Major League 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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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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Aaron Judge Home Run Tracker: 42 Barely Clears the Wall
In the second inning of an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium, Aaron Judge got a 95-mile-per-hour fastball from Jonathan Heasley of the Kansas City Royals and muscled it just over the wall in right for a home run. The ball only traveled 364 feet — not long enough to clear the fence in many parks […]
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He’s Baseball’s Only Mud Supplier. It’s a Job He May Soon Lose.
LONGPORT, N.J. — A 45-gallon rubber barrel sits in a cluttered garage along the Jersey Shore, filled waist-high with what looks like the world’s least appetizing chocolate pudding. It is nothing more than icky, gooey, viscous, gelatinous mud. Ah, but what mud. The mud that dreams are made of. This particular mud, hauled in buckets […]
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Rob Manfred Rejects Idea That Minor Leaguers Aren’t Paid Living Wage
LOS ANGELES — Asked why Major League Baseball’s team owners do not pay minor league players a living wage — whether it was because they could not afford to or because they didn’t want to — M.L.B. Commissioner Rob Manfred suggested those players were actually compensated fairly. “I kind of reject the premise of the […]
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Dansby Swanson Has Atlanta Braves Surging in NL East
Against the Dodgers over the weekend, the Braves honored Freeman, who signed a six-year, $162 million deal with Los Angeles in the off-season after 12 years in Atlanta, and presented him with his World Series ring. He cried throughout a news conference before Friday’s game, during the ring ceremony and during a standing ovation before […]
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Rays Players Undercut Pride Night by Not Wearing Rainbow Logos
Something was missing in the top of the eighth inning on Saturday at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Tampa Bay Rays used two relief pitchers that inning — the left-handers Brooks Raley and Jalen Beeks — who wore jerseys without a patch on their right sleeve. This was not a manufacturer’s error or […]
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On Baseball: Trevor Bauer Is Suspended for Two Years
This was before his biggest dreams began to blossom, and before his career fell apart. This was Trevor Bauer from three years ago, over lunch in suburban Cleveland, describing the forces that drove him. “I want to be a billionaire,” Bauer said, the same way you might order a sandwich. “Not because I care about […]
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MLB Letter Confirms Yankees Used Technology for Sign Stealing
Sign stealing has long been a part of baseball strategy. When a batter is hitting, his teammates carefully watch a catcher’s fingers or body language to figure out what pitch is about to be thrown. That is all fair play as long as teams do not use any electronic devices, such as cameras or computers, […]
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