Baseball

Blue Jays break fast, Rays don’t, and Greinke is simply amazing

Published on: 9th May, 2009

Just over four weeks into the season, here’s my list of eye-openers, for both good and bad reasons.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS

To many the American League East stacked up on paper as a three-team race with Boston, New York, and Tampa Bay vying for Full Article

Finally, baseball gives us a hero to admire

Published on: 9th May, 2009

Royals’ Greinke a humble, small-market star who’s easy to cheer

Zack Greinke has no desire to play for one of baseball’s glamour teams. He’s perfectly comfortable dominating hitters for Kansas City.

Finally, baseball has a fresh young superstar nobody can throw so much as a pebble at, a kid who is the perfect antidote for Manny B. Manny and A-Fraud and everything else that drives you nuts about sports.

His name is Zack Greinke, and he’s a big-time talent on a small-town team. At the age of 25, and with a history of personal hell behind Full Article

Debated Home Run Recalls a Moment of Yankees Lore

Published on: 20th April, 2009

In this season’s move from the old Yankee Stadium to the new one, much has been said about the transfer of venerated franchise legends from across the street.

One memory — that of the “Jeffrey Maier homer” — was revived Sunday afternoon when Jorge Posada hit a much-debated pinch-hit two-run homer in the seventh inning to rally the Yankees to a 7-3 victory against the Cleveland Indians.

As was the case in the old park in 1996, when the youthful Maier reached over the right-field fence to assist a home run by Derek Jeter in the American League Championship Series, Full Article

Opportunities Are Wasted as Mets Let a Sweep Slip Away

Published on: 20th April, 2009

Asked how many runs the Mets should have scored Sunday, Manager Jerry Manuel did not reply with a number. “Enough runs to win,” he said. Five, then, would have sufficed, considering the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Mets, 4-2, to avert a three-game sweep at Citi Field. But he could have said 28, and no one would have looked askance at him.

Not with the Mets hitting into three rally-killing double plays, going 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position and stranding 10 more runners on base, bringing their series total to 31.

They plotted all winter and practiced all spring Full Article