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After being presented with the Mariners Franchise Achievement Award -- the first player to receive the honor -- Ichiro talked for five minutes [without his interpreter] about his appreciation for the support he received in Seattle and across the Major Leagues after coming to the U.S. to pursue his baseball dreams. “This is a happy occasion...When I came to Seattle in 2001, no position player had ever come from Japan before. The one you got was 27 years old, small and skinny. “And I know, you had every reason not to accept me. However, you welcomed me with open arms...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzbJn2UAoIs He was Major League Baseball's first superstar. The first man ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And he still has the game's highest career batting average – .366 – almost 90 years after he retired. His name is Ty Cobb. Yet, despite his historic achievements, he is often remembered for being the worst racist and the dirtiest player ever to take the field. If you know baseball, you've heard the stories: Ty Cobb would pistol-whip black men he passed on the street. He once stabbed to death a black waiter in Cleveland just because the young man...

ROYSTON, Ga. (AP) -- While gazing at one of the exhibits in the Ty Cobb Museum, a visitor overhears a discussion about the many sides of the Georgia Peach. A dirty player or a fierce competitor? A despicable racist or a generous philanthropist? The visitor jumps into the debate with someone from a different sport, a different time, but the analogy seems to work. ``He's like Dale Earnhardt,'' said Ralph Nix, who stopped by the museum while in this northeast Georgia town on business. ``Half the people cheered him. Half the people booed him. That's just the way it is...

Ty Cobb was one of the greatest baseball players of all time and king of the so-called Deadball Era. He played in the major leagues—mostly for the Detroit Tigers but a bit for the Philadelphia Athletics—from 1905 to 1928, and was the first player ever voted into the Hall of Fame. His lifetime batting average of .366 is amazing, and has never been equaled. But for all that, most Americans think of him first as an awful person—a racist and a low-down cheat who thought nothing of injuring his fellow players just to gain another base or score a run....

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, host of the "Situation Room," Washington Post personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary, and longtime CBS Radio White House correspondent Peter Maer are being inducted into the Washington Journalism Hall of Fame. On June 11, the Society of Professional Journalists will install the three to its hall at an awards dinner. The hall has several journalism titans on its list including Joseph Alsop, Jack Anderson, Helen Thomas, and Brian Lamb of C-SPAN. … [snip]

Baseball legend Pete Rose took a shot at his former teammate and Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench on Thursday during an appearance on “The Brian Kilmeade Show.” Rose fired back after Bench refused to budge from his view that the former Cincinnati Reds star should be excluded from the Baseball Hall of Fame for gambling on the sport in 1989. “It don't bother me but you know Johnny Bench is one guy who should thank God I was born,” Rose told host Brian Kilmeade. “Because he never would have made the Hall of Fame if I wasn't born.” Kilmeade...

A decades-old classic that joins the likes of Doom, Tetris, Pokémon, and The Legend of Zelda When selecting new entires for the World Video Game Hall of Fame, judges consider a number of criteria. Is the game widely known and remembered? Has its popularity endured over the years? And did it influence not only other video games, but society in general? Microsoft Solitaire, bundled with the Windows operating system since 1990, might seem like a modest example of video gaming culture, but it easily meets the above benchmarks. And so, as of this month, it’s now an official member of...

Forrest Gregg, who earned the nickname "Iron Man" for playing in a then-record 188 consecutive NFL games during his Hall of Fame career, died Friday in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was 85. Barbara Gregg said her husband of 59 years died from complications of Parkinson's disease. The former offensive lineman, who was a seven-time All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowler, played 15 seasons in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys from 1956 to 1971. Legendary coach Vince Lombardi once called Gregg "the best player I ever coached."

BOSTON —Six-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady spoke about how his wife Gisele Bundchen has used some unusual ways to keep luck on her husband's side.... "I've learned a lot from my wife over the years," Brady said while laying down in a barber's chair. "She's about the power of intention, believing that things are really going to happen." Brady said Bundchen put together a little altar for him that he could bring with pictures of his kids.... I have these little special stones, healing stones, protection stones and she has me wear a necklace, take these drops she makes,...

“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...

Soul singer Gladys Knight, who will be singing the national anthem at this year’s Super Bowl in Atlanta, seemed to criticize Colin Kaepernick in a statement published by Variety on Friday.

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.

CHICAGO (AP) — Hall of Fame tight end and former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka is recovering from a mild heart attack. Steve Mandell, Ditka's agent, tells ESPN that doctors inserted a pacemaker. He says Ditka "is doing much better," and the iconic coach "appreciates the outpouring of support and expects to be home soon." The Bears wished Ditka "a speedy recovery" on Twitter.

Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster and Hall of Fame baseball player Mike Schmidt has taken some heat for a joke he made about women, dishwashing and the #MeToo movement during a game Saturday, according to the New York Post. Schmidt, who has made controversial remarks in the past, is an analyst on Comcast SportsNet. Schmidt’s joke came during a discussion about a humorous tweet from an Atlanta Braves player’s wife about an injury. Amanda McCarthy @Mrs_McCarthy32 Whoa so much happened. Dislocated your shoulder, made the out, popped it back in, then just walked around normal? But you still can’t do the dishes......

NEW YORK – It has been five months since the FBI arrested 10 men in a sweeping federal probe into the underbelly of the basketball world. As the three ongoing criminal cases resulting from the investigation plod along, it’s increasingly unlikely there will be another wave of double-digit arrests. More legal charges still could come, but what’s becoming increasingly clear as the discovery portion of the case comes to a close is that the breadth of potential NCAA rules violations uncovered is wide enough to fundamentally and indelibly alter the sport of college basketball. The soundtrack to the three federal...

Jack Morris and Alan Trammell were both elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame today, as announced on the MLB Network. The two longtime Tigers greats were voted in via the HOF’s Modern Baseball Era Committee, who weighed the cases of Morris, Trammell and eight others who weren’t originally selected in the traditional writers’ vote. (MLB.com’s Barry M. Bloom has the details on the Modern Era Committee’s composition and process.) Both Morris and Trammell went the full 15 years on the Baseball Writers’ Association Of America ballot without getting the necessary 75% of the vote necessary for election. Still, both...

Country music singer Mel Tillis, whose six-decade career included hits such as “I Ain’t Never” and “Coca Cola Cowboy” and who never let his stutter get in the way of him becoming a legend, died on Sunday, his publicist confirmed. He was 85. Tillis passed away at Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla., his publicist Don Murry Grubbs said. The music legend is believed to have died from respiratory failure after he never recovered from intestinal issues he has been battling since 2016. He leaves behind his longtime partner, Kathy DeMonaco, his six children and six grandchildren. Tillis recorded...

The Finnish Flash will light up the Hockey Hall Of Fame. Teemu Selanne was the lock to be named among the 2017 inductees voted in Monday afternoon in his first year of eligibility, joined by three former NHLers who had been on the waiting list: Paul Kariya, Dave Andreychuk and Mark Recchi. Canadian national women world and Olympic champion Danielle Goyette rounded out the player category. Two builders were also added: long-time Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and Canadian university coaching legend Clare Drake, who ran the University of Alberta program.

No kidding. Very happy news for me yesterday: Detroit Tiger Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez was voted into the Hall of Fame. (What? He played for some other teams as well? I don’t care.) Magglio Ordonez deserved better than his one-year-and-out fate. Carlos Guillen deserved better than zero votes. You may disagree, and you might even care about players who never played for the Tigers, although I can’t imagine why. But that’s one of the things the Hall of Fame elections are for - debate among fans.

An email from a sport made me flash back to my youth, 50 years ago, said to my wife where will Warren Spahn rank. Then the famous game of Spahn versus Marichal, the old warrior going against the Kid. Surprise, surprise with their new baseball metrics neither Spahn not Marichal made the top 25. The email and slide show made my junk file. Interesting article that points out how neither guy would give an inch for 16 innings. "Alvin Dark tried to take Marichal out for the first time in the ninth. The conversation did not go well. Marichal refused...