History

After losing the 1964 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees fired manager Yogi Berra and hired the manager who had beaten them in that World Series, Johnny Keane.

World Champions Again?

Keane, like so many others, failed to realize that the key Yankees' players were mere shells of themselves. He never got to know them, and they never knew the real Johnny Keane.

After looking at the Top 5 Reasons to look forward to 2010, I wanted to look back at the history of the Giants since their inception in as the New York Gothams in 1883.

As one of the oldest franchises in Major League history, the Gothams/New York Giants/San Francisco Giants franchise has a lot of boast about. They have the most wins of ANY franchise in baseball history, with 10,270 wins under their belt. They've won five World Series titles and 20 National League pennants.

In early December of 1963, the Philadelphia Phillies made one of the great trades of all time. 

They sent outfielder Don Demeter, a Dodgers reject, along with pitcher Jack Hamilton, who is remembered for throwing the pitch that ruined Tony Conigliaro's career, to the Detroit Tigers in exchange for pitcher Jim Bunning and catcher Gus Triandos.

Two Masterpieces

Few individuals knew it at the time, but on Oct. 6, 1966, Sandy Koufax started the final game of his career.

The highly favored Los Angeles Dodgers had dropped the first game of the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles, but Dodgers fans were not overly concerned because Koufax was starting the second game against young Jim Palmer.

Koufax won 27 games during the season and completed 27 of 41 starts. The Orioles' entire staff had "only" 23 complete games.

This is the second in a short series of articles on my 25 favorite Mets players as a one-team roster. You can find the first part of the series here . A cursory look at my favorite Mets "team" makes something very clear— I have a special affinity for Mets players of the mid to late 1980s.

Paul Maholm may or may not be the best pitcher in the Pirates' rotation. But he is clearly the one to beat for front-runner.

A stalking horse, by definition, is a pretty good racehorse that may or may not be the best, but is certainly good enough to set the pace for the others. In short, his defining characteristic is reliability. That pretty much describes Maholm.

As late as the beginning of 2008, he was a distant third among Pirates' hurlers. But two more obviously talented throwers, Ian Snell, and Tom Gorzelanny, fell by the wayside that year.

On the one hand, you have the throwing of the 1919 World Series by eight players, which acts negatively and selfishly toward the team, fans, and everyone surrounding baseball.

However, although the thought process of steroids could be to support one's team, in most cases it's just as selfish and used by ego-maniacs in search of personal glory.

On the other side of things, the White Sox were throwing a World Series for a bigger cause; to revolt against a cheap owner in the form of Charles Comiskey.

On Aug. 31, 1961, the Detroit Tigers trailed the first-place New York Yankees by a mere one and one-half games, but by just a single game in the all-important loss column.

With the passage of time, it is often forgotten that the great 1961 Yankees were in a torrid pennant race with the Tigers most of the season.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece about Robinson Cano being the best Yankee second baseman in the history of the franchise.

That made me think about the rest of the infield. If you look at the numbers, this Yankee infield is the best that the New York Yankees have ever had.

When you consider overall talent, both offensively and defensively, there has never been an infield to compare to the one now assembled to play in the Bronx.

And the primary reason is the left side of the infield.

We honor Dwight Evans as the Boston Sports Then and Now Athlete of the Month. With the opening of the baseball season around the corner, the choice of “Dewey” Evans is fitting. He was a player who gave his all, all the time to the Boston Red Sox where he played from 1972 to 1990. He is one of the best players not in the Baseball Hall Of Fame.