One of the game’s leading orthopedic surgeons is sounding an alarm on pitching injuries — and citing the advent of the sweeper and power changeup as significant reasons for the spike. Dr. Keith Meister, the Texas Rangers’ head team physician, said teams are exacerbating the problem by emphasizing pitchers’ performance over their availability. “These front…
Shortly after haggling his way out of free-agent purgatory and into a new contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Kiké Hernández asked his wife, Mariana, to investigate another market. She contacted former Dodger Rich Hill’s wife, Caitlin, with a request: Could the Hernándezes live in the Hills’ house again? The Hills had bought the property,…
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Mookie Betts keeps upping the ante. He talked last season about wanting to become a Hall of Famer. His latest goal: To become, in his words, “a legend in the game.” Betts, 31, made that declaration in an interview I conducted with him Tuesday for Fox Sports. I asked him, after winning…
This can’t be what Scott Boras wanted. And now that the first of the Boras Four, Cody Bellinger, has reached agreement on a lesser contract than expected, it might only embolden the teams pursuing Boras’ other top free-agent clients to hold the line. The opt-outs in Bellinger’s reported three-year, $80 million free-agent agreement with the…
In the sweltering summer of 1994, back when Russell Athletics was Major League Baseball’s official uniform supplier, the New York Yankees suddenly switched jersey fabrics, from polyester to a more breathable cotton, to beat the heat. Yankees players raved about the cotton uniforms in a front-page story. Luis Polonia: “Cotton is king.”Wade Boggs: “What a…
For all his mishegas and misdirection, Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is right on one thing: It’s either now or later. Either he’s asking the city and state for more than a billion bucks of public money for a new stadium right now or someone else is going to be asking for it down…
As the February sunshine beams down on all of baseball, and the standings say that everyone is undefeated, it’s easy to melt into a zen state of spring training nirvana. But there’s one question in our annual spring survey that jolts us back to life. That’s the part where we ask our voters — a…
A decade ago, then-Pirates general manager Neal Huntington presented ownership with plans for $8 million in upgrades to the club’s spring training facilities in Bradenton, Fla. The project would include constructing a 12,240 square-foot performance center to replace a weight room a tenth that size, and expanding a home clubhouse that was the oldest remaining…
Twenty years ago, after blowing the lead in a critical playoff game for the Minnesota Twins, Juan Rincón described the feeling with an all-time baseball malaprop: “Nobody wants to be in my pants right now.” These days, it seems, nobody wants to be in any pair of baseball pants. Major leaguers reported to spring training this week…
Jenny Cavnar continues to climb the broadcasting ranks, and this time, she’s making history in her new gig as the Oakland A’s play-by-play announcer. The A’s announced Cavnar’s hiring Tuesday, making her the first female primary play-by-play voice in MLB history. “It is a dream come true to join the broadcast team for the Oakland…
