Free Republic

For the first time in history, the 425 voters of the Baseball Hall of Fame elected a Major League Baseball player, Mariano Rivera, by a unanimous vote. Rivera’s latest accomplishment is just as much a testament to the man as to his career. Mariano Rivera was born in Panama. Known for his athleticism, he was drafted by the New York Yankees as a starting pitcher in the early 1990s. It was around this time that Rivera became a born-again Christian. Moving his way up to the Major Leagues in 1995, Rivera did not achieve great success as a starter, but,...

“Curt Schilling deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame,” President Trump tweeted Sunday evening. “Great record, especially when under pressure and when it mattered most. Do what everyone in Baseball knows is right!”  Curt Shilling didn’t get into Cooperstown this year but maybe next year or someday. Perhaps his improved voting numbers are due to the Trump effect. Or his support for Trump has made him persona non grata in baseball circles. He wasn’t selected but, Mariano Rivera, the greatest reliever in history, was on the ballot for the first time and received 100% of the writers’ votes, a...

Veteran broadcaster Bob Costas is stepping down from his longtime role with NBC Sports. Costas told the New York Post of the decision Tuesday, which the network confirmed with the paper. “It’s all settled quietly and happily for all concerned,” Costas told The Post. Costas also told The Post he will continue to do work for MLB Network and is considering pursuing a long-form interview show.

Eli Grba, the first player to throw a pitch for the Angels, died Monday night in Florence, Ala., after a three-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 84. Grba, a bespectacled pitcher with a penchant for partying and a competitive spirit, was known as the Original Angel. With the opening selection of MLB’s first expansion draft in December 1960, Angels general manager Fred Haney made Grba the first addition to the Angels’ inaugural roster. “I’m a trivia question until I die,” Grba said in a 2011 television interview. “I’m the first guy that’s ever been drafted — and the first...

Oklahoma quarterback and Oakland A’s first-round draft pick Kyler Murray is days away from deciding the next step of his athletic career. The Heisman Trophy winner has until Sunday to declare for the 2019 NFL draft, which would put his baseball career on hold indefinitely in the hopes of beating the odds as an undersized quarterback. We asked Mike Oz, Frank Schwab and Sam Cooper to make the case as to why Kyler Murray should either stick with his original path of playing baseball, declaring for the NFL draft or return to the Sooners for his senior season.

Yoenis Cespedes, one of numerous Cuban-origin players who made it to the Show the hardest ways. Now MLB wants to play ball with the Cuban tyranny for Cuban talent—in a kind of protection racket.Contrary to the supposition of Joe and Jane Fan and the aphorism of Hall of Famer Willie Stargell (“The umpire doesn’t say, ‘Work ball!’)” playing baseball professionally requires work, and lots of it, to play competently. Unfortunately, for some players, the work includes things not customarily required at the ballpark or in the gymnasium. Players hailing from Cuba, for example. The work they must do just...

Leave it to a Red Sox scribe to rain on Mariano Rivera’s historic quest. Bill Ballou, of the Worcester, Mass., Telegram, spent about 1,500 words Saturday arguing that the Yankees legend shouldn’t receive a bid into the Hall. We checked the calendar. April Fools’ is months away. “...The Save — the baseball kind — is the lowest-hanging fruit on the game’s statistical tree,” Ballou writes. “Closers are its naked emperors.” Ballou continuously bashes the role of the closer, and even brings up Craig Kimbrel for sake of argument.

The agreement would allow Cuban players to come to the United States on work visas, with MLB teams playing the CBF a release fee, a similar system to how Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese players join MLB teams. As Jeff Passan noted, the pact would "end the trafficking of players by smugglers—situations that have led to players being kidnapped, threatened and extorted. Cuban players coming to MLB have been smuggled out by human trafficking organizations that are often tied to other criminal organizations, and often they lose a big chunk of their bonus to pay for their passage out of Cuba,"...

He was the first inductee into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame and the sport's first national icon. Over 92 years after his retirement from the game, he still holds records for highest career batting average (.367), most career batting titles (12), and highest combined total of runs scored and runs batted in (4,065). When searching through the MLB record books, his name cannot be missed, as he is credited with setting over 90 throughout his career. He is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished and electrifying athletes ever to live. His name is Ty Cobb, and despite his...

If there were a city where the baseball Hall of Fame was going to get wild and crazy, it’s probably here. The Winter Meetings are in Las Vegas this week and the first order of business Sunday night was announcing the results of the Today’s Game era Hall of Fame ballot, which gave 10 people a second-chance at Cooperstown. Two players were elected: Lee Smith, the former saves leader who was the best bet on the ballot, and … Harold Baines?!?

Major League Baseball is requesting a return of a $5,000 donation to a Mississippi Republican candidate for U.S. Senate following her controversial comments and actions ahead of Tuesday's runoff election. Cindy Hyde-Smith has drawn scrutiny for saying at a Nov. 2 campaign event that she would attend a public hanging if invited. Further digging into Hyde-Smith's past has revealed a photo of her wearing a Confederate military-style hat in 2014 along with questions about the white private school she attended in the 1970s.

Mets righthander Jacob deGrom and Rays ace Blake Snell were named the NL and AL Cy Young Award winners, respectively, on Wednesday. DeGrom, 30, notched his first Cy Young Award despite recording just 10–9 as a starter. DeGrom received 29 first-place votes over the Nationals' Max Scherzer, who received one. John Maffei of the San Diego Union-Tribune was the only writer to place Scherzer ahead of deGrom on their ballot. Aaron Nola finished in third.

Lorena Martin was hired just over a year ago to fill a position unique to baseball. No other organization before the Seattle Mariners had a director of high performance in the baseball operations department. But on Monday, just over a month after the Mariners fired her, Lorena Martin posted a string of heavy comments to her Instagram and Twitter accounts, leveling accusations of racism and discrimination and specifically naming general manager Jerry Dipoto, manager Scott Servais and director of player development Andy McKay.

Willie McCovey, one of the great left-handed power hitters of all time, a first-ballot inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986 and a beloved member of the San Francisco Giants family, passed away peacefully Wednesday after a battle with health issues. He was 80 years old. Nicknamed "Stretch" for the long arms and legs attached to his 6-foot-4 frame, McCovey and fellow Hall of Famer and Alabama native Willie Mays comprised the core of San Francisco Giants teams that gave opposing pitchers The Willies. McCovey's pull power was so prodigious that the China Basin that sits beyond...

“If you pitch to him, he’ll ruin a baseball,’’ rival manager Sparky Anderson once said. “There’s no comparison between McCovey and anybody else in the league.” He was the National League rookie of the year in 1959, the league’s MVP in 1969 and the comeback player of the year in 1977 when he kicked off a late-career renaissance by returning to the Giants after a three-year absence. In all, McCovey was a six-time All-Star whose career home run total ties him with Ted Williams for 18th on the all-time list. Before Barry Bonds passed him, McCovey had more home runs...

The Chicago Cubs are one of 26 Major League Baseball teams to employ sports psychologists or mental-skills coaches. As in the workplace, the game’s great myth is that talent always wins. In reality, athletes’ hidden game, the mental one, can override some deficits in skill, says Bob Tewksbury, a former All-Star pitcher and current mental-skills coach for the San Francisco Giants. Players must develop the ability to block out distractions, says Mr. Tewksbury, author of “Ninety Percent Mental..." Ken Ravizza, a mental-skills coach for the Chicago Cubs, teaches players to stay aware of their mental state by imagining an inner...

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Baseball was once something sacred to me. The ballparks, any ballpark seemed a shrine. Even empty, they were full. Dreams were scattered in the stands, cleats kicked up dirt to dig in at home. The crack of a bat in the sweet spot lingers, decides to stay, paints the air in that moment of glory. If you felt it, you never forget it. Flawless perfection is infrequent by definition. And the players, well, there’s no word that captures the reverence a 12 year-old holds for his favorite players. There’s something better before your pockets are filled with adulthood. I cried...

Game 3 was the 12th World Series game to go 12 innings and the fourth World Series Game to go 14 innings. It is the only World Series game to go 18 innings. Here are the longest World Series games in history by innings played: 2018 Game 3: Red Sox vs. Dodgers still playing in the 18th inning. 1916 Game 2: (Brooklyn) Dodgers beat Red Sox 2-1 in 14 innings. 2005 Game 3: White Sox beat Astros 7-5 in 14 innings. 2015 Game 1: Royals beat Mets 5-4 in 14 innings. Furthermore, Game 3 is also the longest World Series...

It is 3 am and the Red Sox Dodgers World Series Game Three is going into the 17th inning, a record for length by time and innings. Score 2 to 2.