Can you love a team and hate the players? I’ve long maintained that following your local club is like being overly interested in the Kinko’s on the corner, knowing too much about the height, weight and varying abilities of the different clerks. The Kinko’s corporation doesn’t really care about you in return, and neither, really,…
A WEEK OF TRADES "I will leave here with nothing but the best memories on and off the field. I was booed so much less than I probably deserve to be booed here, which I don’t think too many people leaving Philly can say." — Curt Schilling, Diamondbacks pitcher, on leaving Philadelphia "If I could…
The potential makeup of the United States Olympic Baseball team is becoming public, and there are ill omens for USA Baseball’s chances against the world. There will be 24 players and six alternates on the team, so we can look for team manager Tommy Lasorda to take a more-or-less standard roster with 14 position players…
A HOT JULY NIGHT "It’s a very, very proud time for the New York Yankees. Their future did a great job tonight." — Joe Torre, AL Manager, on the All-Star Game "We’ve been watching that ever since he came to the big leagues." — Bobby Cox, NL Manager, on Derek Jeter‘s MVP performance "We played…
BRUISINGS "I wasn’t nervous at all. I just couldn’t locate my fastball or make adjustments on it." — Ed Yarnall, Reds pitcher, on retiring just two of the ten batters he faced July 6 "It was a rough start coming back. I couldn’t keep the ball down and threw a few pitches I shouldn’t have….
STREAKS “That was big. Hopefully, this gets him going.” — Joe Torre, Yankees manager, on Tino Martinez breaking his 0-15 slump “We’ve been looking to put something together. Hopefully, this will start us into a good streak.” — Torre, on the Yankees’ 5-2 victory over the Devil Rays “That’s why Cleveland got him, to stop…
With the Angels and Rangers falling off the pace, there are only two real contenders in the AL West, the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners. As I write this, Seattle has just completed a sweep of the Centrum-sponsored Orioles while Oakland has taken two of three from Royals, which means the A’s are a…
MOVING TRAINS “I’m taking it to Shea Stadium. I won’t be in a cab. I won’t be on the bus. I’ll be on that train.” — John Rocker, Braves reliever, on his intention to ride the No 7 subway line he derided in his SI comments “We spoke to major league baseball. I spoke to…
The decision to allow professional baseball players to compete in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia brought with it a real chance that we, the greatest nation on earth, would be able to put on a basketball-style thrashing exhibition of what capitalism does for competition and athletic development. Purity of competition hasn’t been part of…
The Yankees and Red Sox played a great series last weekend. And while there are 159 other games in the season, those three had the kind of drama that baseball lives on: a long-standing rivalry, bred in neighborhoods, handed down from parent to child like a family heirloom, nursed by patriots in foreign cities. This…
While the Braves occupy their familiar place atop the division, winning a league-best 70% of their games, the rest of the division features a resurgent Montreal, a Mets team playing well over .500, a Marlins team playing a little under .500 and an ugly Phillies team that would be in the league’s cellar if not…
Terry Francona should be fired immediately and then run out of the City of Brotherly Love by a torch-wielding mob. He had Curt Schilling, anchor of the staff returning from major offseason shoulder surgery, throw 126 pitches in his second post-operative major-league start, sending him to the mound with a 6-0 lead to pitch the…
Peter Bergeron, the young Expos center fielder, has something as rarely seen in Quebec as a sweet-smelling separatist: good plate discipline. Baseball Prospectus 2000 projected him at .300/.376/.419 this year, but he’s hitting .227/.299/.241. I hope this is only an amazingly bad month, because Bergeron has shown thoughtout his minor-league career that he’s a hitting…
While everyone was talking about Florida’s hot start–prior to their five-game losing streak–no one noticed that the Phillies were getting phlattened, to the tune of 7-16. The culprit? The Phillies are dead last in the National League with 82 runs scored. That’s an average of 3.6 runs a game, a number that seems respectable until…
Baseball has suspended 16 players and fined nine as a result of the White Sox/Tigers brawls that marred Saturday’s game. Baseball Vice President Frank Robinson is quoted as saying, "Altercations like the one that took place in Chicago last week show a lack of sportsmanship. It sends the wrong message to our fans–particularly young people….
The Phillies face a series of choices at the bottom of their roster that, taken together, will determine whether they have the potential to outperform expectations or whether they definitely will underperform. The Phillies apparently believe they have to win, and win now, and we’re going to see this cost them games both this year…