Baseball
How MLB Authenticates Balls Like Aaron Judge’s 60th Homer
The baseball that Aaron Judge sent screaming into the left-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday for his 60th home run of the season was different from his other 59 home run balls this year. It was a special ball, prepared just for him, and the rest of the balls he swings at this year […]
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Aaron Judge’s 60th Homer Came In Huge Win for Yankees
It was one of those nights, the kind that reminds you of the fundamental rule of the last baseball century: There are the Yankees, and then there is everyone else. From sepia tones to high definition, no other team does history, then or now, with such grandeur and resonance. In the ninth inning on Tuesday […]
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Can Juan Soto Lead the Padres Past the Dodgers?
SAN DIEGO — Juan Soto had barely landed, Josh Bell had just sat down and Josh Hader was starting to learn his new teammates’ names when Peter Seidler, the Padres’ owner, declared that “the art of the possible is here.” But just as quickly as the Padres had reset all expectations for their season — […]
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Yankees Show Flaws and Get a First Look at Frankie Montas
Perhaps a reason for Montas’s struggles was his irregular schedule of late. A right-hander, he returned July 21 after missing nearly three weeks with inflammation in his throwing shoulder. He started again for Oakland on July 26, reaching 78 pitches, then was traded to New York. But then came the family death that delayed Montas’s […]
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MLB’s PitchCom System Draws Mixed Reactions
Baseball and technology have always made for wary partners. For a five-year span in the 1930s, as radio became more popular, all three New York teams — the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers — banned live play-by-play of their games because they feared the new medium would reduce attendance. When the Chicago Cubs added lights to […]
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MLB Nears 10 Years Without a Perfect Game
The San Francisco Giants were playing their own game, just down the steps from the home clubhouse at Oracle Park, but Carlos Rodón and some of his teammates stayed inside. Down the coast, Clayton Kershaw was working on a perfect game for the Los Angeles Dodgers. History was streaming through a laptop. At least there […]
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Vin Scully Was Los Angeles
He was Venice Beach, Pink’s hot-dog stand and the Hollywood Bowl all rolled into one. He was Los Angeles, the sound of summer, the poet laureate of the Dodgers — Brooklyn and Los Angeles — for 67 seasons. We knew Vin Scully wasn’t going to last forever. It only seemed as if he might. Even […]
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With Juan Soto and Josh Hader, Padres Go All-In for World Series
The franchise started in 1969, just another expansion team in funny uniforms that lost 110 games. Five decades passed, with a few Hall of Famers but no championships. Then, after years of aggressive spending and trading by the front office, Juan Soto led the team all the way. That scenario played out for the Washington […]
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Yankees Trade for Frankie Montas, Lou Trivino, Scott Effross
The best teams need to do the most work at the baseball trading deadline. This would seem counterintuitive, because the best teams tend to have the fewest needs. But if a team is really good, the hardest part is over: you know you’ll be playing in October. Trades are all about boosting your odds once […]
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