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The real story of MJ’s baseball career

February 7, 2024

The catcher called for a slider. Kevin Rychel shook him off. Rychel still asks himself, all these years later, why he did this. He rarely shook off the catcher back then, in the midst of a seven-year Minor League career in the Pirates’ organization. But on this muggy July night

Timeline of Say Hey Kid's legendary career

@mattkellyMLB
February 4, 2024

Decades after his final game, Willie Mays still stands among the greatest athletes and ambassadors baseball has ever seen. Few players, if any, have looked like a more natural fit to play baseball than Mays. He doesn’t top many all-time statistical lists (though he’s darn close in so many of

We found them: They're the worst team ever

December 29, 2023

The ballpark has no dugouts. It has no locker rooms. It has no restrooms, no concession stands and no scoreboard. No warning track lines its chain-link outfield fence. No plumbing routes run beneath its all-dirt infield or its spartan slab seats. Set foot in the facility known as Fleming Field

The legend of Spike & Fat Boy: A softball team loaded with MLB ringers

December 28, 2023

The game was well underway at Ted Williams Field in the North Park neighborhood. It was, it appeared, an ordinary evening in the San Diego City Softball League, with a handful of people in the stands watching grown men perform an athletic activity largely centered on the consumption of beer

D-backs GM Mike Hazen and late wife Nicole a true baseball love story

October 29, 2023

She would never retreat to the bedroom to sleep. Instead, she’d lay on the living room couch, waiting for her husband to come home from work, waiting to share in his joys or unpack his frustrations. It might be midnight before he’d walk through the door, and the kids would

10 years later, the oral history of Johan Santana's no-hitter

October 13, 2023

On the night of June 1, 2012, in the 8,020th game in franchise history, Johan Santana delivered the Mets’ first no-hitter. It required a Herculean pitch count, a questionable foul call and a generational catch by a Queens native at Citi Field. Ten years later, those who were present offered

How Bill Veeck and Larry Doby forged a lasting family friendship

September 27, 2023

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- It does not currently hang at CHS Field alongside Kevin Millar’s No. 15, Darryl Strawberry’s No. 17 and the other digits formally retired by the St. Paul Saints. But within the world of this ballclub that serves as the Triple-A affiliate of the nearby Twins, there

Fernandomania still resonates decades later

@JesseSanchezMLB
September 21, 2023

The screwball relies on movement and lots of feeling. It begins in one direction and unexpectedly breaks in the opposite direction. When it’s good, it’s incredible, and when executed perfectly, you’ll never forget it. --- Note: From Sept. 15-Oct. 15, MLB.com is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by highlighting stories that

A timeline of the Veeck family's zany imprint on baseball

@michaelsclair
September 19, 2023

If you've ever enjoyed a modern ballgame, you should thank a Veeck. Whether you dig the new pitch clock, the ivy on Wrigley's famed outfield walls, or the kind of wacky ballpark promotions that thrive in Major and Minor League parks around the country, it was likely the brainchild of

Oral history of Mark Buehrle's perfect game

Players, coaches reminisce about White Sox pitcher's famous feat
July 23, 2023

This story was originally published on July 23, 2015. CHICAGO -- There was a comment made by Mark Buehrle, shortly after throwing the second perfect game in White Sox franchise history, that perfectly summed up the surprise of the day's event, even for the left-hander. "I don't know how to

This rookie is living his father’s MLB dream

@juanctoribio
June 17, 2023

LOS ANGELES -- When asked how many hits his father, Cuban baseball legend Lazaro Vargas, recorded during his illustrious career in the Cuban National Series, Miguel Vargas quickly answers: 991. He can recite all of his father’s on-field accomplishments, highlighted by his two Olympic gold medals. And yet, despite a

'One of a kind, one of his own': How Eury paved his way from DR to MLB

@cdenicola13
May 12, 2023

Marlins top prospect Eury Pérez needs a moment. He is standing inside the visiting clubhouse at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Fla., after making his final Grapefruit League start, fielding questions about everything from his fourth-inning struggles against the Mets to the return of mentor Sandy Alcantara from the

Remembering the most dominant start ever

To celebrate the anniversary of 20-strikeout game, Wood, Astros hitters recall what it was like
@alysonfooter
May 6, 2023

When you're a right-handed pitcher from Texas, and you throw hard, and you have been tabbed as "The Next Big Thing," the comparisons are inevitable. Nolan Ryan. Roger Clemens. Kerry Wood? Wood was still a fresh-faced kid starring at Grand Prairie High School when the comparisons to Ryan and Clemens

Gifted G-Rod seemed destined for this moment in MLB spotlight

@JakeDRill
April 5, 2023

It was a damp, humid Wednesday morning during Spring Training in Sarasota, Fla. Grayson Rodriguez arrived at the Orioles’ clubhouse early, as he often does. He went through his camp routine: showering, putting on workout clothes and then sitting down at his locker amid the typical chitchat happening around him.

Can Jordan Walker possibly be this good already?

Jordan Walker, 20, has talent and brains to match his huge frame
@JohnDenton555
March 24, 2023

JUPITER, Fla. -- The first indication that Jordan Walker might be different -- in terms of a brimming confidence, an advanced maturity and a high baseball IQ -- came during a low-profile meeting between the Cardinals and the then-17-year-old prodigy in December 2019. Walker, a somewhat gawky teen at the

Here's how Team USA got its superstars to say ‘yes’

March 10, 2023

It is USA Baseball’s answer to the “Dream Team” -- a 30-man roster packed with future Hall of Famers, perennial All-Stars, MVPs and rising studs. Even the coaching staff has eye-popping names from baseball past. The American entry for the 2023 World Baseball Classic is arguably the top-to-bottom best squad

When the Braves became the Bees

January 16, 2023

There will be a buzz in the building when that day comes that the Braves raise their 2021 World Series banner and receive their rings. But had baseball history worked out a bit differently, we’d be brandishing that “buzz” word not just in description of the exciting scene at Truist

From Venezuela to top prospect, Moreno's journey guided by family

@juliackreuz and @KeeganMatheson
January 3, 2023

This story was originally published June 8, 2022, and has been edited to reflect the December 2022 trade between the D-backs and Blue Jays which sent Gabriel Moreno to Arizona. One of Gabriel Moreno’s earliest baseball memories is retiring. He was eight or nine years old and had no other

Roberto Clemente: Forever 3,000

Legend has eternally represented skill, honor and personal sacrifice
November 24, 2022

No one knew it at the time, but the great Roberto Clemente’s quest to become just the 11th player in history to reach 3,000 career hits was also a race against the clock. Tragically, Clemente had just a few short months left to live when he entered the 1972 season

Here's how the Yanks landed Judge in '13 Draft

Slugger, scouts, coaches recount rise from awkward teen to powerful prospect
@feinsand
October 4, 2022

Aaron Judge, the new AL home run king with 62, has become one of the biggest names in Major League Baseball, though his road to stardom was a long and winding one. From his time as a marginal prospect in high school to his selection by the Yankees in the

The coin flip that saved baseball in Seattle

October 4, 2022

The two-tone Bulova watch sat untouched in a dresser drawer in Metuchen, N.J., for many years. Yet much like its owner, it came through when called upon. Carolyn Taylor had received the watch as a gift way back in 1995 and had not worn it in quite a while. But

Baseball's top prospect is 20, powerful and laser-focused

Francisco Álvarez's makeup every bit as impressive as physical gifts
September 30, 2022

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Francisco Álvarez is a baseball player, un jugador. Always has been. Álvarez’s mother, Yolanda, likes to tell of the time when Álvarez, just 2 or 3 years old, snuck under some netting and wandered onto his older brother’s field in Venezuela. Once there, he found an adult-sized

Vera and Roberto: Everlasting love, legacies

@JesseSanchezMLB
September 15, 2022

The final months of Vera Clemente’s life were filled with beautiful images and vivid dreams. Her husband, Roberto Clemente, was a constant presence in these visions, she would tell others. He’d pick her up in a brand-new Cadillac and they would drive around Puerto Rico, just like the old days.

An oral history of a record that may never be broken

@JoeTrezz
September 6, 2022

27 years ago today, Cal Ripken Jr. played his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig’s unbreakable 56-year-old record to become baseball’s new Iron Man. The Orioles’ 4-2 win over the Angels that night was a generational event, a celebration of one of its most beloved figures. Ripken’s streak has been

The crack-of-dawn call to Larry Doby that changed baseball

July 5, 2022

Larry Doby got what shut-eye he could as the bus carrying him and his Negro League teammates made its trek from Wilmington, Del., to Newark, N.J., in the early morning hours of Thursday, July 3, 1947. As Doby slept that night 75 years ago, he did not know about the