Baseball

Starting off the holiday weekend on the right note, the New York Yankees defeated the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday afternoon by a score of 4-2.

In the fifth inning, the Blue Jays beat themselves, making two crucial mistakes.

Tomorrow will mark the 223rd anniversary of this country. At the time, the Continental Congress entrenched itself in heavy debate with concern to the hostilities which had developed between the Crown and its thirteen colonies.

The Congress decided the only recourse left was irrevocable separation from its mother country.

So independence was declared in Philadelphia but, more importantly, so was all out war.

John Paul Morosi of FOX Sports is reporting today that the Minnesota Twins are interested in three Pirates: 2B Freddy Sanchez, closer Matt Capps, and lefty setup man John Grabow.

Clutch: the word that is tattooed into every idiotic baseball fan's vocabulary, and into the ears of every intelligent baseball fan during an argument regarding a player's talent. 

Why is it that we assign more value to performances in the seventh, eighth, or ninth innings as opposed to the previous six innings? 

Why is it Joe Crede can strike out three times, leaving nine men on base, but if he hits a solo home run in the ninth inning to send the fans home, he is glorified for his performance?

As the San Francisco Giants try to determine whether they are going to buy or sell at the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, right fielder Nate Schierholtz is beginning to prove that he is a legitimate major leaguer.

We always heard that Schierholtz could play, but because of a variety of things—reliance on older players or the lack of regular playing time in the majors—he hasn't seen any real opportunity to show he could hang with the big boys.

It’s time to look at the potential two-start options for the upcoming fantasy week. If I have someone rated as a three, four or five-star option, they are someone I would definitely use. A two-star option is someone who is borderline, but I’d strongly lean against it unless you have no other options. The one-star options are an absolutely not scenario.

Yesterday marked the beginning of the International signing period in which players not from the United States, Canada or Puerto Rico can sign with ball clubs.

The one player everyone is interested in hearing about is Miguel Angel Sano. Major League Baseball is still investigating his true age, so any deal probably won't be done until next week at the earliest.

The 2009 season for the Chicago Cubs has not gone exactly as planned. Injuries, power outages, suspensions, "lack of fire"—you name it, it's gone wrong for the Cubs so far this year.

One bright spot for the team this season has been midseason call-up Jake Fox. In 23 games over his two stints with the big league club this season, Fox has hit .317 with three HR and 12 RBI. Prior to his call-up, he was lighting up AAA Iowa, with obscene stats of .409 BA, 17 HR, and 53 RBI in just 45 games. 

George Steinbrenner is one of the most controversial people in baseball.

Since purchasing the Yankees in 1973, the Yanks have won six World Series and 10 pennants.

He's brought many great players to the Yankees, and they're usually overpriced.

He instituted the Yankees' famous grooming policy. 

He paid a gambler to find “dirt” on Dave Winfield, one of his own players!

Since the beginning of the season, I've been watching the Washington Nationals play a very unique brand of baseball. Most of us wrote off last year's 59-102 debacle as a perfect storm, a confluence of off-years, green pitching and bad luck.

I mean, there is no way that the Nationals would repeat last year's .366 winning percent in 2009, right?

Right.