It’s easier to prohibit something than to make the alternatives more desirable: In an effort to dissuade top amateurs from skipping out to play professionally abroad–as corporate league righty Junichi Tazawa has done–Nippon Professional Baseball is studying a plan to ban them from playing on their return to Japan. One version under consideration would prevent […]

Rafael Furcal’s head fake to Atlanta and re-signing with the Dodgers has, quite predictably, inspired some ire on the part of Braves’ management: “From our perspective, we reached an agreement Monday night,” Braves General Manager Frank Wren said. “They asked for a term sheet for us to sign on Tuesday morning, and we sent over […]

Wherein we continue our comparison of two Red Sox greats: Carl Yastrzemski and Manny Ramirez. Will Carl’s defense overcome Manny’s superior bat?

We’ve long known that the Bloomberg Administration bent over to deliver all manner of financial favors to the Yankees, but now the emails are out, and it’s pretty ugly: Mayor Bloomberg’s aides secretly pressured city tax assessors to inflate the value of land under the new Yankee Stadium so the team could qualify for nearly […]

The Rangers are spending a few million bucks for upgrades at The Ballpark. One of them makes sense: The Rangers also announced they are widening the home-plate screen an extra 50 feet so that it will run from one photo well to another next to the dugouts. “We want to make sure that fans sitting […]

In response to the Yankees’ reported interest in Manny Ramirez, Jason at IIATMS says “But three years? On THIS team? With this many 35 year olds who will need to have a day or two in the DH role? Good lord, no!!!!” Good point! Everyone knows that the Yankees are getting old, but it’s worth […]

Peter Schmuck has a good column today about an arbitration most of either forgot was going to happen or knew nothing about in the first place: The Sidney Ponson Case: Ponson was a highly talented young pitcher who came up through the Orioles’ system and seemed ticketed for stardom. He also was a wild child […]

I read stuff like this . . . Rafael Furcal might not be an Atlanta Brave just yet, much to the dismay of the Atlanta Braves. Because while certain people in the organization were confirming Tuesday that, yes, the Braves had come to an agreement to bring their former shortstop back to Atlanta after three […]

I got a pretty informed and insightful comment regarding the Astros bugging out of Venezuela and I thought I’d share it with the rest of the class. It’s from reader James Van Awesome (pretty sure that’s German), who is writing his undergraduate thesis on baseball in Venezuela. James writes: In my opinion, the Astros’ operations […]

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