NL West

The Beard.

We know it's power—power to intimidate and power to inspire.  The Beard was a big part of the 2010 San Francisco Giants and their World Series victory.  It spawned a whole new fashion statement for Giants players and fans alike.

But how long will it grow?

They haven’t even played more than a dozen games yet, but this season’s successful start by the Colorado Rockies is important.

With Thursday’s doubleheader sweep of the host New York Mets, the Rockies have posted a 10-2 record, which is the best start in Colorado franchise history and is the best record in Major League Baseball.

The San Francisco Giants had a bad year in 1992.  The club finished 72-90, fifth place in the National League West, and were on the verge of being sold to a group of investors in Tampa, who had plans for moving the team to St. Petersburg.

This essay won the Society for American Baseball Research Negro Leagues Committee Scholarship contest in April 2010.

On April 14, 1947, Major League Baseball was a whites-only sport. Not since the expulsion of black players in 1888 had a non-Caucasian man swung a bat or thrown a pitch in the Big Show.

That changed on April 15, 1947—64 years ago today—when Jackie Robinson suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

View From the Rockpile: Musings From a Mile High Along the Journey to Rocktober

There’s no bigger stage for a middle-market club than the sparkling new sandlot just a skip, hop and a seven-train jump from Broadway.  Do it here, and media, critics and fans will take notice. 

America, meet the 2011 Colorado Rockies.

For years it was acceptable. For years, there when other clubs came to visit Coors Field, it was understandable that fans for the other teams outnumbered Rockies fans. After all, the Rockies were in the middle of an identity crisis for most of those years.

Another day, another one-run road win.

What was the Achilles' heel of the Colorado Rockies in 2010 has turned into one of their biggest strengths thus far in 2011. 

The Rockies swept the New York Mets on Thursday, taking both games of the doubleheader 6-5 and 9-4. This marks the first time the Rockies have swept the Mets since 1994, and just their third series win ever against the Mets in New York.

Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice, one of the four charges levied against him yesterday. Although the jury was unable to reach a decision on any of the perjury charges, logic tells you that he probably did know that he was taking illegal performance enhancing drugs, (PED's).

After eight years of building a case against Barry Bonds and millions of dollars spent to prosecute baseball's all time home run king, the government finally got their guilty conviction today. Surprisingly though, the jury convicted Bonds of obstruction of justice, but could not reach a unanimous decision on perjury charges.

Wait a minute, I'm confused.

Barry Bonds was found guilty by a jury of his peers on Wednesday afternoon for obstruction of justice, but that same jury was unable to conclude whether or not Bonds lied about knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs during his career.