Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin estimates that 80 percent of pitches in an SEC game are called from the dugout, a ritual that typically entails a catcher dropping to one knee, looking toward his pitching coach, decoding one set of signs and then relaying another to the pitcher on the mound. Wash, rinse and repeat […]
Baseball history is awash with stories of pitchers adding new pitches to their repertoire by the same rote method: a teammate or coach suggests a grip, the pitcher fiddles with the ball until he gets a good feel and then he debuts his new offering in a game. This is addition by anecdote, a happenstance […]
NEW YORK — Retired outfielder Johnny Damon was back competing at Yankee Stadium on Friday, only this time he wasn’t wearing pinstripes on the ballfield but a Puma polo shirt and Playstation virtual-reality headset. His hands held glowing controllers, as he twisted, punched and gyrated in the middle of an upstairs conference room. Damon, the […]
Major League Baseball revealed the results of its investigation into the Boston Red Sox for the so-called Apple Watch sign-stealing scandal and counter-charge that the New York Yankees improperly used a television camera for the same purpose. The classic Friday afternoon news dump — commissioner Rob Manfred’s statement hit this reporter’s inbox at 4:32 p.m. […]
NEW YORK — When Kevin Harvick first wore a Polar heart-rate monitor during a NASACR race a few years ago, he sent the data back to the company for help with the analysis. Their response: “Wow, this wasn’t really what we were expecting.” Few outside the sport understood the driver’s physical strain during a long […]
