouts, and Kevin Youkilis, 0-for-7 with three strikeouts, a double play and five runners left stranded.
In fact, Teixeira, Hafner, Youkilis and Wells, the heart of the Yankees’ batting order, were a combined 0-for-28 and struck out ...
It is not often that [an outfielder] comes dashing in and makes a put-out between third and home plate, as was the case yesterday when [Howie] Shanks came flying in and intercepted a throw from John Henry as the catcher, Laporte, and McBride were attempting to run down Mattick after the last-named had been forced off third base when Henry and McBride caught Weaver napping at second.
Shanks is always in the game. He uses his head all the time, and for a ...
Well this just about flushes the season for my “Lupe Velez Nauseous Nine” fantasy team.
An MRI on Thursday night revealed that Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has a broken rib, the Denver Post reported.
Tulowitzki, hitting .347 with 16 home runs this season, is headed to the disabled list and is expected to miss four to six weeks, according to MLB.com.
Tulowitzki hurt his ribs trying to make a play in the eighth inning of Thursday’s 5-4 loss to Washington. Manager Walt Weiss said ...
Before Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter took the field Thursday and offered examples of why he may be back at Citi Field next month as an All-Star, manager Mike Matheny stumped for the second baseman with an even higher title.
“He has established himself as the best second baseman in the league,” Matheny said. “The rest of the baseball world is overlooking what he’s ...
At best, South Korean first baseman Kim Tae Kyun is just dumb. At worst, he’s flat-out racist.
The Hanwa Eagles slugger is drawing heavy flack for some cringe-inducing comments about fellow Korea Baseball Organization player Shane Youman, an American pitcher who starts for the Lotte Giants.
Oh, and one more thing about Youman: he’s black.
That, according to Kim, makes him especially difficult to play against. When asked by a sports radio host which pitcher he most dreaded facing at the ...
Regular season baseball games outdrew Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final in fifteen television markets Wednesday night, including NHL strongholds Pittsburgh and Detroit.
The Giants/Pirates game on Root Sports earned an 8.95 rating in Pittsburgh, beating Bruins/Blackhawks Game 1 (5.99) by 49% head-to-head. In Detroit, the Tigers/Royals day game earned a 7.46 on Fox Sports Detroit — beating Game 1 (5.75) by 30%.
“If HGH were legal,” Madson said, “just in the process of healing, under a doctor’s recommendation, in the right dosage, while you’re on the [disabled list], I don’t think that’s such a bad idea—as long as it doesn’t have any lasting side effects, negative side effects.”
This is a question that has occurred to a number of athletes who were willing to break the law and do so at the risk of getting caught, at the more important risk of harming their ...
While the St. Louis Cardinals have steamrolled baseball for the first couple of months of 2013, the A’s have been winning games at an equivalent clip to STL for the past year. A .643 winning percentage over 168 games is an impressive accomplishment, especially considering that the A’s are still overshadowed by the Rangers, Tigers, Yankees, and Red Sox when people talk about AL contenders. However, none of those teams have even been with 10 games of Oakland over the last year.
Larry…“In light of the news from Japan yesterday, here’s what some were writing about the juiced ball during the 1987 season. Frank Deford, George Will, and Murray Chass all have great opinions on the matter!”
Frank Deford wrote about the rumors for Sports Illustrated. His piece was as dismissive of the rabbit ball as Sparky Anderson was certain of it. Among a list of possible explanations for how such a conspiracy would come about, Deford winked, “The major league owners had a secret meeting ...
Posing as a pizza delivery man, New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera surprised longtime Athletics employee Julie Vasconcellos by visiting her in the mail room where she has worked going on 25 years.
This, I think, was what made the Bert Blyleven-Jack Morris Hall of Fame discussion so interesting. The statistics made it abundantly clear that Blyleven was not just a better pitcher than Morris but light years better. But Blyleven just doesn’t have the Van Doren Gene … and Morris does. And so the debate over which pitcher was better raged on; in some quarters it rages on still. People don’t just see Morris as a Hall of ...
Or as Mitch Williams overly-twitched last night…“FRANCISCO LIRIANO HAS NEVER BEEN CONSISTENT!”
Still, what Liriano has managed to do since his first start on May 11 has been particularly remarkable. He entered Wednesday night’s game against the Giants with a 1.75 E.R.A. over six starts, 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings, and just 3.5 walks per nine. He’d struck out at least seven hitters in five of the six. He’s been every bit the ace the Twins once believed they had, and the Pirates had to ...
Already in an ornery mood after his team followed a five-game winning streak with a four-game losing skid, the manager became agitated and went on a lengthy rant about his team’s struggles in general when asked about Howard’s place in the lineup.
“How many runs did we score last night?” Manuel said of a 3-2 defeat. “[Howard] knocked in one of them. What the [bleep] are you getting at? Who’s going to hit there? Let me ask you a question. Let me turn ...
John J. O’Connor, manager of the St. Louis Federal baseball team, is to test the legality of organized baseball in the federal courts.
The petition…charges that the National baseball agreement is a violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. The legality of the “reserve clause” in baseball contracts is attacked.
This wasn’t the lawsuit that resulted in the exemption, but it’s interesting to me that there were multiple cases from the Federal League that were about ...
In an era of high salaries and impossible ticket prices, athletes interrupting play to engage in bench-clearing brawls over perceived slights and ambiguous rules is selfish, dangerous and dumb. Teams should apologize to fans who have to witness it. Baseball should join other leagues in creating rules to prevent it.
You liked how the Dodgers showed teamwork and fight in pounding the Diamondbacks along their dugout rail? Then you could not complain ...
The epochal boom of the sports card industry in the US can be traced back to 23 February 1989, when Upper Deck – an upstart producer of classy baseball card collectibles based in Anaheim, California – delivered its first case of individually wrapped card packs to George Moore of Tulsa’s Baseball Card Store in Oklahoma. Upper Deck’s cards differed wildly from those of their competitors. Topps, Fleer and Donruss had long traded ...
Gerrit Cole’s fastball is at the center of everything when it comes to evaluating what the Pirates’ top pitching prospect is. And that was certainly true Tuesday night at PNC Park, where a crowd of 30,614 allowed themselves to marvel at the heat coming out of the hand of Cole, who made his major league debut a successful one largely on the strength of that pitch.
“Well, there’s late life to it,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said when it was all over, Cole had his first major ...
That’s the puzzling thing about this. The media is busy whining about baseball games lasting nearly three hours, but isn’t at all concerned about football games almost never lasting less than three hours. You rarely see the same level of outrage about the lengthy commercial breaks in an NFL game. Or the disruptive huddles between every play. Or the timeouts. Or that the clock stops for an incomplete pass. Or when a player runs out of bounds. Or when there is a penalty. Or when there a break at ...
“The Major League Baseball season will begin in Sydney next March, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks set to play two games at the Sydney Cricket Ground.”
As Jose Bautista came to the plate as the second hitter of the game, Steve Stone noted that Bautista was the rare slugger in the No. 2 hole. He couldn’t really explain it, but that didn’t stop him and Hawk Harrelson from attempting to discredit it.
Stone: One of the reasons why Bautista’s hitting second—and we wondered about that—was that Alex Anthopoulos, their general manager, feels that the best hitter in your lineup should hit second. And this is a guy that ...
