Kansas City drafted two hall of famers in the 1979 MLB draft. They just happened to excel in a different sportThe 1979 Major League Baseball Draft was not particularly prosperous for the Kansas City Royals. They did not find their next great shortstop or big first baseman. Their top choice was a pitcher named Atlee Hammaker whose best years were as a San Francisco Giant. Most of their other picks were young men who would never breathe the air of a big league clubhouse.And then there were those two Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Related: The forgotten story of ... pushball, a game for giants that bewitched Britain Related: The forgotten story of … Muammar Gaddafi's German ice hockey team Continue...
When the Under-17s lost a final they had all but won with a couple of misses from 12 yards it again underlined that English football’s version of the yips needs a long-overdue cureThe yips can take more than one form. Usually we think of the phenomenon in terms of an individual submitting to a technical meltdown: a golfer seizing up at the sight of a six-inch putt, a tennis player suddenly incapable of tossing the ball up for a serve accurately, or a bowler losing the ability to land the ball anywhere near the cut strip.Jon Lester is one of the stranger variations. A recent issue of Sports Illustrated carried a long and absorbing feature on the 33-year-old left-handed pitcher...
The New York Mets have been ravaged by injuries. But who is to blame when a team’s chances are ruined by players forced on to the sidelines?Death, taxes and injuries to Mets starters – a few of life’s certainties. Just when the furor over the Mets’ parade of injuries had seemingly reached a climax with news that Yoenis Cespedes’ strained hamstring would put him on the 10-day disabled list, Noah Syndergaard was pulled from Sunday’s game after lasting only 1 1/3 innings. In an era when arm problems frequently shelve baseball’s best young pitchers – often those that throw the hardest – this is troubling news, especially given Syndergaard’s record of past resilience.But while the Mets appeared to have poorly...
The presidential candidate and the former Yankees star may seem like an unlikely MLB ownership team, but theirs is a very American storyIf the Miami Marlins were a politician, they would be Jeb Bush. Both were expected to be a powerhouse from their inception, but after some early success – the Florida Marlins two World Series titles and Jeb twice being elected to run Florida – they failed to generate much of a following and eventually became a punchline. Both call Florida home, both are synonymous with losing and few seem to care that either exists. And what was the exclamation point thrown into Jeb! 2016’s logo but the desperate campaign equivalent of the home run sculpture at Marlins Park....
From Nasser Hussain’s farewell century to Rocky Marciano’s perfect legacy and Eric Cantona’s lack of doubt, we salute six triumphant farewellsThe decision had already been made when Nasser Hussain went out for his final Test innings. An international career that spanned 14 years had seen him become perhaps the pivotal figure in the last few decades of English cricket. It was Hussain’s brilliant captaincy that had pulled England up from the nadir of being ranked last in the world and laid the groundwork for Michael Vaughan, the 2005 Ashes and all that. Vaughan got the glory, but he had Steve Harmison, Andrew Flintoff, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss at their peaks: Hussain’s first Test as captain featured Aftab Habib and...