From pre-season fringe player to MLB star, the rookie has taken the US by storm this summer in the Yankees’ march to unlikely post-season successOn Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, Francisco Lindor of the Cleveland Indians hit a baseball towards the right‑field stands that was clearly destined to be a two-run homer. And not just any home run: one that would demolish the New York Yankees and send the Indians to the edge of the World Series.Suddenly a great mitted hand rose from the depths, like the head of a sea monster, reached above the wall and snatched the ball from thin air. On its own, it was a superhuman catch: something more associated with the planet Krypton than the...
Baseball players will get to wear nicknames on their jerseys for one weekend in a play for the youth market, but the sport’s demographic issues run deeperBaseball has a problem. Apparently it is no longer interesting to young people. More specifically, it appeals more to those beyond a serviceable demographic deemed exciting to advertisers. According to data complied by three media organizations the average age of those who watch baseball games is 57 and that number is rapidly moving into early-bird buffet territory. The same study showed only 7% of those watching baseball are under 18.This is undoubtedly why Major League Baseball soon will dress their teams for three games in jerseys that look like soccer tops with each player’s...
Players such as Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays helped shape baseball, and America. So why has the number of black players halved since the 1980s?In 1954, a young black man from Alabama, Willie Mays, took New York and then America by storm. A centerfielder for the New York Giants, he won the 1954 National League MVP and led his team to victory in the World Series, making a catch along the way that became arguably the most famous play in baseball history. But Mays was more than the game’s best player: he became became America’s most popular athlete, especially in the African American community. That popularity was famously captured as he played stick ball with kids on the streets of...
The outfielder combines huge power with modesty and charisma. He could stand to make hundreds of millions if he continues to dominate pitchersPrior to the night of 10 July, Aaron Judge, the New York Yankees’ 6ft 7in, 282lbs rookie right fielder, had already hammered out a reputation as a prodigious young slugger, having blasted 30 home runs, at an average of 416 feet, in the Yankees’ first 89 games. But then came the annual Home Run Derby in Miami, which Judge won by bashing 47 dingers. Those 47 home runs covered a distance of four miles – and caused yet another sizable aftershock in the already impressive, and still growing, Aaron Judge marketing earthquake. Related: Aaron Judge hits Marlins Park...
This week’s roundup also features baseball behemoth Aaron Judge, an inspired catch from a cricket fan and a furious bodybuilder1) With the Open starting, Rory McIlroy isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Let’s look back at some happier times, starting in 2007 when he burst on to the scene with a fine performance as an amateur at that year’s Open. Here he is winning the Silver Medal at Carnoustie. McIlroy had to wait a few years for his first major but managed it at the 2011 US Open. Here is the fresh-faced champion being interviewed on the 18th after breaking his duck. The following year he won the US PGA Championship, and did so again in 2014. In the same...