Free Republic

Major League Baseball is threatening to kick Alex Rodriguez out of the game for life unless the New York Yankees star agrees not to fight a lengthy suspension for his role in the sport's latest drug scandal, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The person spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because no statements were authorized. Whether Commissioner Bud Selig would actually issue a lifetime suspension was unclear and a permanent ban could be shortened by arbitrator Fredric Horowitz to about 200 games, the person said. The number of players likely to be...

While we are still waiting on all the details to come in, the Red Sox are close to acquiring right-hander Jake Peavy from the Chicago White Sox. According to reports, Jose Iglesias (pitcured) will be sent to Detroit, and outfielder Avisail Garcia is going from Detroit to Chicago. Alex Speier of WEEI.com is reporting that 19-year-old Lowell infielder Cleuluis Rondon is one of three lower-level prospects who will be sent from Boston to Chicago to finalize the deal. We will have more information when this deal becomes final. UPDATE (12:02 AM): The Red Sox have announced the trade, including the...

Tim Lincecum of the World Champion San Francisco Giants has thrown a no hitter against the San Diego Padres, throwing 13 strikeouts over 148 pitches.

The best part of this job is the people you meet and the relationships developed over the course of the years. To that end, it was an honor to sit down recently and talk with Vin Scully. It's mindboggling to realize that Scully has been broadcasting Dodgers games on radio-television in Brooklyn and Los Angeles since 1950, a year before I was born ... During the course of a 20-minute conversation, I asked him about his stellar career and the Dodgers of yesterday and today. You may be surprised at some of his answers ...

Voting for All-Star starters ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern). Here are my All-Star teams. 34 players on a team, at least 13 pitchers, every team must have a representative. NATIONAL C: MOLINA, Posey 1B: VOTTO, Goldschmidt, Craig 2B: CARPENTER, Scutaro, Phillips SS: SEGURA, Cabrera, Desmond 3B: WRIGHT, Alvarez OF: GONZALEZ, Brown, Harper OF: GOMEZ, McCutcheon OF: BELTRAN, Cuddyer, Bruce P (13; 9 S, 4 R): HARVEY, Kershaw, Wainwright, Zimmermann, Lee, Corbin, Locke, Wood, Fernandez; Melancon, Mujica, Kimbrel, Grilli DL: Tulowitzski Honorable mention: 1B Freeman, OF Puig AMERICAN C: MAUER, Santana 1B: DAVIS, Fielder 2B: CANO, Pedroia, Kipnis SS: PERALTA,...

As the 50-year anniversary of his famous 16-inning duel against Warren Spahn approached, Giants Hall of Famer Juan Marichal was reluctant to directly criticize today's cautious approach to pitcher care. Marichal threw 227 pitches in beating the Braves 1-0 on July 2, 1963. Spahn threw 201, with Willie Mays blasting the last offering into the Candlestick Park seats. Such pitch counts are impossible to fathom today. In a story for Grantland.com, writer Rany Jazayerli noted that "there have been fewer 130-plus pitch outings over the past 12 years combined than there were every single season before the 1994-95 strike. This...

Perhaps you saw the mention in Sunday’s Sports section about the Christian iconography on the mound at Busch Stadium. Apparently, somebody on the grounds crew etches a cross into the dirt.... Still, I look at photos of that cross etched on the mound and I get the same sort of uneasy feeling I get when I hear the phrase “homeland security.” It used to be “national security.” Why did “national” morph into “homeland”? It happened about the same time politicians started wearing American flag lapel pins. Besides, I’m scared about terrorism. I’m convinced that fanatical, dedicated people with access to...

Baby's Parents Arrested After He Climbed Out A Window As They SleptThe daughter of legendary former Yankees manager Joe Torre was being hailed as a hero Wednesday, after she caught a 16-month-old baby that had fallen from an awning in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. As CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez reported, everyone in the neighborhood was talking about how the baby was dangling from the awning of the Sweetie Frozen Yogurt shop at 9104 Third Ave. in Brooklyn, when Cristina Torre, 44, came to the rescue. She happened to be walking along Third Avenue near 91st Street around 10 a.m. Wednesday when...

...The '74 Indians were a smorgasbord of mediocre and forgettable talent playing in an open-air mausoleum. That year, in a city that fielded one of the founding professional teams (the Forest Citys, incorporated there in 1869), 85 percent of the seats at home games went unsold. All those empty seats meant a balance sheet written in red. The team's executive vice president, Ted Bonda, could put up with losing teams and an ugly stadium (he had inherited both in 1972), but he would not tolerate insolvency. Bonda called a meeting to discuss options for improving attendance, which must have felt...

Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, possibly within the next few weeks, "Outside the Lines" has learned. If the suspensions are upheld, the performance-enhancing drug scandal would be the largest in American sports history. Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB's investigation, two sources told "Outside the Lines," giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players. One source familiar with the...

Coming off the first batting Triple Crown in 45 years, Miguel Cabrera ­is making a bid to be the first hitter to do so in consecutive seasons. He currently leads the American League in batting average (.391), RBI (55) and is one home run off the pace at 14. In a recent piece here at FanGraphs, Jeff Sullivan commented on Cabrera’s impressive all fields hitting and ability to cover the full strike zone with power. I have put together some imagery to highlight this ability and show a bit of why Cabrera is such a threat.

Nine-year-old Alayna Adams had just watched a video of her father, Lieutenant Colonel Will Adams, on the big screen at the Trop before throwing the ceremonial pitch at Thursday night's Tampa Bay Rays game. What came next might make your eyes water. Unbeknownst to his family, Lt. Colonel Adams was not only at the game to see her pitch, but he was the man behind the plate dressed in catcher's gear. After she bounced the pitch to the catcher, her father revealed himself to her by taking off his mask -- the reaction from Alayna was priceless as she raced...

A bad case of Tom Ricketts in Wrigley Field, Chicago. Major League sports team owners we will always have with us. They are different from the rest of us. Wake a normal person at three in the morning with a loud noise and he’ll yell, “Holy ****! What was that!?” Wake a major league team owner (any sport) at the same time with the same noise and he’ll explain, “We need a new ball-yard. And if you don’t buy us one with public money we’ll move the team to Keokuk.” When The Mob does this it’s called extortion. When major...

Steve Irwin jokes will still get you in trouble. Rick Mayer of The Tampa Tribune reports the Rays have made an official statement in regard to the polarizing picture of Raymond holding up a sign referencing a "Rays To Do List." Under the header, Steve Irwin—a popular wildlife expert who was killed by a stingray in 2006—has his name crossed out with "World Series" next on the to-do list agenda...

Found this on Facebook and realized the only thing missing was the coach...See the original here.

1st game of the season is 2 1/2 innings old and umps have blown 2 calls already. Replay shows guy clearly stealing second - called out. Worse - fly to left center trapped, but batter called out. When the replay was shown, even the announcers were kind of embarrassed.

MESA, Ariz. -- The Cubs are the fourth most valuable franchise in the major leagues at $1 billion, according to Forbe's annual valuation of all 30 teams. Forbes also estimates the Cubs had an operating income of $32.1 million last year, making them the most profitable team in baseball. Operating income was based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The business magazine said the Cubs figure to be in even better shape after 2014, when they can opt out of their WGN-TV deal and sign a more lucrative contract. Forbes said the Cubs made less than $50 million...

Spring training is a time during pre-season where players get to practice, play and make mistakes. This year, even the ball girls are getting in on the blunders. The Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays were in the top of the sixth inning this weekend when Rays' hitter Shelly Duncan hit a ground ball that bounced into left field foul territory. The ball was ruled fair, but a Hooters ball girl picked it up with her glove and handed it to a fan in the stands. The embarassing move wasn't a total loss. "She has no idea that she has...

Baseball card collectors and fans of the game are left scratching their heads after Topps made the decision to scrub mentions of Pete Rose and his Major League Baseball records from their products. ...... Yet, when it comes to players chasing Rose' records, his name is omitted. For example, Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski's card mentions his standing in regard to the "all-time record of 4,256" hits, but no mention as to who holds that mysterious record.

The line for single-game tickets outside #Marlins Park, less than 30 min before they go on sale I was certain every possible joke about baseball attendance in Florida had been exhausted over the past 20 years. Then I saw the tweet by Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post that included the photo (below) from the Miami Marlins Winter Warm Up event Saturday and realized we haven’t even scratched the surface. The Marlins have used up all of the goodwill a new taxpayer-funded stadium gave them just a year ago.