Rankings/List

Major League Baseball is the American pastime, but foreign-born players have played a big role in the sport’s history.

Foreign-born players now make up 29.0 percent of 2011 MLB Opening Day rosters.

International stars used to be restricted in baseball, but now they are becoming more prominent, and they are becoming even better.  There are only 10 foreign-born stars in the Hall of Fame right now, and I’m sure you can come up with 10 more who will be in there soon off the top of your head.

Harang, Chen, Harrison...not exactly names that come to mind when we think of aces but if the Cy Young voting occurred right now these guys would be far ahead of the likes of Cliff Lee, Felix Hernandez and Francisco Liriano.

Unexpected hot starts in baseball happen every year, but just like everyone else who's started hot, from Barack Obama to Britney Spears, it's not where you start, but where you finish. 

In professional baseball, knowing how to run the bases is something that is taken for granted.  It is assumed that anyone can figure out how to run around the diamond-shaped path on a baseball field's infield.  

So, when players make mistakes on the basepaths, they stand out more than things like errors, or wild pitches, or other mistakes because everyone watching knows that even they could do that.  Sometimes these base running blunders are laughable, but sometimes they can change the course of baseball history.

It's a wonderful thing baseball is back.  After a long cold winter, we can finally get back to spring time, warmth, and baseball.

Now that we can enjoy our pastime again, we can get back to the traditions that we practice for every baseball game.  Sure different teams have different traditions, but these traditions bind us from one generation to the next.

Traditions are one of the most important parts of baseball.  Here is a list of the top 25 traditions in baseball stadiums:

When the 2011 season comes to a close, a number of players will come into free agency.  

Albert Pujols has had a poor start to the 2011 season thus far, but he will make his money at the end of this year regardless.  Even if Pujols repeated the worst year of his career, he would average Hall of Fame numbers.

Other players are not so fortunate.  

It's always a great thing to see teams lock up young players long-term, especially young pitchers. We all know the saying, "pitching wins championships." Because of that, pitching will always be at a premium in baseball.

Next year's free agent class is almost barren when it comes to starting pitching. Teams that need starters are going to be turning over every rock in search of pitchers that might be available through a trade.

Over the course of baseball history, we have been witness to some amazing feats. Whether it was watching Rickey Henderson steal bases like his life depended on it or remembering where we were and what we thought when Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's home run record—young or old, big or small, we've all seen great things in the sport of baseball.

That said, watching some of the guys on this list run the bases isn't one of them.

Baseball is more than a game.  It's also a way of life.  Perhaps more than any other major sport, baseball relies on long-term development to create successful players.  It generally takes years of grooming before guys are ready to contribute consistently, and as fans know, relatively few ever make it to the major leagues.

The home plate collision is one of the most jarring moments in all of sports, as you see the type of hits you expect on the gridiron in the tamer arena of the baseball diamond.

No collision is more memorable than when Pete Rose collided with Ray Fosse in the last play of the 1970 All-Star game, but there have been some big ones over the years.

So here are the 20 players playing today that I would least like to find myself in a collision with at home plate.

Starting pitchers are clearly an important part of a Major League team's success throughout a season. Just as important is the assembly of relievers that a team keeps in their bullpen.