Archive for International

The Nats’ owners could, you know, fire Jim Bowden, but instead they are standing pat and waiting for him to get arrested or something: Washington Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden said on Monday that he has done nothing wrong. The federal investigators looking into Bowden still aren’t so sure, a source familiar with the investigation […]

Seems like everyone is speculating that Jim Bowden is about to be fired, but maybe they’re just not aiming high enough. How does prison suit you? A federal investigation into the skimming of signing bonuses given to baseball prospects from Latin America is looking at Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden as far back as […]

Yesterday Neyer noted that big heads should roll in Washington as a result of the Esmailyn González fiasco. Today Tom Boswell amps up the pressure on the biggest of the heads: Bleak humor about the Nats now bounces all around baseball. But this case, as Kasten says ominously, “will have big repercussions.” At one level, […]

Joel Pinero is not happy: Starting pitcher Joel Piñeiro convened a news conference Wednesday morning to announce he was “heartbroken” and would not play for Team Puerto Rico in the upcoming World Baseball Classic after Puerto Rico’s manager, Cardinals third-base coach Jose Oquendo, informed him he was not in the projected three-man rotation. “I was […]

Spanning a vast Southwest landscape, it was vibrantly colorful, fleeting but amazing.

I’m no fan of the WBC, but I could become one if this sort of thing happens more often: Kim Byung-hyun’s nine-year career in Major League Baseball (MLB) is full of dumbfounding affairs ― allowing a game-tying homer in the ninth inning for the second-straight game of the World Series, a middle-finger gesture to home […]

Baseball has its share of reactionary anti-stathead writers, but we certainly don’t have the market cornered. This from an article in The Times entitled “The 50 worst things about modern football”: 43. Statistics American obsession that is gradually weaving itself into the fabric of our national game. Do you care how many assists Wayne Rooney […]

I’m kind of a sucker for Bill Bryson, who initially made his name writing columns in the U.K. as the fish-out-of-water American. In large part Bryson went native, however, now makes his permanent home in the U.K., holds positions with British universities and, depending on what he’s writing, often comes off more British than he […]

While we’re of a mindset these days that all of the power hitting since 1993 or so is a function of PEDs, hitting for power can be, to some extent, a choice. Sure, PEDs happened (and are happening) and small ballparks and other things have contributed greatly to increased power numbers, but players making a […]

I don’t know that much about Cuban baseball, but given the decline Cuba’s economy and quality of life since the collapse of the Soviet Union — not to mention the defections — it would certainly not surprise me if the quality and vibrancy of the game had declined as well. Strong social forces are at […]