Bob Wolff, Sports Broadcaster for Nearly 80 Years, Dies at 96

In the 1950s, when the original Senators were continuing to finish far from first place, Mr. Wolff knew that their long-suffering fans needed diversions from the team’s habitual losing.

On Memorial Day 1957, the Senators were playing a doubleheader against the Yankees at Griffith Stadium when he picked out an ostensibly typical fan in the stands to interview on the radio between games.

In a memoir, “It’s Not Who Won or Lost the Game — It’s How You Sold the Beer” (1996), Mr. Wolff ...

Billy Beane insists A’s committed to major rebuild

“Really, what’s been missing the last 20 years is keeping these players,” Beane said. “The frustration isn’t that we’ve had success, the frustration is that after success, we haven’t kept them, and we need to change that narrative by creating a good team and ultimately committing to keeping them around, so that when people buy a ticket, they’ll know that the team is going to be there for a few years.”....

“First of all, we have to take a look at where we are - we’re in ...

Angels Designate Danny Espinosa For Assignment | MLB Trade Rumors

Espinosa was acquired from the Nationals last offseason as a possible answer to their long-standing hole at second base, though 2017 has been a disastrous year for the 30-year-old.  Espinosa has hit just .162/.237/.276 over 254 plate appearances for Los Angeles, owning both the lowest wRC+ (40) and the sixth-highest strikeout rate (35.8%) of any player with at least 250 PA this season.

Nationals acquire Ryan Madson, Sean Doolittle from A’s to bolster bullpen

The Washington Nationals moved aggressively Sunday to patch the glaring hole in their otherwise dominant ball club, acquiring relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson from the Oakland Athletics for their opening-day closer, Blake Treinen, and two high selections from their 2016 draft class.

It’s a significant jolt for the beleaguered Nationals bullpen and it comes a full two weeks before baseball’s non-waivers July 31 trade deadline. It certainly came plenty late for both Nationals manager ...

Todd Frazier a good trade fit for Red Sox | MLB.com

What would he cost? That’s the question.

Inside Baseball NL Notes | Nationls Call On Orioles Britton

Missed this the other day. Here’s the AL Notes.

Why these Dodgers might be the closest thing to a great team

Boston Globe Sunday Baseball Notes.

Reds’ Zack Cozart meets donkey before game | MLB.com

When Cozart met Amos, it was love at first sight.

“I’m way more excited after seeing ol’ Amos over there,” Cozart said. “He’ll live to be 25-30 years old. This is a lifetime companion here.”

Bellinger is 1st Dodgers rookie to hit for cycle

Yeah, I realize that cycles are kind of silly. If he was at Dodger Stadium, the double would have been a home run, making it a better game while not being a cycle, but it’s kind of cool. Dodgers are now 28-4 in their last 32 games.

Lugo’s arm, bat help Mets handle Rockies again

NEW YORK—The Mets understand the depth of the hole they dug themselves into with a first half fractured by injuries and poor play, so much so that general manager Sandy Alderson all but guaranteed the team would be sellers by month’s end, barring the improbable.

That’s funny, he never has two cups of WEEKEND CHATTER at home…. for July 15-16, 2017

Report: Red Sox-White Sox intensify trade talks for Todd Frazier

MLB Has a Long But Little-Known History of Rebels, Reformers, and Radicals

From his legal training, Ward recognized baseball contracts’ unfairness. In 1885, he organized the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players, the first labor union in American sports. Two years later, he published “Is the Base-Ball Player a Chattel?” accusing team owners of “wage slavery.”

Baseball magnates colluded with each other, primarily through the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams but allowed owners to release them without pay. Even after profits tripled in ...

OMNICHATTER is ready to discuss new business, for July 14, 2017

Gwinnett Braves Announce Finalists for Team Renaming Constest

“The final six options are the Gwinnett Buttons, the Gwinnett Big Mouths, the Gwinnett Gobblers, Gwinnett Hush Puppies, Gwinnett Lambchops and the Gwinnett Sweet Teas.”

Those are some truly lousy choices for team name, save one.
There is only one real choice here: “Gwinnett Buttons”.
The name would honor Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence, and county namesake, Button Gwinnett.

And it won’t sound so strange when Lin-Manuel Miranda & Stephen Colbert bring their hit, one-song ...

The Marlins are completely weird, but one day they’ll be a baseball powerhouse

The Marlins won, and they said “nope.” Then they won again, and they said, “Eh.” They got a brand new stadium, and they pretended like they weren’t going to say “nope” again, but then they said “NOPE,” all-caps. Those decisions might have made sense to the people making them at the time, but they led to some pretty thick scar tissue for anyone interested in Miami baseball.

That will change. New owners are coming in, with Derek Jeter fighting against Jeb Bush, unless they’re ...

Michael Pineda has torn elbow, seems headed for Tommy John

Michael Pineda has been recommended for Tommy John surgery, according to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman.

Pineda has been diagnosed with a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He will receive a second opinion, but surgery — which would keep him sidelined possibly until 2019 — is likely. Pineda will become a free agent after this season, meaning his stint in pinstripes is likely over.

Red Sox Designate Pablo Sandoval For Assignment

The Red Sox announced that they have activated struggling third baseman Pablo Sandoval from the disabled list and designated him for assignment. Sandoval is midway through the third season of a five-year, $95MM contract.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-14-2017

Chicago Eagle, July 14, 1917:

...the magnitude of the sugar industry in the continent south of us, resulting from the demand growing out of the war, has attracted many Cuban baseball players to the continent and these men have organized baseball teams and started to play the great American game.
...
As a result, baseball promises to become at least as well known, if not as popular, in Latin America as it is in the West Indies. The South Americans are a sport-loving people, and once the ...

The baseball schedule needs more days and fewer games

To this end, both MLB and the Players Association are trying to reduce the scheduling burden.

Besides the four extra off-days, the new CBA addresses other concerns, specifically travel. MLB has created an algorithm that produces an efficiency metric to score the difficulty of each trip based on such variables as travel distance and arrival time. To lower the scores, there will be more day games on getaway days to try to avoid 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. arrival times in the next city and shorter ...

Colby Rasmus to ‘Step Away’ from MLB, Placed on Restricted List by Rays

Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Colby Rasmus is taking a leave of absence from Major League Baseball.

The Rays announced Thursday that they’ve placed Rasmus on the restricted list and released a statement in support of his decision:

Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, Rasmus is not expected to return during the 2017 season.

Nationals declare ‘major legal victory’ after court ruling vs. MASN

An appeals court has ruled that a committee of Major League Baseball owners and executives can determine the amount of rights fees the Washington Nationals can earn from television broadcasts of their games.

The Nationals declared Thursday that they’ve “won a major legal victory” with this ruling.

This is the latest chapter in a lengthy dispute between the Nationals and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which is controlled by the Baltimore Orioles. MASN was established in March 2005 after the ...

Cubs Acquire Jose Quintana

In a stunning development, the Cubs have acquired lefty Jose Quintana from the crosstown rival White Sox, per club announcements. Top prospects Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease are going in return, with first baseman Matt Rose and infielder Bryant Flete also included in the package.

Alex Rodriguez shares his four-point plan to save baseball

Rodriguez wants the league and its broadcasters to implement live footage of what’s going on at all times within the ballpark. He wants MLB and Google to come together on sharing background information and social media posts from players. On every month’s first Tuesday, Rodriguez calls on the owners to charge just $10 per ticket.

Rodriguez’s final point is to implement microphones on every player, coach and manager during games. This certainly would appear to be the toughest one to get ...

If Mike Trout played the rest of his career in Korea - an OOTP experiment

I used OOTP, a highly realistic baseball simulation game, to get the answers I wanted. I placed Mike Trout on Korea’s KT Wiz, the team playing in the biggest hitters’ park in the league. To ensure Trout didn’t get homesick before I was through with him, I deleted the MLB and all its players and prospects. The only baseball league in the world is the Korean Baseball Organization, and its superstar is Mike Trout. At only age 24 going into the first season, can the Millville Meteor become ...

Red Sox third base prospect Rafael Devers on a fast track to the majors

That might be a bit of an exaggeration in discussing a 20-year-old, but there are markers of change. Devers’s beaming smile no longer glistens with a mouth full of braces as it did in his prior Futures Game. He features a wisp of a mustache — the source of jibes among his Double A Portland teammates — but an impossibility for him as a teenager two years earlier. And the tattoo on his arm of his daughter Rachel’s name attests to a fundamental life change.

“Two years ago, I was playing ...

One night with Phillies pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez and his 100-mph fastball

Hopefully he can stay healthy.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-13-2017

Bridgeport Evening Farmer, July 13, 1917:

One of the queerest plays that ever happened on a baseball diamond came in the fourth inning of the second game [of a doubleheader between the Giants and Reds].
...
Two men were out and Chase was on second base when Neale came to bat. As Perritt started to wind up preperatory to pitching a fan threw back a ball which had been fouled into the stands…Harrison, the field umpire, called time. Perritt, who already was in the act of pitching, let the ball go ...

KC Royals don’t exactly follow MLB Spanish translator rule | The Kansas City Star

Do they really need a dedicated translator if they have other multilingual staff?

Taking advantage of a loophole in the rule, the Royals have a translator in coach Pedro Grifol who is not professionally trained to interpret responses verbatim. While pieces of their interviews have been lost in translation, players still endorse Grifol’s approach.

“Sometimes in the heat of the moment you say things,” former Royals designated hitter Kendrys Morales told The Star in Spanish. “But it’s ...

Orioles’ Trey Mancini looks to extend his rookie roll by continuing to learn and adapt - Baltimore Sun

How’s those Trumbo and Davis contracts looking now? Maybe the Orioles should have made signing Manny Machado a bigger priority.