As the postseason hits full swing, it’s amusing watching the three richest teams in baseball scramble frantically to figure out why they lost despite their enormous resources. Well, it’s amusing if you’re not a fan of those teams.
Articles about what the Yankees need to do to win in the postseason next year are practically a light industry. Among the suggestions: “Replace Nick Swisher with Delmon Young” (because Young hit .333 in last year’s postseason, ...
I don’t think the headline actually makes any sense, but who wants more gossip??
Carl Crawford kept more and more to himself as the season progressed, largely because the clubhouse culture here was unlike any he’d experienced during his decade with Tampa Bay. A consummate pro, Crawford had once grabbed Pat Burrell and thrown him up against a wall, angrily telling Burrell that his unprofessional ways were not accepted in the Rays’ clubhouse. Tampa Bay management had their speedy outfielder’s ...
Francona and Epstein were not merely scapegoated in the story. The newspaper essentially printed an ownership implication that Francona had a prescription drug problem, that he was distracted by worry over the safety of his son and son-in-law, serving overseas, and that he lost focus because of marital problems. With the caveat that I consider both Francona and Epstein friends – and my assurance that neither has been a source for what I write here – the story is one of the more remarkable ...
And the sculptor never once had to tell him to stand still.
Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory added another superstar to its roster Wednesday as it unveiled a lifelike sculpture of Derek Jeter, team captain of the New York Yankees and future baseball Hall of Famer.
To welcome the new sculpture, the museum will celebrate “Derek Jeter Day” this Saturday, honoring the Yankee Captain. As part of the celebration, a game used Derek Jeter bat will be added to the museum’s Hold a Piece of ...
Writers and baseball analysts assume that a pitcher is a pitcher. If they make their pitches, the scenario shouldn’t matter. That’s sound logic too. Forget the inning. Forget the score. Any pitcher, at any time can succeed as long as he makes the right pitches. Yet, is it really that simple? The mental aspect to playing baseball is fascinating and often overlooked.
Let’s take Jose Valverde for example. As of August 18, 2011, Jose Valverde’s stats in save situations looked like this:
Double play poetry in the Meriden Daily Journal, October 13, 1911:
I can read it all now, the tale of their woes,
The excuses and wails that are in it,
How “the Giants kept slamming the ball on the nose,
And the Athletics were lucky to win it.”
When we stop their base running we won’t get the praise,
It won’t be the merit that’s in us,
‘Twill be their “hard luck” hitting into those plays,
From Barry to Collins to McInnis.
Tinker to Evers to Chance, it ain’t. ...Read More...
BB: One of the incredible things about Fenway Park is that it has changed over 100 years, and although it may seem antiquated, the current Red Sox ownership has done a lot to add modern touches without tearing the place down. Can you talk about some of the most significant alterations the place has seen and why it continues to last.
With all the technology and internet involvement in how sports is covered, it is amazing that with there being more jobs African Americans continue to be passed over for whatever reason that may happen to be convenient.
There have been some that have broken through on the national level, but he is normally in-studio and a former player, as if all former players and managers are really that sharp. I get the experience factor, but there are some who just don’t deliver the ...
Brother Collier takes in Moneyball at a junk palace…sorts through mess.
Perhaps the Ivy League kid is right, but I’ve never seen anyone stretch a walk into a double, nor have I ever seen a walk go through an outfielder’s legs for a triple. Baseball is thick with Jonah Hill types today, and even teams who don’t have to play moneyball have been persuaded to employ them.
That’s why the Red Sox and Yankees can’t seem to play a game that doesn’t run to four hours as they work the count and try to ...
It was more than a little bit scary—terrifying at times, to be perfectly honest—but it still counts. The Cardinals took control of the National League Championship Series with an agonizing 4-3 victory over the Brewers on Wednesday night. St. Louis is now two wins from its third trip to the World Series in eight years.
...
While Carpenter was the winning pitcher, he was also the least effective man to take the mound for the Redbirds in an ulcer-inducing victory. Five Cardinals relievers combined ...
The Rangers, after another heart-stopping game, are one win away from returning to the World Series for the second time in as many years.
Texas put itself in that position with four runs in the top of the 11th inning off All-Star closer Jose Valverde on Wednesday, setting up a 7-3 victory over the Tigers in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series at Comerica Park. Mike Napoli put the Rangers ahead with an RBI single, and Nelson Cruz, who also made the defensive play of the night, ...
Longtime Boston Red Sox slugger and free-agent-to-be David Ortiz spoke about the possibility of signing with the AL East rival New York Yankees during an interview Wednesday with ESPN’s Colleen Dominguez, after expressing frustration with the state of the Red Sox, who’ve seen manager Terry Francona and general manager Theo Epstein leave in the wake of the team’s September collapse.
“There’s too much drama, man,” Ortiz told Dominguez in reference to the Red Sox. “There’s too much drama. I have ...
“In between innings they’d go to the clubhouse to get a drink or hang out. I said, ‘Hey, I got no rule against going up if you have to go to the bathroom or something, but get back.’ A couple of times I looked down the bench to talk to somebody and they weren’t there. They were in the clubhouse. So I went up and got them out and said, “OK, boys that’s it. We’ll lock the door.”
Florida won the World Series that season and a 23-year-old Beckett was named ...
Yesterday, ESPN’s Buster Olney wrote that former USC pitching standout and one time San Francisco Giant pitcher Bill Bordley has been named Vice President of Security and Facility Management for Major League Baseball.
Bill was a teammate of mine in Phoenix in 1980 and he graciously offered to let me live in his apartment when I played with the Giants in 1981. It is odd that we became friends, because when he signed with the Giants in a special draft in 1979 ...
As for Theo Epstein, he’s going to need a lot a lot of help as he rescues the Cubs from themselves and their history.
And, of course, we’re here to help him get started.
So here’s a quick list of items he can get to immediately:
• Fire Mike Quade.
• Call Quade again and make sure he understands he’s fired.
• Fire a pitching coach who doesn’t challenge a manager who allows Matt Garza to average 123 pitches in the final 3 starts of the season when the team is 62 games out of ...
Paul Maholm can be added to the list of free agent starting pitchers, as the Pirates have decided not to exercise their $9.75 million team option on the left-hander for 2012 and will give him a $750,000 buyout instead.
“I’m going to test free agency and see where it goes,” Maholm told Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
He was supposed to say the decision to end his eight-year run as Red Sox manager was all his, and leave it at that. Instead, he said that he wasn’t sure ownership had his back, suggesting that the reason he walked out the door was because it was held wide open for him.
Well, that obviously didn’t sit well with some people in the highest reaches of Sox management, for now we are told in Wednesday’s editions of the Boston Globe that not only did ...
Can’t tell, but if Posada is better than Roy White…that makes him better than Jim Rice!
There are also a number of players who are either comparable to Posada or favorites of a particular generation. Fans in their 30s might argue that Bernie Williams, Mike Musina or Don Mattingly were better than Posada. Fans in their forties might raise names like Roy White, Lou Piniella, Willie Randolph, Dave Winfield, Ron Guidry or Graig Nettles. Fans of the 1947-1964 Yankee Dynasty might cite Elston ...
200 pages of documents reveal the extent of the Cubs’ proposed spring-training project. There will be no Bingo Hall in Wrigleyville, for the OUA struck it out.
The document [PDF] governing that part of the project is between Mesa and a company called Mesa Development Holdings LLC. Cubs Vice President Mike Lufrano told The Republic that MDH is an investment entity formed by the Ricketts family, that purchased the Cubs in 2009. ...
Mesa will require the company to build what it calls an ...
Astros owner Drayton McLane is expected to complete the sale of the team to Jim Crane in mid-November, according to Peter Gammons of MLB Network (on Twitter). The arrangement would move Houston to the American League West and even MLB into two leagues of 15 teams.
In the division series, Slay placed some Budwesier on the line against a collection of indigenous Philadelphia brews, a respectful if not necessarily inspired wager.
A case of cold, frosty ones would have made the perfect purse for this week’s League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, who play in Miller Park.
But instead of building on the already acrimonious rivalry between ...
It will be interesting to see who joins Theo in Chicago. The Red Sox have a very effective front office staff. Who jumps ship and who stays?
The first thing most people thought when the rumors of Theo Epstein possibly joining the Chicago Cubs began to circulate was “can he do it again?” Can the man credited with ending baseball’s most famous world championship drought end baseball’s longest? Now that Epstein and the Cubs have a deal, it’s worth taking a look at the challenge facing ...
Cherington fit right into the mold. He was named video advance scout—a role previously held by Byrnes and DePodesta—in which he was solely responsible for breakdown of the opposing teams whom the Indians were preparing to face.
The hours were long, the work all-consuming but immensely rewarding.
“I still go back to that time as a pretty important and fundamental experience for me in my career. … In some ways it was the Moneyball theory looked at through a different lens,” Cherington ...
It started, as such things often do when Nyjer Morgan is involved, with an angry confrontation. But unlike some of the others, this one took place out of the public’s eye. It was early March, in Viera, Fla., near the start of the Washington Nationals’ Grapefruit League schedule. Jayson Werth, the Nationals’ new $126 million right fielder — who was brought in, in part, to give the Nationals a strong clubhouse presence — felt Morgan was short-cutting some wind sprints in the outfield, ...
GGC educates us on the Dalton plan…to get him in the HOF.
Does he belong in the Hall of Fame? Baseball is a general manager’s game and has been for some time. Right now, Moneyball is in the theaters. Yet, there are only a handful of general managers enshrined in Cooperstown; Branch Rickey, Ed Barrow, George Weiss, and this year’s inductee Pat Gillick.
A lot of credit for the Nixon-era success of the Orioles goes to Earl Weaver, and rightly so. When Weaver and Dalton worked in the Oriole ...
And it seems…only Count Von Saberwolf and his flaming bats can find it!
Unless, of course, you believe there’s no such thing as clutch, a first cousin to the theory that players are prone to the same slumps in October as they are in July. That’s what Girardi was selling at his postmortem news conference at the Stadium. The essence of the manager’s reactions to the upset loss to Detroit were, in no particular order: We never got the big hit. We did our best. Oh well.
Amaro! Amaro!
I love ya, Amaro!
You’re always
A productive out
Away!
“I think we have to go about it a little differently. And that’s something I’ve talked to GG [hitting coach Greg Gross] and also to Charlie [Manuel] about. I think we just have to have a different mindset, maybe a different approach offensively than maybe we would have had in ‘08 or ‘09.
“I think it’s a different ballclub. In that regard, I don’t think we have nearly as much power. I think we’re going to have to rely on ...
California’s Donnie Moore on allowing Dave Henderson’s two-out, two-strike ninth inning home run that tied Game Five of the ‘86 ALCS:
“My job’s not an easy job. I gotta make the pitches. When you’re bad, you’re bad. I can handle bad. I’ve had a roller-coaster career. Things have never come easy for me. I can handle it.
“I got a tired arm now, but I can’t blame my arm. If my arm felt that bad, I wouldn’t have gone out there today. I was (horsebleep), no other excuses, I was ...
