Baseball in American history occupies a coveted place in our national identity. Like apple pie and the image of our flag, baseball is iconic to our nation and is intertwined with its history. As we have evolved as a nation so too has the sport of baseball. For one thing, American baseball history stretches back almost as far, if not further, than the history of our nation.
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Baseball over the past few years has captured many headlines that it did not want as steroid testing in baseball became a major issue. It’s hard to gauge whether the sport of baseball has any more steroid users than other sports but its lax approach to testing and the lateness of the rules banning their use has lead to a slow parade of current and ex-players being outed as users. Baseball steroid testing has evolved into a program with some backbone now and the proposed plan is even stricter.
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Known by many names over a long career in the formative years of the major leagues, George Herman Ruth, as any biography of Babe Ruth will tell you, was and is larger than life. From his dominant stature to his dominant personality and his larger-than-life accomplishments on the field, the Babe Ruth life lives on more than 60 years after his death. The autobiography of Babe Ruth, written by Ruth himself, was probably one of the few that did not need to be written since his life was so well documented from his early entry into baseball.
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Earlier this month the Atlanta Braves inked a Chipper Jones contract that will most likely ensure that he accomplishes the rarest of feats in modern sport: to only play for one team his entire career. Chipper Jones career is likely to end in Atlanta after signing a $42 million three-year contract that has performance options that could extend into a fourth season and a total of $61 million. Jones would be 41 at the end of the contract if it does extend. The oldest active players in Major League Baseball are both 45 years old and are both pitchers.
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Controversy erupted during the first inning of an otherwise normal summer meeting between the Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Devil Rays when, during the first inning of the game, Sammy Sosa’s bat broke and umpires found cork inside. The Sammy Sosa bat was quickly picked up as evidence and Sosa was removed from the game. The question for fans everywhere was how prevalent were corked bats in the rest of Sammy Sosa’s life?
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Major League professional pitchers choose to throw different types of pitches like a chef chooses ingredients–they are meant to dazzle and surprise. Learning how to throw different types of pitches is important for aspiring pitches of all levels because having a variety of choices keeps the batter guessing and the pitcher ahead in the count. Though there are many types of pitches used in the majors these are the five most common and important to know:
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In order to respond to today’s energy and global warming crisis, Major Leagues Baseball has developed some innovative eco friendly solutions. In conjunction with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the league came up with a number of eco friendly services and recommendations to help make the league as green as their splendid infields.
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The top fantasy draft picks for Major League Baseball fans is now an annual right of passage. Choosing their top fantasy pick baseball fans assemble teams that perform for them each and every game bringing their assembled team to the top or bottom of their pool. Many positions will have an impact in the outcome but this year many will have more than the fantasy baseball pitcher, a rarity in fantasy picks. Here is a review of the top fantasy picks for 2009:
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The 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame list was full of players with impressive careers but only one player made this year’s cut. Typically, 2-4 players will make it through the hall of fame list and into the famed Cooperstown but this year voters were very stingy allowing four non-players and only one former player to enter the coveted real estate.
Continue reading “History of American Baseball Hall of Fame”
The baseball World Series Game has been part of the American experience for over 100 years. Each October the best team from the American League meets the best from the National League in what has come to be known simply as the Fall Classic. In the World Series baseballs best clash to play out what have become some of the most memorable baseball games filled with highlights and folklore.
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The 2008 baseball playoffs ended with the Philadelphia Phillies playing the Tampa Bay Rays in a best of seven series to crown a champion. The best 2008 baseball milestones occurred as teams fought for one of eight playoff positions. The 2008 baseball playoff brackets contained a first time contender, a team that had to play a one game playoff to win the American League Central, and excluded a team for the first time in 13 years. Some of the best baseball prospects 2008 accomplished a few of the best baseball moments of the year.
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Continue reading “You Can Hate Baseball Only If You Never Played It!”
Everyone seems to have an opinion on the most effective fantasy baseball strategies. Will these strategies guarantee you’ll win your fantasy baseball pool? Just like the game of baseball itself there are no “magic” formulas for winning. The only thing you can do is try to increase your odds by employing an effective fantasy baseball draft strategy. For another quality fantasy baseball strategy, game statistics from the previous year should be reviewed. You can’t control injuries or player slumps but you can mitigate their influence by planning your fantasy baseball strategies before the draft.
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The man who invented the baseball wasn’t really a man at the time of his creation he was a schoolchild who loved the game of “round-ball”. His place in the history of baseball in the United States is one of recognition only as he never made a dime on his invention. He is not to be confused with the man who invented the “game” baseball. In fact, the man who invented baseball may not be who you think it is. Let’s take a look at baseball history and see if we can unravel the mystery of America’s pastime.
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Continue reading “The Most Outrageous Professional Baseball Uniforms!”
For the last seven years or so a new wave of baseball statistical analysis has overtaken the general managers in most Major League Baseball clubhouses. When Michael Lewis wrote “Moneyball” he reordered what the league considered valuable baseball players. The statistics that Lewis introduced to the mainstream turned the value of offensive players on its head. And through its two editions, “The Fielding Bible” has begun to do the same to defensive baseball players.
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This subject has caused many good-natured discussions between family and friends as well as some not so good-natured arguments. The question “what are the best baseball teams in history?” has plagued baseball fans for close to a century and a half. Different eras, fan loyalties, baseball lore, and long held beliefs combine to make this question very difficult to answer. How do the best baseball teams 2008 rank and are the players currently on the best high school baseball teams going to bring a new team to the forefront in the future? Here are what we consider to be the top 10 best baseball teams…we’ll leave it up to you to decide the #1 spot.
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The National League of Major League Baseball not only crowned the World Series champion in 2008, it always rewarded some familiar faces in its postseason awards. Both the the National League MVP and the Manager of the Year 2008 have already won those titles at least once. The Cy Young Award, and, of course, the National Rookie of the Year went to newcomers.
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During the 2007-2008 seasons and offseason there was no relaxation for New York Yankee star Alex Rodriguez. Used to facing the pressure at the plate, Rodriguez took three strikes in life and limped back to the dugout. He went through the Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal, the Alex Rodriguez Madonna scandal and just the plain old Alex Rodriguez scandal regarding his agent Scott Boras and his on again, off again contract with the Yankees. Baseball’s best all-around player just couldn’t skirt one issue after another.
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The spectacle of sport is enhanced if not created by rivalries and no rivalry has lasted as long as the Boston Red Sox vs. Yankees. The Red Sox Yankees rivalry not only matches some of the best baseball teams of this era but consistently has matched up some of the best baseball teams in history.
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There are dramatic differences between the major and minor baseball leagues in America. Though major league baseball and minor league baseball share the same rule book, that is about where the commonality ends. The size of the leagues, pay scales, players, venues and many other factors are worlds apart.
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After the 2008 season, there were plenty of high profile baseball free agents that teams could not wait to sign. While economic worries caused teams to move cautiously, there soon were enough blockbuster trades to keep every baseball free agent tracker busy. Though no records were set for individual contracts, the baseball free agent list below shows that 2009 was still very kind to the big names.
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In the summer of 2008, fans saw what might have been the last time that baseball at the Summer Olympics will be held. The 10-day tournament at the Wukeson Baseball Field in Beijing, China will be the last time baseball summer games take place unless the IOC (International Olympic Committee) votes to reinstate it later this year. Baseball will definitely not be held at the 2012 Olympics in London.
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The fastest baseball pitchers in history are difficult to pin down due the lack of reliable measuring devices in the early years. The fastest baseball pitch ever recorded, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is Nolan Ryan’s 100.9 mph fastball thrown in a game against the Chicago White Sox in 1974. That record has been eclipsed by various pitchers and we’ve included a list of the fastest baseball pitches below. The fastest recorded baseball pitch as of this writing was accomplished by Joel Zumaya in October 2006. The fastest pitch in baseball history may soon be recorded by a college junior who routinely throws over 100 mph.
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Continue reading “What are the Three Whales of Baseball Rules Regulations?”
Any biography of Ted Williams will run through the various nicknames that his great baseball batting brought him: Teddy Ballgame, the Splendid Splinter, and The Thumper. Perhaps the most descriptive of all was the first one he was given and the one that stuck until the end: simply The Kid. After all, he began his professional career before he finished high school.
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The highest scoring game in baseball Major League history is not just one game. There is one game that had the highest combined baseball game score and another where one team scored more runs than any other in history. Both of these games (actually three total) were incredible outliers for a game where the average score usually adds up to ten runs or less. The other interesting fact about all of these highest scoring games in baseball is that none of them featured stars sluggers that you would expect in these home run derbies.
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The best baseball video games of recent years show dramatic improvements in most cases with better engines driving more realistic graphics and more astute management functions. The market for video games has also become more exclusive. Each system has their own titles and the best baseball games 2008 and other recent years depend on which system you use. The best baseball games PC are different titles and designers than the best baseball games XBOX and those for Sony Playstation. Moreover, the genre suffered a big setback a few years ago when Electronic Arts stopped making baseball video games.
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Major League Baseball has teamed up with many international non profit organizations in its lifetime but perhaps none is quite as near to its heart as the ALS Association. ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) is a devastating disease that is known more often as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” named for the Hall of Fame first baseman who was struck with this disease that cut short his storybook career in the major league of baseball.
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USA Today Sports lines released its annual “100 Names You Need to Know” at the beginning of April. This annual list of top prospects who are set to play in the Major Leagues during the coming season, is so influential that the USA Today sports spreads change for teams that are lucky enough to have players in the top 10.
USA Today Sports Weekly: Top 10 for 2009
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The 2008 baseball all star game was the last one to be held in Yankee Stadium. This version of the all stars baseball game was the 79th exhibition between the American and National leagues. The 2009 baseball all star game will commemorate the 80th exhibition to determine home field advantage for the World Series. In a closely fought game there were a couple of “dingers” that left some lucky fans all star game baseballs as souvenirs.
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There are a number of teams in baseball that are still waiting to win their first World Series title. For some, they have visited the championship but not come away with the baseball World Series title. For others, they have never made it at all. For some teams it has been so long since their last World Series title that no one who is alive can remember it.
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The longest baseball game ever held measured by playing time in Major League history history covered two long days and stretched over 25 innings. It was outdone by 1 inning for the title of longest baseball game judged by number of innings. The longest playoff game in baseball history was a deciding game of the series that covered 18 innings.
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Injuries are part of every professional sport and teams know their season records will, in large part, reflect their health throughout the season. But with baseball arm injuries and baseball shoulder injuries the Major League always seems to have the most stars out at any one time. Last season was no exception and the baseball injuries 2008 list devastated some teams and created opportunities for others.
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In a sport that has been called ageless, an old MLB player is a fairly common sight. Where football players rarely make it into their 30s and basketball stars are done in by their mid 30s, the average MLB player age can run into the late 40s, with the player still being an effective team member. The oldest current MLB player reinforces this point.
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Continue reading “Baseball Most Aggressive Players: Walter Perry Johnson”
The 2009 preseason baseball rankings are out and the top two picks are no surprise. The biggest movers and shakers in the offseason are expected to dominate the season and head towards glory in the postseason. Though it is not exactly the same as school baseball preseason rankings have a science all of their own.
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Each year the Baseball Hall of Fame list grows by a few deserving players, umpires and office executives. The 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame added just one player to Cooperstown, despite a deep pool of nominees. The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) votes each year to choose which players make it to the hallowed hall.
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For Yankee Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard 2008 may have been his last time up in the press box. After 57 years announcing for the New York Yankees, Sheppard supposedly told the New York Times on April 1 that he is retiring at the age of 98, ending an era that was almost uninterrupted in Yankee lore.
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Well, at least there is no sign that the recession is hitting baseball player pay in the Major Leagues. Though clubs have trimmed overall payroll coming into the 2009 season by 3-5%, high baseball player wages are just concentrated on fewer because they are making as much money as they ever have.
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The Tampa Bay Rays uniforms and name changed before the 2008 season so that they could sever ties to their losing past. It seems to have worked. The Tampa Bay Rays shrugged off a decade of losing along with their blue and white jerseys and made it all the way to the World Series. Now, the Rays are the envy of the league–a full blown phenomenon that has yet again redefined the model of success in baseball.
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Continue reading “Baseball Most Aggressive Players: Christy Mathewson Biography”
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When choosing the most popular baseball players one must take into account the different eras they played in. Are we picking popular baseball players of all time or of the current crop of players that take the field each week? Let’s do both. We’ll look at the most well-known players in baseball, most popular in the fan’s eyes or even those who are infamous. Below we have listed what we consider to be the five most popular baseball players of all time and the five who are the best well-known today.
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It’s been a while since the Chicago Cubs won any baseball World Series titles. Actually, it has been a little longer than that. In fact, it has been over a century since the “lovable losers,” the Cubbies looked like they would be on the path to win the most world series titles.
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Major League Baseball is all about strategy: knowing when to run, when to hit big, and being able to read the signals. But outside of the baseball stadium the strategy of these players left something to be desired. Even though they made gads of money in their time playing ball, all of these famous players went bankrupt after their career was over or while they still were playing ball.
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There have been some super slugger characters throughout the history of Major League Baseball. These players are also generally the most revered by fans because they can win the game at any point for the team. Great pitchers can give the team a great lead but often they are swapped out by the middle of the game when the great sluggers are called on to perform.
This is a list of the greatest sluggers in Major League history. So what makes a big slugger? Just one thing: home runs. Forget about finesse, a great batting average or on-base percentage: sluggers take it out of the park.
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Continue reading “Baseball Most Aggressive Players: Ty Cobb Biography”
Work with the Derek Jeter Hurricane in the offseason may have helped its endorser move up in the batting ranks in the real Yankee season. Yankee skipper recently moved the shortstop to the leadoff position from his traditional number two spot. Though Jeter’s numbers won’t be confused with those of the greatest leadoff hitter, his numbers make him a good choice.
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Who Invented the First Baseball Bat?Continue reading “5 Funny Facts From the History of The Baseball Bat!”
Right across from the old stadium and not too far from the very average Howard Johnson Yankee Stadium has finally been completed after a $1.8 billion cost and 2 1/2 years of construction. The new Yankee Stadium is, of course, the best ball stadium in the league, eclipsing even the most lavish dreams of fans and players.
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Longtime baseball great Herman Franks died at age 95 on March 30, 2009. The player from many eras of baseball veteran will be remembered as both the Giants manager and as a Cubs manager. Franks was also a player early in a professional baseball career that stretched just under 50 years. Perhaps best now remembered for controversy, Herman Franks was emblematic of the highs and the lows of professional competition.
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In the past few years baseball steroid use has come to the forefront of scrutiny with a seeming endless number of stars admitting to or being accused of using performance enhancing drugs. In response to this, baseball steroid policy has toughened considerably but what are now being discovered are transgressions by stars before this policy took effect. The greatest name mentioned in connection with this offense is none other than pitcher Roger Clemens.
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The top paid baseball players in terms of total career pay have, not surprisingly, all come from the recent era of baseball. In fact, eight of the ten top baseball players all time on the pay list are still active in the Major Leagues so their totals may actually increase in the future.
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The team that has won the most baseball Word Series titles is the New York Yankees and it is not even close. The Bronx Bombers have won World Series title 26 times since they became a professional ball club way back in 1903. Their last World Series title was in 2000. They are the winningest franchise in all sports in North America.
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The Boston Red Sox field known as Fenway Ballpark was inaugurated into the league back on April 20, 1912. I was the exact same day that the new stadium in Detroit, Nevin Field (later Tiger Field), hosted its first baseball game. When the park was built in the Fenway marsh area of Boston, the-then American League Boston Pilgrims moved from their stadium located on the future Northwestern University into what has become one of the oldest and most storied ball parks in the Major League.
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The opening baseball game of the 2009 season has arrived for fans and they are preparing themselves for a season that should feature some of the best baseball ever. The powerhouses of the league loaded up in the offseason and the smaller teams have finished hunting for their statistically-rich bargain players. The best baseball game ever may be played this season as the match-ups and lineups look intriguing.
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Though the recession is having a huge effect on the US economy, it has not yet hit the top teams in baseball. Comparing the 2007 baseball game attendance to the baseball attendance 2008, most of the top teams grew their average to new records, while many of the lower-placed teams took some major losses to their crowd size. Even as paychecks shrunk in 2008 and ticket prices continued to climb, Americans would not give up their favorite viewing pastime (or their beer and hot dogs). Continue reading “The Recession Having an Affect on Baseball Game Attendance”
The current MLB player who is the youngest in the American League is Rick Porcello for the Detroit Tigers. Overall, the youngest current MLB player is Clayton Kershaw from the National League Dodgers. Neither of them, and most likely no one in the future, will reach the status of the youngest player to ever play in the Major League. Continue reading “Youngest Current MLB Player”
The lavish spending in the pro sports arena spread into coaches in baseball a few years ago as payrolls began to cross the $100 million threshold. The teams that carry these gargantuan costs do not mind spending large chunks of cash on their pro baseball trainer, when it adds up to only a small fraction of their overall costs. Though teams do not usually release manager contract information, these numbers are widely reported through various sources.
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Sports and alcohol have had a tragic history together, ruining many careers and lives along the way. The relationship between drug and sports has been no better. Sports stars often try to push the laws on DUI , only to end up finding out the cost of a DUI. That cost is sometimes fatality, jail time, the end of their career or at the very least public humiliation.
Continue reading “Yankee’s Joba Chamberlain Fastball Pleads Guilty to DUI”
Continue reading “Major League Catchers – Always In Demand But Never Acknowledged”
Continue reading “What Your Kid Ever Dreamed Of: Baseball Fantasy Camps”
