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 ...
Dirty Harry doesn’t like to sit at home telling kids to stay off his lawn, and so with “J. Edgar” heading to the finish line and getting ready for its premiere next month at AFI, Clint is already looking at what he’ll do next. Nope, he won’t be directing “A Star Is Born”—production is being pushed back as the film’s lead, pop sensation Beyoncé, is pregnant with Jigga‘s kid. So instead of getting behind the camera, Eastwood is eyeing an ...
Still waiting on… Any player/Any error: Don Buddin.
Era he might have thrived in: After 1918 and before 2004, baseball life was one long series of crushing blows for Boston and its fans, purgatory punctuated periodically by close calls. This week’s column looks at if Reese could have made a difference in some of the closest of calls: 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986. Try and name an elite shortstop from those teams. With a guy like Reese around to provide an upgrade, it seems unlikely the Red Sox ...
Silk O’Loughlin, the American league umpire, is a strong advocate of speed. He says the games are becoming too slow and he blames the players. In discussing this fault the diamond judge said the other day:
“Put ginger into any public amusement and you’ll attract and delight patrons who pay their money at the box office. A lively act in vaudeville or a snappy play will crowd a theater any time.”
I, for one, always head out to the theater when I can see a ...
We will tell no whine before its 4:07 p.m time! (hiccup)
Sensitive to characterizations of his players as “whining” over visibility issues during Game 3 Tuesday afternoon, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa used blunt language to admonish media members for their presentation of the issue.
...Clearly irritated by media blowback, La Russa suggested his players were either baited into their criticism or were wrongly criticized for raising what amounts to a safety issue.
Steve Jobs passed away tonight of cancer and it struck me that this blog has been updated via a MacBook, iPhone and iPad over the last two years.
Virtually every single Red Sox player had an iPad this season along with most of the team executives. Theo Epstein carried his around spring training and was keeping up with e-mail while he watched games.
Darnell McDonald was playing a song at his locker a few weeks ago that I liked. I used the Shazam app on my phone to find out what it was, ...
The D-backs are headed back to Milwaukee for a decisive Game 5 after slamming their way past the Brewers, 10-6, on Wednesday night in Game 4 of the National League Division Series at Chase Field.
The two teams each won both games played on their home fields, and if the D-backs hope to advance to the NL Championship Series, they will have to beat Brewers ace Yovani Gallardo at Miller Park on Friday, something they were unable to do in Game 1.
I have a soft spot for commercials endlessly repeated during the playoffs. Go fig.
Phil Jackson Audi commercial: This is actually THE BEST commercial in the playoffs, and might be the best sports-commercial performance since the heyday of Peyton Manning… Jackson is in a restaurant, walking by a chef who is yelling at one of his employees.
Chef [to Jackson]: “These people, huh?”
Jackson: “You know, I’ve found that anger is the enemy of instruction.”
Chef [who does not recognize ...
ESPN got Jose Reyes to pose nude for them. No, really. It’s right here. It’s part of an artsy series with different nude athletes. Click at your own risk.
The Cards spotted Roy Oswalt a first-inning lead, but it didn’t matter as the irrepressible Redbirds pulled out yet another comeback win. This time it was hometown hero David Freese leading the charge with four RBIs in a 5-3 win at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals evened their National League Division Series with the Phillies at two games apiece, with a deciding fifth game in Philadelphia on Friday.
...
The St. Louis native drilled a two-run double to put the Cardinals ahead in the fourth inning, ...
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig went to the Milwaukee Brewers playoff game Sunday, which should come as no surprise since he once owned the team. While there, he also found himself doing what most other sports fans were doing over the weekend: keeping an eye on an NFL game.
“We were head to head,” Selig said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I was watching our game at Miller Park, and the Packers game was on all over so I knew what was going on. I was also watching the Yankee-Detroit game. But, ...
The Chicago Cubs , meanwhile, have filed the forms with Major League Baseball seeking permission to speak to the Red Sox general manager about the vacant position in their front office, according to a major league source.
Channel 5’s Mike Lynch reported that Red Sox ownership, in internal discussions yesterday, were considering asking MLB for compensation from the Cubs merely to speak to Epstein. Normally, compensation is contingent on the inquiring team acquiring the person from the other ...
The Dodgers failed again Wednesday to convince U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross that they need documents about other Major League Baseball teams.
“To open this up at this point to all of baseball, to the other 29 teams, would be more burdensome than is appropriate,” Gross said, “and perhaps not even relevant to the issue of bad faith.”
Gross said he would issue a formal ruling in a day or two but said he did not anticipate reversing his previous order denying the Dodgers access to ...
The 10 finalists for the 2012 Frick Award are: Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Tom Cheek, Ken Coleman, Jacques Doucet, Bill King, Tim McCarver, Graham McNamee, Eric Nadel and Mike Shannon. The winner of the 2012 Frick Award will be announced on December 6 at the Baseball Winter Meetings and honored during Hall of Fame Weekend, July 20-23, 2012 in Cooperstown.
Here’s hoping Bill King or Tom Cheek finally gets his due.
Missing: When an idealistic writer disappears during the…wait…“None of Beane’s vaunted Moneyball prospects ever made the major leagues…” WTF?
Epstein and the Red Sox have been aided tremendously by a press and fan base that fell completely for the false perception that Boston is somehow baseball’s virtuous non-pollutant, simply because it spends less than the Yankees. The truth, of course, is that the Red Sox spend more than everybody but the Yankees.
A strong-willed GM, with the ability to tell Moreno his emotions are getting the best of him and that Scioscia’s stubbornness needs to chill, is probably just what the Angels need to get on track.
But who is everyone kidding? It’s not going to happen.
Scioscia has an 11-year head start on any new GM and seven years remaining on his contract as the voice of the Angels. As much as Moreno likes to think it’s his team, it’s really Scioscia’s team.
Francesa, a staple of New York sports talk radio and noted ice cream enthusiast, thought he was being prank-called by a listener when the oddly-named Detroit Tiger was brought up. So he hung up on the caller.
This would mean that Mike Francesa, who prides himself on his encyclopedic knowledge of New York sports, wasn’t paying attention to a key moment in Tuesday night’s Yankee game. Alburquerque was brought in in the eighth inning, just as New York was ...
My Met fan aunt in Endicott will be interested, but how many other upstaters?
The team said Tuesday it will introduce what is known as “dynamic” pricing for individual tickets - meaning the cost of seats may fluctuate based on demand.
The Mets, beset by financial and attendance problems, said Tuesday they are cutting the cost of season tickets by up to 39 percent. Prices were lowered by 10-20 percent after Citi Field’s first season, then by an average of 14 percent following 2010.
Just because I can’t take another pro-A.J. caller on Francesspool…
First, Burnett gave up four hits and walked four batters in 5 2/3 innings. That means he finished the game with a 1.50 walks plus hits per inning pitched last night. His seasonal WHIP? 1.43. So he actually allowed more baserunners per inning than during his regular season, which most would characterize as far from “good”.
Second, Burnett’s K/BB ratio was .75, and out of his 81 pitches, 49 went for strikes (a strike-to-ball ...
