Five Cuts from a Father's Day edition of interleague play:
updated: Fri Jun 15 2012 10:19:00
Magic Johnson teared up about owning a team that broke the color barrier.
"When you and I went to dinner in Arizona in the spring of 2011," I say to Ned Colletti, general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, "you thought your team might be a lot better than it turned out to be."
Matt Cain was always there. His teammate, Tim Lincecum, might be the Freak, but Cain was the Fixture. The foundation that the San Francisco Giants pitching staff was built on.
Five Cuts from the second weekend of interleague play:
A judge ordered two men to stand trial on charges relating to the beating of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow after a Los Angeles Dodgers game last year.
Before we talk about 500-foot bombs, or 450-foot home runs hit with broken bats, or the time that Charlie Manuel was left speechless and the day Dave Winfield finally saw The Next Dave Winfield, a word to the reader: Don't believe every tale about Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton.
He was arguably the top prospect in baseball coming into this season. He plays centerfield, has power, speed and pure hitting ability. Called up in late April and inserted into the starting lineup, the former first-round pick has become the lynchpin of his team's offense and could well prove to be key to that team snapping its playoff drought. Perhaps most impressively, he's doing that at an age when merely holding one's own in the major leagues is a tremendous accomplishment and most other ballplayers his age are either in the low minors or college. He is not Bryce Harper. He is Mike Trout.
updated: Tue Jun 05 2012 19:39:00
Want the inside scoop on steroids, Manny Ramirez and more? Larry talks baseball with ultimate insider, Tommy Lasorda.
Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda suffered a mild heart attack Monday while in New York, the Los Angeles team confirmed Tuesday.
The surprises began with the very first pick of the 2012 MLB draft -- when the Astros selected Puerto Rican shortstop Carlos Correa instead of the widely expected choice, Stanford righthanded pitcher Mark Appel -- and didn't stop there. Here's a quick look at the winners and losers from the first round and the compensation round.
The past two times the Houston Astros have selected first overall, the results have been solid, if not spectacular.
This weekend saw the White Sox continue their hot streak, four series played among the tightly bunched teams in the two Eastern divisions, and the ascendant Angels take two of three from the first-place Rangers, but the most compelling series was the one still going on in New York between the Mets and Cardinals. That series announced itself when Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets history on Friday night, and has become more compelling with each successive dominant Mets pitching performance. Meanwhile, with their loss on Sunday, the defending world champions saw their record fall to an even .500 and slipped a half-game behind the Pirates into third place in the National League Central.
On Sunday, it was reported that the Houston Astros will select Stanford righthander Mark Appel with the first pick in Monday's MLB Draft. How will the rest of the first round break down? Dave Perkin, a former major league scout and SI.com's draft analyst, makes his selections below. For more from Perkin, follow his live analysis of the first-round starting at 7 p.m. Monday night.
The Mets had played 8,019 regular season games and 64 postseason games across 50-plus seasons before June 1, 2012, but it wasn't until Johan Santana held the Cardinals without a hit on Friday night that one of their pitchers had thrown a no-hitter.
How can I explain this? When it comes to no-hitters, the thing about being a Mets fan was that it always felt like everyone got to have a birthday except me. With the exception of the San Diego Padres, every franchise in baseball had at least one no-hitter in its history but the Mets. Every fanbase had experienced that magical feeling that comes out of nowhere, when a regular game turns into a piece of history, when the guy on the mound for their team has talent and fate and maybe a generous umpire on his side and throws nine hitless innings -- except us luckless followers of the Mets. As a fan of the team for more than 40 years, I had resigned myself to a lifetime of watching other teams periodically hit the lottery. For my Mets, a no-no would never be.
New York Mets pitcher Johan Santana tossed the first no-hitter in the franchise's history Friday night in an 8-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.
If it seems as if a star player goes on the DL every day, you're wrong. Sometimes it's two, as happened Thursday when Matt Kemp and Troy Tulowitzki added to the casualty list of a season rocked by injuries to big-time players.
Todd Frazier isn't a little guy. The Cincinnati Reds' third baseman stands 6-foot-3. He weighs 220 pounds after breakfast. In five minor league seasons, he hit 74 home runs. This year, he has five homers in 76 at-bats. He can hit the ball a long way. He has never hit one like the one he hit Sunday at Great American Ball Park.
Before the million-and-a-half signing bonus or the relief appearance in which he threw 10 straight pitches of at least 101 miles per hour, Padres pitcher Andrew Cashner endured four straight drafts in which he received undulating annual assessments of his ability and potential.
Every sports fan has daydreamed about what it would be like to own their hometown team.
updated: Tue May 29 2012 12:29:00
Golf journalist David Dusek discusses Phil Mickelson's entry into golf's Hall of Fame with CNN's Amanda Davies.
I know what I was supposed to feel on Tuesday, sitting in the morning sun on Pier 30 in San Francisco as Warriors owners Joe Lacob spoke about the franchise's move to San Francisco: This is all kinds of awesome.
PHILADELPHIA -- Bryce Harper and Cole Hamels may instigate a rivalry between the Nationals and the Phillies. But that's only if Hamels re-signs with the Phillies and, even then, only because of their abilities on the field.
Five Cuts from the first weekend of interleague play:
While the NFL sells quarterbacks and NBA sells scorers, the appeal of baseball rests more on teams and regional allegiance. The individual player with national appeal -- the one who sells tickets on the road and who creates a bump in TV ratings outside his market -- has been a rarity in recent years. But the first two months of this season have created personalities that provide baseball with chances for just such appointment-viewing type players.
He's brash, bold and has the skills to back it up. 19-year-old phenom Bryce Harper is less than a month into his baseball career with the Washington Nationals, and he's already making his presence felt in the nation's capital. With high-profile magazine covers and international baseball experience already on his resume, the Nationals are looking to Harper to be one of their building blocks as they try to put Washington baseball on the map.
Sometimes it is easier for the highly skilled, purpose driven athlete to deal with injuries that happen in the blink of an eye. You crash into the wall; you take a bad step; you throw an awkward pitch. You break a bone; you snap a tendon; you tear a ligament. As painful and psychologically challenging as those injuries can be, at least what comes next is often clear cut. You get it fixed. You don't play for a month, or six months, or a year. Then, if all goes well, you do.
SAN FRANCISCO -- "Used to" isn't an encouraging way to describe an athlete who's 27, never had a major injury and was considered state-of-the art just 18 months ago.
WASHINGTON -- Jonathan Papelbon may have left behind his native Nation but as he goes around his new city, he can't help but sense that its friendly people, laid-back feel and sidewalk cafes give it a European flavor.
Gone are the franchise first baseman, the legendary manager, the master pitching coach and the shrewd draft architect. The top returning slugger has played just seven games. One co-ace is injured with an uncertain date of return; the other, fresh off a season-long absence, has just two quality starts in six tries.
This is the Code at its deepest and most ingrained levels. It is the confluence of ability and pride and hype and the concept that all men must earn their stripes. It is the old guard welcoming the new -- player and team alike -- with an unmistakable challenge: Welcome to the big time. Let's see if you can hack it.
Five Cuts on a weekend dominated by the two pitching-led franchises who make their homes on either side of the Capitol Beltway:
The Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball, ushered in a new era of ownership Wednesday while ending a dismal chapter of ownership under Frank McCourt, who baseball's commissioner described as "looting" the club of $190 million to fund an extravagant lifestyle.
WASHINGTON -- Justin Upton was walking by the pool of a resort in the Bahamas, an offseason respite after leading the Diamondbacks to a division title, when he saw someone familiar.
On April 7, 1984, a 19-year-old phenom named Dwight Gooden walked to the mound at the Astrodome in Houston for his big league debut with the New York Mets while a 22-year-old named Darryl Strawberry took his place in rightfield for career game number 126 and Davey Johnson, a manager in his first full season with the team, watched from the dugout. Gooden would win the game, Strawberry would hit a home run and the balance of power in the National League reached a tipping point. Over the next seven seasons no team won more games, no team delighted and annoyed more fans and no team drew more attention than the New York Mets.
If you told me eight years ago I'd end up writing an article extolling the virtues of Los Angeles, I would have laughed.
updated: Sun Apr 29 2012 21:46:00
At least one person is killed and many injured when a tent at a St. Louis sports bar collapses during severe weather.
One person was killed and 16 others hospitalized Saturday afternoon when a sports bar tent collapsed during a storm that swept through the St. Louis area, fire officials said.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Bryce Harper's first day in the major leagues came with all the hype one would expect for the player dubbed "Baseball's Chosen One" when he was only 16 years old.
On Sunday in Chicago, Cincinnati's Aroldis Chapman threw an unhittable pitch. It wasn't a 100 mph fastball behind the ear flap, or a slider a time zone off the plate. It was a strike. A 99 mile-an-hour pitch on the inside corner and at the knees of Cubs third baseman Ian Stewart. Stewart couldn't have hit it with God's bat.
Billy Beane knew what he had in Gio Gonzalez: a young, durable, lefthanded strikeout artist. If Beane, the Oakland A's general manager, was going to deal him last winter -- even in the midst of a fire sale in which virtually every player on the A's roster, save second baseman Jemile Weeks, was available -- it would be for a return of the sort that would decimate most trading partners' farm systems.
Brian Dawkins was never a crossover athlete on a national scale. He never went on Letterman or Leno. Never appeared on the cover of a video game or a reality show. We had only a vague idea what was in his crib.
Half the time that Padres third baseman Chase Headley steps to the plate, the opposing fielders can take their gloves off, sit down and not have to worry about the baseball being playable.
updated: Wed Apr 18 2012 05:38:00
Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen is suspended despite his apologies for Castro remarks. CNN's John Zarrella reports.
A bankruptcy court Friday approved the $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team to a group that includes former basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson.
NEW YORK -- A few days after Jayson Werth signed his first professional contract in mid-June 1997, the first-round pick of the Orioles traveled to Baltimore for an introductory press conference at Camden Yards.
NEW YORK -- At the age of 29, and as he is left out of the industry trend of teams locking up franchise players, New York Mets third baseman David Wright has begun already a third act to his career. It is the comeback phase. After a career-worst season in 2011, when it appeared that a canyon of a ballpark was extracting the greatness from his career, Wright went back to his roots. He hit last winter at a high school batting cage with Nick Boothe, the baseball coach at Virginia Wesleyan who had worked with Wright as a teenager.
Excerpted from CALICO JOE by John Grisham. Copyright © 2012 by Belfry Holdings, Inc. To be published this month by Doubleday, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
NEW YORK -- Johan Santana assumed his familiar broad-legged stance on the third-base side of the pitching rubber when pitching out of the windup, and then he mowed down hitters by changing speeds and locating pitches.
SI.com will be live-blogging today's season openers. Check back all day long for updates on Thursday afternoon's games from Cliff Corcoran (Red Sox vs. Tigers, Marlins vs. Reds), Joe Lemire (Mets vs. Braves), Ben Reiter (Phillies vs. Pirates) , Gary Gramling (Nationals vs. Cubs) and Ted Keith (Blue Jays vs. Indians). All times Eastern.
The 2012 Major League Baseball season officially opened last week in Japan, where the A's and Mariners played a mostly forgettable two-game series, and starts Stateside on Wednesday night when the Marlins face the defending World Series champion Cardinals. Thursday, though, is when the season really begins.
Of Major League Baseball's six divisions, only the NL West has sent each of its clubs to the playoffs at least once since 2006. "There's no clear favorite from year to year," says Giants GM Brian Sabean, "which makes it interesting."
Only two teams in all of baseball had a better record than the National League Central champion Brewers last year -- the powerhouse Phillies and Yankees -- and the second-place Cardinals won the World Series.
Might the NL East be ready to wrest the title of Toughest Division in Baseball away from its AL counterparts? Not quite, but it has become the game's most talented grouping one through five.
We have arrived at an exit ramp, only we cannot be certain to where it leads. Baseball in 2012, with its expanded postseason, franchise-changing TV money and the Technicolor dream of Miami as a baseball town, is headed in a new direction, as it seems to do every 10 years.
With first basemen Albert Pujols, Joey Votto and Prince Fielder the 2011 NL Central boasted one of the greatest collections of talent at one position any one division has ever seen, a trio of close-proximity, in-their-prime superstars perhaps exceeded only by 1950s New York when Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider all played center field within the same city limits (though in different leagues).
Growing up in New York City, there are a few things I never imagined myself doing, like driving a car, living in a house or attending big high school games like the ones I'd seen on TV.
A group that includes former basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson will acquire the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2 billion, the team said Tuesday night.
updated: Wed Mar 28 2012 20:23:00
Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly dresses as Mother Ginger in "The Nutcracker."
The proposed $2.15 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers to a group primarily financed by Guggenheim Partners and led by longtime sports executive Stan Kasten and NBA legend Magic Johnson is not yet a done deal. Major League Baseball and the 29 other ownership groups must formally approve the sale and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross must be assured that it will enable current owner Frank McCourt to pay off his creditors.
LOS ANGELES -- The second-best trade in the history of the Dodgers was made on July 18, 1939, when they acquired shortstop Pee Wee Reese from the Red Sox for $35,000 and four players to be named later, most notably pitcher Red Evans. Reese made 10 All Star teams and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Evans, whose career record was 1-11, never appeared in the big leagues again.
No defensive position has fewer members represented in Cooperstown than third base, but we now know that the number of Hall of Fame hot cornermen will grow by one in 2018. That will be when Chipper Jones, who announced on Thursday that he will retire after the coming season, will join their ranks.
VIERA, Fla. -- An hour before Sunday's Grapefruit League game, Jayson Werth and Nationals' hitting coach Rick Eckstein remained in the batting cage beyond rightfield at Space Coast Stadium, working on a drill that brings Werth back to his productive days with the Phillies. Werth stood at the plate. Twenty feet away behind a net, Eckstein threw hard fastballs that Werth cracked all over the cage. Eckstein said it's a unique drill, not the average soft-toss, something he's never seen before.
VIERA, Fla. -- Not all of Bryce Harper's batting-practice sessions are jaw-dropping, tell-your-buddy, home run binges.
JUPITER, Fla. -- Marlins third baseman Hanley Ramirez beat out a chopper to the right side of the infield in a game this week, a play that seemed insignificant except for Miami scoring four runs thereafter and for what manager Ozzie Guillen said to Ramirez. "Those runs," he told him, "are because of you."
BRADENTON, Fla. -- Andrew McCutchen has long felt a kinship with the fellow first-rounders of the famed 2005 draft class.
Major League Baseball has expanded its pool of postseason teams to 10 -- up from four just 19 years ago -- and next year will re-align into 15-team leagues that make for at least one interleague series all season long. But the biggest change of all may be around the next corner: the end of baseball as it was originally designed.
Last week I looked at how five of last year's breakout players are likely to fare in the coming season. This week, I turn my attention to five (non-rookie) players who could emerge as breakout stars in 2012. Four of the best, coincidentally, hail from the same division.
JUPITER, Fla. -- To no franchise is the wild card so meaningful as it is to the Florida Marlins.
VIERA, Fla. -- The Nationals gave third baseman Ryan Zimmerman a six-year contract (with a team option for a seventh year) worth a reported $100 million that will cover 2014-2019 after his current contract (for two more years and $26 million) expires. There is also an $18-million player option for 2020. Five thoughts on the new deal ...
Back in boyhood, stoops at dawn awaiting newspapers from me, I had to laugh at how the noble enterprise of journalism, with its brave war correspondents across the globe and its ink-stained pressmen risking mangled fingers in massive machinery, ultimately was reduced to a 10-year-old-kid and his wagon delivering the product. So it is with the Major League Baseball drug policy, the one that commissioner Bud Selig has fought hard to position as the gold standard of the sporting world. Today Selig's gold is tarnished apparently because a courier in Wisconsin didn't know the FedEx office was open on a Saturday night.
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- An unexpected thing happened late in the summer of what had once seemed a nightmare 2011 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers -- who had been undermined by the failing ownership of Frank McCourt; who had fallen to 14 games under .500, at 37-51, on July 6 -- simply did not want the season to end. They went 41-28 after the All-Star break. Each of the seven teams with better second-half records made the playoffs, and the Dodgers felt sure that they could have joined them, had only the season extended just a little bit longer.
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- The hype at last year's Phillies spring training centered around the five men of the starting rotation, who early in camp sat side-by-side-by-side-by-side-by-side in a press conference that welcomed a period of pitching dominance.
This week, Cliff Corcoran will break down what to expect from each team's camp as part of SI.com's spring training preview. Teams are listed by their order of finish from 2011. Note: The Big Prospect is a player who will be in camp and has not yet debuted in the major leagues.
The heir to Stan Musial left St. Louis, the Tigers came out of nowhere to give a Prince a king's ransom and three of the most intriguing players in baseball today never have played a day in the big leagues. In other words, strange as it is, this is the perfect spring training to follow a 2011 season in which none of the nine biggest payrolls won a postseason series and St. Louis, which lost its ace (Adam Wainwright), scrapped its closer (Ryan Franklin) and languished 10 ½ games out in late August, wound up winning the World Series.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Gary Carter was nicknamed "Kid" for good reason.
This week, Cliff Corcoran will break down what to expect from each team's camp as part of SI.com's spring training preview. Teams are listed by their order of finish from 2011. Note: The Big Prospect is a player who will be in camp and has not yet debuted in the major leagues.
Try as I might as a witness to his five years in New York as a catcher for the Mets, I cannot conjure a single image of Gary Carter with anything but a smile on his face. I have no recollection of a gloomy Carter, not even as his knees began to announce a slow surrender, his bat grew slow and weary or as his teammates, renowned masters of the dark arts, chided him for his well-displayed rectitude.
This week, Cliff Corcoran will break down what to expect from each team's camp as part of SI.com's spring training preview. Teams are listed by their order of finish from 2011. Note: The Big Prospect is a player who will be in camp and has not yet debuted in the major leagues.
Baseball's most important joint is the mending left ankle of a young catcher in San Francisco, a hinge upon which the Giants' playoffs hopes this year might, well, hinge.
Five thoughts on Thursday's news that free-agent starter Edwin Jackson had reportedly signed a one-year deal worth an estimated $10 million with the Nationals:
With just two and a half weeks until pitchers and catchers report, the Hot Stove is cooling off significantly. The only major free agents still looking for new teams are starting pitcher Roy Oswalt and Cuban centerfielder Yoenis Cespedes, who only recently received permission to sign by Major League Baseball. There are 25 arbitration cases that remain unsettled, including those of Clayton Kershaw, David Ortiz and Mike Napoli among others that could yet yield a multi-year extension.
The troubled Los Angeles Dodgers, one of baseball's most storied franchises, began receiving bids from potential buyers this week in a sale that's expected to set a Major League record at more than $1 billion.
updated: Fri Jan 27 2012 05:37:00
Powerful groups loaded with sports celebrities are expected to bid for the L.A. Dodgers. CNN's Paul Vercammen reports.
If Victor Martinez had not blown out his knee working out in Florida, Prince Fielder might have been a Dodger. Los Angeles ran a stealth recruitment of Fielder for two months, beginning immediately after the December winter meetings, only to be trumped when Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, concerned about contingency plans to replace Martinez, told his general manager, "I think we should go after Prince."
Compared to Prince Fielder's $214 million deal with Detroit, every other transaction in the past week qualifies as "other news." Nevertheless, while Fielder was grabbing all the attention, some other impactful moves took place that warrant attention, such as:
At first glance it's a fix-it strategy bound for disaster: take an 89-loss team that quit last year and make it . . . older. In this age when older impact players practically don't exist, Colorado Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd added age at second base, third base, rightfield, closer and possibly in his rotation. It begs two questions: What is O'Dowd's plan, and does the Joint Drug Agreement list Metamucil as a banned masking agent?
Prince Fielder still doesn't have a team, but already he is almost assuredly about to set a record this year. No free agent ever has signed a nine-figure contract this late in the offseason.
In the past week, the headlines have been dominated by Yu Darvish's Wednesday signing deadline and subsequent deal with the Rangers and the Yankees' Friday night rotation reinforcements, while the transaction wire was dominated by arbitration settlements leading up to Tuesday's deadline for teams and players to exchange of salary figures. Here's what else has been going on:
In a win for the owners of the New York Mets, a federal judge on Tuesday upheld an earlier court decision that placed limits on the amount of money that the trustee in the Madoff case can seek.
Of all the beautiful names given to the places we play games -- Colosseum and Craven Cottage and Camp Nou; Molineux and Maracaña and Madison Square Garden; Polo Grounds and Elysian Fields and Fabulous Forum -- none was ever more evocative than Candlestick Park, which called to my adolescent mind an innocent nursery rhyme ("The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker") and an implement of murder ("Professor Plumb, with the candlestick, in the conservatory").
It's getting to be late at the Hot Stove Bar, and the crowd has thinned out a bit, as players and GMs pair off and walk out together, happy -- at least for the moment -- to have found a connection. As you look around the room, you can be sure that some of the remaining beautiful people won't be going home alone -- Prince Fielder and Edwin Jackson are still getting drinks bought for them and being invited to dance. Others, though, are starting to fidget a bit, unsure of whether they should stick around or just head home to see what's on TV. Let's see if we can play matchmaker before last call.
Ryan Madson had a great year -- his best year -- closing for the best team in the National League last year, Philadelphia, and still could do no better than a one-year contract with Cincinnati for $8.5 million. Spare the spin about how he's the next Adrian Beltre who will parlay a one-year deal to a windfall in the next free agent market. Beltre was coming off a down year when he took the showcase gig in Boston. Madson hit free agency with a career year -- 32 saves, 2.37 ERA -- and still couldn't cash in (according to reports, he was on the verge of re-signing with the Phillies for $44 million for four years in November before talks fell apart).
The Marlins, Reds, Cubs and Angels stay busy while two more pitchers arrive from Japan, and the Mets, Rays and Dodgers find out just how little a million bucks buys these days in this week's Hot Stove Roundup.
The new Cubs administration has reached the three-quarters mark of its fertile first 100 days in (front) office and has been nothing short of aggressive with its reformist platform.
The St. Louis Cardinals will visit the White House on January 17 to commemorate their victory in the 2011 World Series.
The White Sox send mixed messages, the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Reds fortify their bullpens, and the best available centerfielder (not counting Yoenis Cespedes) and two of the best platoon outfielders in the game all re-sign with their 2011 teams in this week's edition of Hot Stove Roundup.
The 2011 baseball year surprised us at so many turns. Offense was dialed back to 1992 levels, none of the nine biggest payrolls in baseball won a postseason series, not one but two teams suffered pennant race collapses of historic proportions, and the Cardinals joined the 1986 Mets as the only teams to be one strike from elimination and win the World Series -- and then they lost two franchise icons.
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