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Don Sutton, the curly-haired, wise-cracking Hall of Fame right-hander whose remarkable durability enabled him to amass 324 wins, 3,574 strikeouts and 58 shutouts over 23 major league seasons without the benefit of a blazing fastball, died Monday night according to his son. He had been battling kidney cancer. He was 75. Sutton first contracted advanced kidney cancer in 2008 and had been a national spokesman for the Kidney Cancer Association and the Bayer and Onyx Companies , producers of the drug Nexavar which helped prolong his life for another 13 years.

Major League Baseball reportedly informed teams Monday that they should expect to start spring training on time and prepare for a full 162-game campaign. The league also outlined guidelines for letting fans into games, not requiring vaccination checks or negative test results but enforcing social-distancing guidelines and other spread-prevention measures.M USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale reported Monday that the Major League Baseball Players Association “vigorously” fought against playing anything less than a full season. The two sides bickered back and forth for weeks last spring trying to negotiate the framework for the 2020 season in a spat that spilled into the...

Dodgers Hall of Fame great Tommy Lasorda has died, the team announced. He was 93. The Dodgers in a statement confirmed that Lasorda passed away Thursday night. Lasorda had been hospitalized in Orange County in November with an undisclosed ailment. He was in the hospital for six weeks before returning home in early January. The 93-year-old was known for his enthusiasm for baseball and especially the Dodgers. Lasorda found his calling as a manager after an unsuccessful 14-year stint in the minors as a pitcher. In three major league stints, Lasorda went 0-4 in nearly a 6.5 ERA with Kansas...

LOS ANGELES -- Tommy Lasorda, the son of Italian immigrants and a professional pitcher who became a legendary Dodgers manager, global baseball ambassador and national treasure, died on Thursday. He was 93.Commissioner Rob Manfred issued the following statement:“Tommy Lasorda was one of the finest managers our game has ever known. He loved life as a Dodger. His career began as a pitcher in 1949 but he is, of course, best known as the manager of two World Series champions and four pennant-winning clubs. His passion, success, charisma and sense of humor turned him into an international celebrity, a stature that...

Sandra Scully, the beloved wife of Dodgers’ Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully, died Sunday evening, the Scully family announced. She was 76. Sandra had been battling with Lou Gehrig’s disease for several years and received care at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she ultimately succumbed to complications from ALS. She was born on Dec. 27, 1944, in Cascade, Virginia, and married Vin in November of 1973. Scully leaves behind 93-year-old Vin, her husband of 48 years, and children Catherine, Kelly, Erin, Todd, Kevin and Michael, as well as 21 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The couple had one...

ATLANTA — Phil Niekro threw a pitch that baffled hitters and catchers. Heck, he didn’t even know where it was going most of the time. But the knuckleball carried Niekro to more than 300 wins, earned him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame and left him with a nickname that stuck for the rest of his life...Knucksie. The longtime stalwart of the Atlanta Braves rotation died after a long fight with cancer, the team announced Sunday, becoming the seventh member of the Hall of Fame to pass away in 2020. He was 81. Niekro won 318 games over...

ATLANTA -- Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro has died at the age of 81.Niekro passed away in his sleep on Saturday night. The suburban Atlanta resident had a longtime battle with cancer.

Major League Baseball on Wednesday announced that records of Negro Leagues players will be included in the game's official statistics, in a "long overdue recognition."...The records and stats of 3,400 players who competed in seven leagues for Black players between 1920 and 1948, will be included in MLB records, officials said.

During the annual “Hat’s off to Heroes” Ceremony with the Boston Red Sox, the team typically honors members of the military but it’s 2020 and this year team the decided to honor 32-year-old Black Lives Matter leader Ernst Jean-Jacques Jr. On Saturday, Jean-Jacques Jr. was arrested in Swampscott, Massachusetts for punching an 80-year-old female who was attending a support rally for President Trump. OutKick reported that Jacques Jr., was released on $550 bail. According to ItemLive, he was charged with assault and battery on a person 60 years or older. According to his Facebook page, Jacques Jr. was approached by...

In the latest episode of corporate wokeness fixing a problem that doesn’t actually exist, the Major League Baseball team the Cleveland Indians is changing its name after having used the moniker for 105 years. This follows the decision by the Washington Redskins of the National Football League to change their name this season. Whatever you think of that decision by what is now the Washington Football Team, it is plainly obvious that these two cases are nothing alike. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the term “Indian” to indicate a Native American is not even remotely...

The Cleveland Indians shocked their fans by announcing the historic team will be changing its name. Fans of the 105-year-old team have been loyal through times of heartache when losing seasons were all that were on the horizon. Fans Outrage Over Cleveland Indians Name Change That loyalty was crushed as fans took to social media to express their outrage. Some fans called the move a betrayal while others stated they will never attend games after a name change.

The Cleveland Indians will be bowing to pressure from mostly Caucasian social justice warriors over their “racist” nickname. An announcement is expected as early as this week.The NY Times reported the long-time Major League Baseball franchise will be following the Washington Football Team, formerly known as the Redskins, in pandering to demands by those who are easily offended by traditions. That means Chief Wahoo, the iconic mascot for the team, will no longer be employed. According to The Times:Following years of protests from fans and Native American groups, the Cleveland Indians have decided to change their team name, moving away...

Cleveland's Major League Baseball team has decided to change its nickname, moving away from the moniker it has employed for more than 100 years and that is considered insensitive to indigenous peoples, according to David Waldstein and Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times. An announcement from the team could come as soon as this week, per the Times. It's unclear how Cleveland will refer to itself during the upcoming season. One option is to keep the name for an additional year before then transitioning to a new identity; another is to go the route of the National Football...

Former Chicago White Sox first baseman Dick Allen, credited by many for saving the franchise from relocation, died Monday after a long illness. He was 78.

The objection is to the culture, not the people. The objection is to the people manipulating and controlling the culture, not the people being manipulated and controlled. The puppet masters want you to read my words as a rebuke of black people. It’s a rebuke of the puppet masters, the organizers of the “Unapologetically Black Olympics” that I referenced last week in columns that explored comedian Dave Chappelle’s Saturday Night Live monologue. I am repulsed by the people who have worked tirelessly for more than 400 years to convince black people that our skin color is our most prized asset...

Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty Monday against former Major League Baseball prospect Brandon Martin in the 2015 triple murder of his father, uncle and a home alarm installer. Martin, once a top prospect for the Tampa Bay Rays, was convicted in the slayings Wednesday. He had been on a mental health hold two days before the slayings. The family was installing an alarm system on Sept. 17, 2015 at their Corona, Calif., home after he repeatedly displayed violent behavior toward them. Prosecutors said Martin used a baseball bat to beat to death his wheelchair-bound father, Michael Martin,...

The 1960 World Series is the archetype: the Yankees won games by scores of 10–0, 12–0 and 16–3, but the Pirates won four close games. Bill Mazeroski hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning of game 7 to clinch the World Series, and the Pirates won it all despite being outscored by 28 runs (55–27) in seven games. That’s the most extreme - and by far the most famous - case. But it is not particularly rare for the team that scores fewer net runs to end up winning the World Series - in fact, it...

The Los Angeles Dodgers finally tasted victory in October on Tuesday, winning the 2020 World Series. The ratings of the contest itself weren’t nearly as victorious. Game 6 of this year’s World Series, a 3-1 Dodgers win to clinch the series, drew in 12.6 million viewers, according to the Associated Press. That made it the most-watched game of the series, but also cemented an ignominious record for the 2020 Fall Classic. The series ended up averaging 9.785 million viewers per game, shattering the record for lowest average viewership in a World Series, according to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch. The previous...

More important is that Trump win. One week from now.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Tampa Bay Rays won Saturday night's Game 4 on one of the wildest finishes in World Series history, capitalizing on a disastrous error by the Los Angeles Dodgers to secure an 8-7 come-from-behind victory and tie the series at 2-2. With two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning, Brett Phillips, a seldom-used outfielder, laced a single to center field off Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, bringing in the tying run. That's when things got wild.