Boston.com: Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios lays off all staff

No Money, Mo’ Problems

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game company, 38 Studios, has laid off all of its employees in the wake of financial difficulties, according to a company insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Shawn Green to play for Israel in World Baseball Classic

Shawn Green enjoyed quite the professional baseball career: In 13 seasons, he clubbed 328 home runs, drove in 1,070 runs, batted .283, was a two-time All-Star and retired in 2007 holding or sharing seven Major League records. The former Dodger also twice refused to play on Yom Kippur.

He isn’t finished yet. Green now will come out of retirement to play for Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) qualifiers in November, according to team manager Brad Ausmus. Green is eligible because ...

Ross Newhan: Freeing a Son From His Father’s Words

I’m the old Newhan from the…

David, as it turned out, did have things to say and wrote well, but it has now been more than two years since he contributed. He had gone to work for the San Diego Padres and felt he was not in position to comment on other teams or players, or the industry as a whole. It is for the same reason that we have finally gotten around to removing his name from the heading, the blogs themselves and all comment responses.

    I just wanted to make it clear that the ...

HHS: Womack: Getting sabermetrics into newspapers

Yeah…and where is Jeff Angus?

Part of me has wanted to slip OPS or WHIP into the Chronicle, though I haven’t wanted to rock the boat. It’s not my place, and I’m not sure if I could feasibly get the stats in even if it was. Agate is driven by what comes off the Associated Press wires, mostly an issue of grabbing items as they become available, inserting them into the next day’s paper, and formatting them for style. If the AP sends out sabermetric stat leaders, I haven’t seen them, ...

Dodgers want to host NHL’s Winter Classic

Does Los Angeles even have a hockey team?

Does the National Hockey League’s Winter Classic doesn’t even need winter? The new Dodgers owners don’t think so. The new owners of the team hope to host the NHL’s annual outdoor showcase at Dodger Stadium.

“They put a man on the moon,” Dodgers chairman Mark Walter told the Los Angeles Times. “They can make it work.”...

While it would seem that Los Angeles would be an odd choice for outdoor ice, the Kings have done it before. In 1991, the team played ...

Cardinals unveil latest Ballpark Village plan

Looks like a cool project that will leave for Anaheim in ten years.

The Cardinals unveiled their latest plan for Ballpark Village on Monday. It is smaller than the last one, but one that the Cardinals say is more likely to succeed.

The baseball team and its development partners showed off a 100,000-square foot retail and entertainment complex to be built north of Busch Stadium, anchored by a team Hall of Fame and big outdoor event space. On the rest of the 10-acre site, they will lay the ...

Major League Baseball named Sports League of the Year at Sports Business Awards

Congratulations to Bud Selig for beating out inanimate carbon rod!

Major League Baseball was named Sports League of the Year at the 2012 Sports Business Awards presented by SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily last night in New York.  The award recognizes the success baseball enjoyed in 2011 coupling unparalleled drama on the field with record business performance and innovative fan engagement. Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig accepted the award on behalf of the league.

...

Roy Halladay bobblehead with glove on wrong hand selling on MLB.com

Another Pat Venditte?

If this bobblehead is the truth, Halladay is either a famous LEFT-handed pitcher who’s been faking us out, or a righty who has sustained a head injury, thinks he’s a lefty and doesn’t know how to wear a glove or stand on a pitching mound any longer. He also looks like Billy Bob Thornton from “Sling Blade.” Or some combination therein.

Note: MLB.com has since removed the Halladay bobblehead from its site.

12 Baseball Feats That Only Happened Once

2. CHARLIE PICK GOES 0 FOR 11

In the longest game in Major League baseball history, on May 1, 1920, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves played to a 1-1 tie after 26 innings. Braves second baseman Charlie Pick has “the bad day” at the plate, going 0 for 11 (poor Charlie made an error that day, too).

8. TAKING IT EASY

On June 25, 1976, Texas Ranger shortstop Toby Harrah played a doubleheader and never touched a batted ball nor had a single ball hit to him -no chances, no putouts, no ...

Neyer: New Yankee Stadium: A Review

The hostess with the moatest…or how the Yankees messed a pearl.

Which reminds of something else that’s disappointing ... The New York Yankees are supposed to epitomize class. But with the arguable exception of Derek Jeter’s appearances still announced by the (now) disembodied voice of Bob Sheppard, there is almost nothing classy about Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could have afforded to eschew advertisements on the outfield walls, but they didn’t. They could have jettisoned “YMCA”, but they ...

Bud Selig—No need for more MLB replay for now - ESPN

MLB sought to increase video review this season to include trapped balls, fair-or-foul rulings down the lines and fan interference all over the ballpark. But it requires approval of MLB and the unions representing the umpires and the players, and any expansion was delayed until 2013 at the earliest.

“I’ve had very, very little pressure from people who want to do more,” Selig said.

Wins Above Replacement: Distribution and Rarity of Talent 2011 - Beyond the Box Score

Who doesn’t appreciate a nice graph?

Middle Relief: The Red Sox’s Endless Outfielders - The Triangle Blog - Grantland

Spinal Tap had less problems with drummers than the Sox are having in their outfield.

Vladimir Guerrero wants to reach 500 home runs

“My goal is those 51 home runs that will get me to 500,” he said. “That’s my immediate goal. I just ask for God’s blessing of good health and to get those 51 home runs. I wish for three or four more years.”

...In 16 seasons, Guerrero stands 35th on the all-time OPS list at .931, three points ahead of Hank Aaron, 10 points behind Willie Mays. He is 35th on the all-time home run list, 11 ahead of Andre Dawson, three behind Carl Yastrzemski. He has a career .318 batting average, ...

Yankees could be up for sale soon, as rumors swirl in baseball and banking circles

Levine, Topping, Webb say Yankees not for sale.

Multiple baseball and finance sources told the Daily News they are hearing that the team the Steinbrenner family has led to seven World Series titles could be put on the block in the wake of the record sale price of $2.175 billion the Los Angeles Dodgers went for in April.

“There has been chatter all around the banking and financial industries in the city for a couple of weeks now,” one high-level baseball source told The News.

Yankee ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-24-2012

Milwaukee Journal, May 24, 1912:

John McCloskey, former manager of the Brewers, who went west two years ago to the Union league, has been having his troubles in the far west. This season John has put a club in at Ogden, Utah, and has been finding it a hard matter to pay expenses. Well, it went so far that John was forced to call in the public for help or else toss up the sponge.

Reports like this may make it a bit more difficult to convince Ty Cobb to walk out on the Tigers and play for Ogden ...

Kelley: Time for Mariners to waive Chone Figgins, play the kids

That Sunken feeling. 

Figgins, 34, has no role on this team. He lost his leadoff spot. He rarely gets into the lineup. Maybe he’s the most versatile player on the team, but playing him just takes innings and at bats away from younger players with promise.
In a different setting, he could be the veteran role model who helps the young players in their development. But he hasn’t been much of a leader.

The Economist: Paradigm shift

Does Mark Teixeira need to learn from Carlos Peña?

Baseball strategy is not a puzzle with a single solution. Instead, it is a dynamic system, in which a tactic that works against one approach can be neutralised by another. And when it comes to shifts, the response is as clear as the sea of empty infield dirt abandoned by the defenders congregating on one side of the diamond…

Sluggers who can bunt are the new market inefficiency, and the first team that has its power hitters practising this ...

Mike Francesa Says Ike Davis Is Slumping Because Of “Jungle Fever”

Sciorra one for Francesspool!

Mets first baseman Ike Davis has looked terrible all year. He missed some time in spring training with a mysterious ailment—doctors identified Valley Fever, a lung infection—and, after a torrid stretch at the end of spring, OPSed .550 in April and .439 in May. There’s plenty of talk of sending him to the minors to fix his problems.

What are those problems, anyway? David Schoenefield says Ike can’t hit the outside pitch. Bill Petti says pitchers won’t throw ...

Matthews: A-Rod’s days of being great are over

If this is the player Alex Rodriguez is for the rest of his career—decent hitter, occasional power, solid fielder and reliable baserunner—he will be comparable to what most teams are sending out on a daily basis, a middle-of-the-road major league third baseman.

But that is not the player the New York Yankees traded for nine years ago, and it is certainly not the player they chose to sign to a contract extension potentially worth $325 million that will not run out for another five seasons.

...

Trevor Bauer knows his math

What’s going through your head? Are you replaying an at-bat from a previous inning or is it something totally different?

“Nah, it’s stuff not related to baseball. I’ll have a conversation I had with a friend from the night before playing through my mind. Or I’ll be thinking about some science article that I read the night before. I don’t know, ‘Flying cars are pretty awesome.’”

“But when you actually look at it and think about the statistics behind it, it makes a lot of ...

Grantland: Curtis: The Phantom of Baseball—An evening with Jose Canseco

As Gawker notes, it’s an open question as to who’s writing Canseco’s tweets. “Do you write all of them?” I ask him. Canseco suddenly gets interested in the giant American flag out near center field. “Yeah,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “Uh-huh.”

Do you know what “trolling” means, Jose?

“Trolling, yeah. … It’s like fishing a lot.”

Well, sort of…...

Later tonight, Canseco stands on the dugout steps, apart from the other Tornadoes, staring into the distance. I ...

AP: Astrodome fate to be decided

In 1965, after Houston unveiled its marvel, complete with luxury suites, almost tasty food and beer served at clean Formica counters, comfortable press boxes and cushioned seats, other cities quickly followed suit. There was the Kingdome in Seattle—now gone. The Sun Dome in Tampa, Fla. Minneapolis’ Metrodome. And New Orleans’ Superdome, considered an improvement—bigger and better—on the Astrodome.

“Eventually, it’s always about money,” said Bob Bluthardt, former chairman of the ...

Joe Maddon laughs at ‘conventional’ lineups

Drew Sutton: That’s where the Moneyball is.

The Rays lineup Wednesday is classic Joe Maddon.

For the second straight game, Carlos Pena is batting leadoff for the Rays. In the same lineup, Drew Sutton is hitting cleanup

...Maddon has taken the former laughingstock of baseball to the playoffs three of the past four years and currently sits with the third-best record in the American League. And he utterly refuses to follow some boilerplate lineup card, instead choosing to actually use his head ...

Prep star Byron Buxton the most talented, intriguing draft prospect

He’s the next Ichiro!

So far this baseball season, Buck has hit only two home runs. This is surprising to some, perhaps even a red flag for teams that question his ceiling and also wonder about the level of competition in rural Georgia. But all you have to do is spend one day in Baxley and you’ll see Buck’s ridiculous power during BP. Stick around for a game and you’ll see that Buck, who hit 14 home runs as a sophomore, doesn’t get many pitches to hit. “And he’s not going up ...

SB Nation: Ruben Amaro is Worse Than Nixon

I had no idea the E. in E. Howard Hunt stood for Expel!

Not only have the Phils spent the last few months both changing their story and outright lying about the injuries to Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, but now we hear that they wouldn’t let the Inquirer’s Bob Brookover into their facility in Clearwater? Outrageous. This is Watergate-level stuff.

Newspaper reporters are representatives of the fans. Therefore, not only should reporters be let in to see Howard’s rehab, but fans should be, too. ...

Jack Curry: Bleachers ‘Roll Call’ a unique and memorable experience

Bah! Toothless McHenry once invited me into a quickly disrobing chaotic mosh pit. “Stay Out/Stay Alive”

Before we reached Yankee Stadium, I tweeted that I would be attending the game instead of analyzing the action with Bob Lorenz at the YES Network studios. Soon after that tweet, I received an invitation from Vinny Milano. Better known as Bald Vinny, he is the maestro of the Bleacher Creatures.

...After the Yankees trotted to their positions, Bald Vinny’s eyes darted from player to player ...

Salfino: The Mets Aren’t Exactly Built to Last

and they certainly ain’t built for speed. Bottom Line: They ain’t built for comfort.

The New York Mets are off to the most cognitively dissonant start in baseball.

In the standings, they look like a contender. Entering Monday, they were a surprising 22-19. But on the stat sheet—and we’re not talking doctorate-level statistics here—they look overmatched. They’ve been outscored by 31 runs, the fifth-worst mark in baseball. Even the 15-25 Colorado Rockies (minus-27) have been better.

The ...

Schoenfield: Lance Berkman and the Hall of Fame

He has to come back. Would YOU want to end your career tied with Arlie “The Freshest Man On Earth” Latham in career hits?

So where does that leave us?

   • A player who was one of the elite hitters of his generation.
   • Ten Hall of Fame-caliber seasons, plus a great partial season in 2000 (.297/.388/.561 in 114 games) and a not-so-great 2010.
   • A terrific postseason performer.
   • A player who didn’t win an MVP Award but fared well in the voting.

...It’s interesting ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-23-2012

Salt Lake Tribune, May 23, 1912:

“Ban Johnson is the most egotistical, the most overbearing and the most stubborn person in baseball today and his attack on the Detroit players and myself was most unwarranted,” said Ty Cobb, upon arriving home from Washington today.

“One of two things is certain. Either he was dead wrong in this affair or he ____” and here Ty expressed the “short and ugly word” in emphatic fashion.

“Johnson cannot harm me by keeping me out of the game. He only harms the ...