The National League’s two worst teams are slogging their way through lost seasons on philosophically divergent tacksOne of the happiest moments of this lost summer for the New York Mets came last week, when Jeff McNeil made his major-league debut as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 6-3 win over the San Diego Padres and lined a single to center field.McNeil, a 12th-round draft pick in 2013, grinded his way through the farm system to get to the majors, but even his success in making it to the top could not be a universally feel-good story because of the way the Mets handled him, claiming publicly through manager Mickey Callaway that he was “purely a second baseman”. McNeil...
The one-time football sensation was derided when he signed a minor-league contract with the Mets to chase a new dream, but Tebow’s improbable if modest success deserves our appreciationFor all the gifs and memes and fragments of an Internet broken by his prodigious swings, Tim Tebow turned out to be a decent baseball player. Probably not a great prospect at 30 years old, but good enough to show that his second sports career wasn’t a joke. His best shot at a cup of coffee in the major leagues most likely ended with Monday’s diagnosis of a broken wrist. At the time he had been playing for the New York Mets Class-AA team, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, two levels below the...
There’s no shortage of attacking talent across MLS, but five clubs have assembled groups that are a cut above the restAttacking talent across Major League Soccer is plentiful. The recruitment of wonderful goal scorers and goal makers kept pace with expansion, then entered another stratosphere. Most clubs have curated their attacking display with multiple stars and the best clubs have seen those individuals connect seamlessly with their teammates. So, which sides in MLS have formed the best attacking trios?The top trios below are comprised by individual greatness and placing a premium on how they combine collectively; in part by rewarding past work and part by projecting forward this season as many teams will continue to evolve, despite being more than...
MLB is already at work to ensure next year’s London series between the Yankees and Red Sox is as authentic as possibleMajor League Baseball has staged regular-season games in Japan, Australia, Mexico and Puerto Rico. But nothing the league has attempted overseas comes close to the scope of what it plans to do when the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox cross the pond to play two games next June.“This will be our biggest (international) project yet,” Phil Bradley, the players’ union’s special assistant for domestic and international events, told the Guardian this week. Related: Will Yankees-Red Sox in London break the NFL's UK stranglehold? Continue reading...
The best player of his era is making a compelling case for the greatest season in baseball history. So why aren’t more people talking about it?Anyone with even a passing interest in baseball knows that Mike Trout is, and has been since not long after breaking through as a teenager in 2012, the best player in the sport in a way that defies easy categorization. The Los Angeles Angels’ center fielder does most baseball things exceptionally and none of them badly. He hits for average (.306 career batting average, sixth among active players) and he hits for power (.571 slugging percentage, first) while playing in a park that favors pitchers. His patient plate approach routinely lands him among the league...