History

Pitching is a vital part of the game, and with the Phillies rotation we are expecting a few World Series championships.

With Cliff Lee going along with Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels, we are all expecting the greatest starting rotation of the decade, or even of our lives!

There used to be a day when race stood in the way of athletes playing a game they were great at.

Athletes breaking down racial barriers were a huge part of the Civil Rights movement, but even after that there was still great discrimination in American sports until recent decades. 

Now there is a day in baseball where many of the league's players honor Jackie Robinson by wearing his No. 42. 

Anthony Richard ("Tony") Conigliaro was born in Revere, Massachusetts, on January 7th back in 1945.

In 2007, Bruce Bochy became the Giants' manager.  In that season, the team won 71 games and finished last in their division.  In each season since then, the Giants have improved their win-loss record while finishing higher in the division. 

Four years ago the Giants were a mess.  They were old, they were brittle, and they were overshadowed by Barry Bonds’ tainted journey to a record nobody outside of the bay really wanted to see broken.

    Just when you think you've seen it all, almost every season a player on the New York Mets makes headlines for a surprising off-the-field issue.  The multitude of inappropriate actions and embarrassing behavior by the team feels more like a soap opera than a professional baseball organization.

    While the New York Yankees perennially grace the cover of local newspapers for winning championships, the Mets created news over the years with locker-room brawls, drug scandals and throwing fireworks into a crowd of fans.

As the new year comes to a close with the Red Sox being a very early favorite for the American League, let's take a look back at one of the "greatest" trades that never happened.

The Yankees and the Red Sox rivalry is easily the biggest, and most heated in all of sports.

In the 1950s, Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of all time, was the "face" of the Boston Red Sox.

George "Sparky" Anderson made it clear, early on in his managing career in Detroit, who was in charge in the Tigers locker room.

"It's my way," Sparky said, "or the highway."

Sparky took over the Tigers in June 1979 and before too long, several Tigers had hit the highway.

Some were moved out of Detroit because they were collateral damage—entities that needed to be sacrificed in order for the Tigers to acquire other pieces.

The 2010 season started off with a bang when Jason Heyward hit a home run in his first career at-bat.  The Braves definitely had their ups and downs throughout the season but in the end the Braves and their fans couldn’t be all that upset with the results other than the fact that it marked the end of the Bobby Cox era. 

Enough is enough. There is no comparison between Roy Halladay and Don Larsen. The former is on his way to the Hall of Fame. The latter was a journeyman pitcher who caught lightning in a bottle.

Larsen faced the National League's defending World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series. Brooklyn had won 98 games and lost 55 for a .641 winning percentage.

When Cliff Lee signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for five years and $120 million earlier this offseason, he left a little bit of money and a couple years on the table.

The Texas Rangers and the New York Yankees both would have given Lee more money and seven years on a contract.

But Lee felt more comfortable in Philly, so he gave them a discount (though once you are over $100 million, what's it matter if you make an extra $10 million?).

Lee certainly isn't the first baseball player who has left money on the table during contract negotiations.