Take me out to the ball gameIt was a Friday evening in Boston, and there was only one place for India Lloyd to be: Fenway Park, where the Boston Red Sox were set to take on the Toronto Blue Jays. Batter up!
Baseball
Mick Mantle: the original sport rock star
Jane Leavy’s biography on AMerican baseball legend Micky Mantle, The Last Boy arrives at an interesting time for superstars and sports, writes ESPN’s Johnette Howard.
World Series: I left my party in San Francisco
Inside The Midnight Sun, a noted gay bar in the heart of the Castro district, epitomized scenes replicated throughout the Bay Area Monday night after the San Francisco Giants won their first World Series championship since moving here in 1958, writes Fanhouse’s Lisa Olsen.
Giants ride San Fran quirkiness all the way to the World Series
One of the greatest pleasures of the Giants’ journey to the World Series - and the list is long - has been watching the rest of the country freak out over the routine eccentricities of Bay Area life, writes the San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub.
Ahead of the World Series, a look at the performance of the National Athem
The New Yorker’s Roger Angell remembers hearing José Feliciano performing The Star-Spangled Banner at Tiger Stadium before the fifth game of the 1968 World Series. How will this series’ performers fare?
World Series: the magic and unpredictability of San Francisco
A Biblical rainstorm and a deadly earthquake: when it comes to a World Seires in San Francisco anything can, and usually does, happen, writes The New York Times’ George Vecsey.
3D imaging and the future of professional athleticism
Motion capture technology is being developed by a handful of major American baseball teams for purposes such as skills development and “distance coaching.” It may play a big role in the future of other sports too, writes James Glanz and ALan Schwarz.
Vale George Steinbrenner
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has passed away, age 80. He had a huge influence in raising baseball’s profile in America and was hated by some for raising other things too - like ticket prices and TV fees, writes Keith Olbermann.
Baseball: a look at the perfect game
The idea of “perfection” isn’t always easy to judge in sport, but it is in baseball. Dallas Braden just became the 19th pitcher ever to score a perfect game in the major league. How hard is it to get 27 batters out in a row?
Charlie Brown was a terrible baseball player
Are you an obsessive nerd about sport? Well you ain’t got nothing on this guy, who has calculated Charlie Brown’s pitching average.
Jack Kerouac, fantasy baseball nerd
Jack Kerouac led a busy life boozing, writing, bee-bopping, and banging Neal Cassady’s wife, but he was also quite the nerdsworth when it came to fantasy baseball. Heavy emphasis on the “fantasy.”
Selling old Yankee Stadium one memento at a time
The Yankees are dismantling the stadium and trying to sell off every last memento with a precision that would make an obsessive dentist proud.
Why is baseball so boring?
Like cricket, baseball is not known as the most thrilling of sports. But what is it about baseball that makes it so loved even whilst it is so boring? Tom Scocca examines its slower moments.
Manny Ramirez joins the lost generation
The LA Dodgers baseball star is the latest in a long long of sporting heroes who have thrown away everything because of drugs.
Why are athletes treated differently than other celebrities?
Is punishing athletes for drug use justified or selective persecution?
The business case for pro-sports evaporates
The French rugby team, the English soccer team, the Southampton Premier League soccer team and the Texas Rangers baseball team are all in trouble, writes Glenn Dyer.
The New Yankee Stadium
Three different views of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx where the team will play its first game on April 3, an exhibition against the Chicago Cubs.
Ball-strike monitor may reopen wounds
An improved camera system to monitor umpires’ calls of balls and strikes will be used in all 30 major league stadiums starting opening day, ending the contentious QuesTec era but expanding the scope of baseball’s oversight program. And it appears to be rankling umpires anew.
