So Butterfly Winter should be a very big deal in Canadian publishing. The author of Shoeless Joe is back. He’s writing about baseball. He’s including hallmark elements of magic realism.
...Nevertheless, Butterfly Winter should appeal to his core audience. It’s the story of twins Julio and Esteban, baseball players from the fictional Caribbean country of Courteguay who aim for the big leagues while being controlled by a mysterious man in a ...
Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail is moving on after running the front office of his childhood team for four-plus seasons.
A person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press about MacPhail’s departure. The person spoke Friday night on condition of anonymity because the Orioles hadn’t announced the move.
Baltimore went 69-93 during its 14th consecutive losing season, and MacPhail’s contract expires on Oct. 31.
The Cardinals secured their first postseason series win since the 2006 World Series with a sensational 1-0 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night. The win gave them a 3-2 National League Division Series triumph over the league’s best regular-season team, and moved them into the NL Championship Series for a delicious matchup with their Central Division rivals, the Brewers.
Rafael Furcal and Skip Schumaker teamed up to get a single run for the Redbirds before the game’s ...
A hysteria-inducing 3-2 win over the D-backs in Game 5 clinched the NL Division Series, a win-or-go-home game decided in the bottom of the 10 inning on Nyjer Morgan’s single after John Axford’s first blown save since mid-April.
Carlos Gomez, at second after a single and a stolen base, raced home on Morgan’s hit to give Milwaukee’s its first postseason series win in 29 years.
The NL Championship Series opponent still awaited as the Brewers celebrated with 44,028 deliriously towel-waving fans, ...
For starters, every Red Sox fan I know would celebrate if Lackey is sent to the Better Coast, more so if he’s deposited near Alcatraz or off the coast of Tijuana. The righty not only had a 6.41 ERA last season, he is still owed $45.75 million over the next three years, and if the Boston press is to be believed, Lackey was one of the clubhouse skunks who fouled the team’s chemistry.
Clearly Lackey must leave Boston, and clearly the best place for him to revive his career is San Diego.
Since the awful gnawing fear of D.C. baseball fans includes something about homegrown superstars fleeing to big markets, plus since rooting for the Yankees is like watching downhill skiing and rooting for the mountain, this didn’t go over super well among Nats fans.
But that was a year ago, and since then Harper has actually become teammates with real live Nationals, so maybe you’d think he would no longer actively cheer for another Major League ...
The McCourts aren’t the only owners in divorce court.
Word of his struggles comes at a time the Mariners had another losing season with declining attendance, while rivals increased spending. A significant payroll hike appears needed, but Mariners owners haven’t added any new money — through what is known as a capital call — in more than a decade.
Larson would be on the hook for just more than 30 percent of any capital call, but the team instead has cut payroll since 2008 without saying why ...
Mike Lupica wrote a whole column about how it is A-Rod’s fault, three days after writing a whole column about how if they lost, it would be A-Rod’s fault. You get the feeling that if he did not play and the Yankees lost, Lupica would switch to soccer or something.
On ESPN.com, Buster Olney tells us that “A-Rod Doesn’t Get The Job Done.” Well, there’s no argument there. He didn’t get the job done, though it might have been charitable if someone ...
The Busch Stadium “Rally Squirrel” may need to find a new home.
A squirrel ran onto the field during both games of the National League Division Series in St. Louis this week, including the game Wednesday when the animal ran across home plate as Cardinals second baseman Skip Schumaker was hitting…
“We just started seeing them,” said head groundskeeper Bill Findley, who is unsure whether it is just one squirrel or several. “The first sighting we saw was Monday, and we didn’t think anything of ...
If Carnival and Las Vegas had a baby, this would be the placenta. If Charlton Heston ever lands on Planet of the Fish, this will be their version of the “It’s a Small World” ride. This is what would happen if Vikings attacked a Gloria Estefan concert by catapulting flamingos and marlins into the pyrotechnics display.
“I have this customer,” begins Zeisler. “He calls his Rabbi and says, ‘Rabbi? I have a problem. I have tickets to the Phillies/St. Louis game and it’s Yom Kippur. What should I do?’”
“No problem,” says the Rabbi. “You can record it!”
“Oh!” the customer cries. “That’s great! I didn’t know you could record Kol Nidre!”
Forgive us, pardon us, grant us a slot in the League Championship Series. ...Read More...
Seats For First Game [of World Series] Completely Sold Out
New York, Oct. 7—Applications for seats to date, 100,000; fans who will try to get in, 250,000…total seats, 55,000. Income from first game, $90,000; money to be returned because seats can’t be supplied, $150,000; police to handle crowd, 1000.
...
One hundred thousand applications for seats at the greatest gladiatorial combat of the greatest show on earth, accompanied by certified checks and ...
Only the Yankee fan base shouldn’t come away from this series wondering whether Rodriguez choked (he didn’t), or whether he is doomed to keep treating the postseason the way Greg Norman used to treat Sundays at Augusta National (he won’t).
Rodriguez did win a liberating championship in 2009, and did so as a driver instead of a passenger, and that cannot be taken from him.
But the fan base should be afraid—very, very afraid—that what everyone saw ...
The Yankees’ dreams of a 28th World Series championship were packed into winter hibernation on Thursday, as the Tigers defeated New York, 3-2, in Game 5 of the American League Division Series.
...
Manager Joe Girardi’s bullpen usage raised eyebrows after starter Ivan Nova was pulled after two innings with right forearm tightness. But the Yankees managed only two runs against four Detroit pitchers, including Doug Fister, who pitched five good innings for the win.
A call for the game’s managers to turn to their bullpens quickly.
Counting the three relievers and penciling in two innings each for Sabathia and Verlander, both teams could get as many as seven innings out of their bullpens Thursday night. Every one of them is likely to be better-pitched than an inning from Nova or Fister. Whichever manager has the quicker hook is likely to have an edge in the series’ deciding game.
Yet somehow it is perfectly fitting for this occasion and for this commissioner. The largest of the vacated offices will be available for meetings and conferences–but only involving VIPs. Even though the press released mentions photos (of the nine commissioners) and other items on display, it won’t be open to the public, nor will it be part of tours (except for VIPs). There is a skeletal collection of books in the “Center,” duplicates of Hall of Famer bios and so on. There’s nothing ...
Which Mike Marshall did the Outlaws eject? The sane one.
Mike Marshall, hired on as the team’s vice president of baseball operations and general manager in March of 2010, is out of the front office for the Outlaws per the league’s request, a statement Marshall made Thursday morning and that was confirmed Thursday afternoon by [North American League] commissioner Kevin Outcalt.
The league removed Marshall and his wife Mary, who served as the assistant general manager, from the front office ...
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the failure of Frank and Jamie McCourt to settle their differences amicably two years ago. At the heart of one of the most bitter and protracted public sagas to unfold in American sports was the simple failure of two people to realize they had more to lose by fighting than they could possibly gain.
I don’t know what was happening behind closed doors two years ago today. I do know what’s happened in the press and in the courtroom since, though, and I ...
And here I thought the discovery of a lost Jules Dassin film, Kaplan is Captain...was the find of the week.
Presuming Ricketts realizes his limitations, he makes Epstein answer the Castro question. He makes Epstein negotiate that one. He makes Epstein decide whether he thinks the Cubs win a deal in which he trades his new team’s best young player for himself.
And you know what? Epstein would be ripe for a conflict-of-interest charge himself, or at least have his judgment questioned loudly. ...
Spliff leveled apartments are all the rage! Occupy Now!
Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum is being sued by his former landlord, who accuses him of stealing and destroying $200,000 worth of household items earlier this year in his furnished San Francisco apartment.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, landlord Mindy Freile alleged that shortly after Lincecum’s lease expired at 141 Hampshire St., the star pitcher illegally returned to living in the apartment and “broke, ...
The HAA-litics of Glory, by Bud Selig. Cameron Maybin, don’t wait by the phone.
If you don’t know what the Hank Aaron Award is, don’t fret - it’s not one of the big ones. It’s not one of the tiny, irrelevant ones, but it’s not one of the big ones. The Hank Aaron Award is given to the top hitter in each league, and it’s voted on by a panel of Hall of Famers, with some consideration given to fan input.
From what pool of players does the panel select two winners? A pool consisting of one nominee ...
Whether the “rally squirrel” really helped the St. Louis Cardinals rally Wednesday night against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 of the National League Division Series is up for debate. But two things are certain: The Cardinals have forced a fifth game in the series, and many Cards fans have adopted the squirrel as a new mascot.
The squirrel first appeared Tuesday night during the bottom of ...
NEW YORK—Fox analyst Tim McCarver will miss the first two games of the AL Championship Series because of a medical procedure and will be replaced by former Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona.
McCarver will have a “minor heart-related procedure” later this week, the network said Wednesday. He’s expected to rejoin announcer Joe Buck for Game 3 next Tuesday.
Whoever’s got the Voodoo dolls of McCarver and Buck keeps missing by this much ...
(but get well Tim, even if you drive me nuts in ...
It’s tough to turn on the television this week and watch other teams competing in the playoffs. We fully expected to be among them, defending our World Championship. After the final out of the Giants’ 2011 season last week, I looked down on the field at the players then up in the stands at the fans. Their faces reflected my own bittersweet feelings: Frustration ...
“You guys surviving that whipping?!?” laughed Regis Philbin, the iconic “Live with Regis and Kelly” TV host, who talked to the Free Press on Wednesday, less than a day after his beloved New York Yankees spanked the Tigers 10-1 at Comerica Park in Game 4 of the 2011 American League Division Series.
Tonight, the clubs will battle it out in New York’s Yankee Stadium with the winner clinching a berth in the American League Championship Series and the loser ...
The Arizona Diamondbacks came home and created a new way to celebrate big hits and now that it has started rolling, there may be no stopping it.
Changing the complexion of the NL division series with a powerful display, the Diamondbacks hit another grand slam among their team-record four homers to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 10-6 Wednesday night and force Game 5.
Outgunned by Milwaukee’s “Beast Mode” in the series’ first two games, the ...
