Having evolved from the older bat and ball games from England in the mid-eighteenth century, English and Irish settlers brought the game of Baseball to North America, where it has since been perfected. Baseball is hugely popular in the United States and Canada, whilst also drawing crowds in parts of Central and South America, and the Caribbean. The Major Baseball league which culminates in the World Series is the most famous Baseball competition in the world.
With news that the MLB will underwrite the new ABL for at least the next 5 years, it will give baseball in this country its best opportunity to survive in the Australian sporting market.
The new ABL which will start in October 2010 will have six teams from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra with [...] Read article
Hideki Matsui produced one of the great big-game performances in Major League playoff history as the New York Yankees beat Philadelphia 7-3 on Wednesday to win their 27th World Series title.
Matsui drove in six runs on three hits, including his third home run in the best-of-seven final, and became the first Asian to win World [...] Read article
It’s almost that time of year when Major League Baseball flickers through the Australian sporting landscape for a scant few minutes. The World Series is almost upon us, and this year it could be a corker.
On the one hand there is the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies. On the other there is a familiar sight, [...] Read article
Following my recent post on international cricketers who played rugby, today I’ve listed Test cricketers who have proudly worn their country’s colours in football (soccer), hockey, tennis, baseball and badminton.
FOOTBALL
For England: CB Fry, Andy Ducat, RE ‘Tip’ Foster, Harry Makepeace, Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, Leslie Gay, Harold ‘Wally’ Hardinge, Albert Knight, Jack Arnold, William Gunn, [...] Read article
Here in the States, there’s been a shift in player recruitment and trading over the past few years. While it’s a baseball truism that pitching wins games, some teams are happy to trade away even their best hurlers if they can get a slugger in exchange.
Why? Because winning games has become less important than [...] Read article
Well done responders! Here are the answers to the latest sports trivia quiz.
(1) The four guys who made all that money are all commissioners. Jerry Bettman of the NHL made $5.6 million, David Stern, NBA, 10 m. Roger Goodell, NFL, 11.2 m, and Bud Selig, the major league baseball boss, took home 18.35 million. Just [...] Read article
If Mitchell Johnson wasn’t spearheading Australia’s pace attack in the Ashes, chances are he could be standing on the mound as a Major League Baseball pitcher.
According to Australian fielding coach and acclaimed former baseball mentor, Mike Young, Johnson had the potential to enjoy an even more handsome career as a baseballer.
Young, who made his coaching [...] Read article
Half of 2009 has already passed us by and in that time we’ve witnessed some fantastic sporting events. In chronological order, these are the five sporting events I’m most looking forward to in the second half of 2009.
Ashes, 8 July – 24 August
After all of the Twenty20 fluff, I am keen to see some real [...] Read article
It seems like that once you become a major professional sport, you invite controversy into your home like an unwanted in-law. This morning I opened up my favourite American sports news site and there on the front page was the headline: “Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers suspended for 50 games.”
Manny Ramirez, [...] Read article
There has been a lot of press coverage is recent days about Australia beating South Africa and thereby retaining its ranking as the number one Test cricket nation.
This is an honor coveted by ten nations only, two of which are sadly sliding by varying degrees toward either partial or complete systematic failure of the [...] Read article
Major League Baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez admitted Monday that he took performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers from 2001 through 2003.
Rodriguez, baseball’s richest player as a New York Yankees superstar, made the admission to the ESPN television network two days after Sports Illustrated magazine’s website reported “A-Rod” had tested positive for steroids in [...] Read article
Former mafia crime boss Michael Franzese says top-level tennis matches are being influenced by gamblers and the sport would be his prime focus were he still in the business of impacting outcomes.
Franzese, a former boss in the Colombo crime family, serves as a consultant and speaker regarding his days with the mob and has spoken [...] Read article
You just gotta laugh when contemporary cricket players complain about too much work and not enough pay. It’s amazing how intelligent human beings can be totally unaware of the Global Financial Crisis, increasing unemployment, and the work of the Salvation Army.
Michael Clarke’s recent (well publicized) present of a $300,000 motor car to his girlfriend [...] Read article
Some sportsmen get into nasty fights on the field, even after a career of success and sportsmanship. It’s always sad to see that repeated later in life as some of them saddle themselves with debts that they can’t pay back.
Fighting your way through the courts after getting into financial difficulty is never a nice [...] Read article
The Philadelphia Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint to win the World Series on Wednesday in a suspended Game 5 nearly 50 hours after it started. The beaten Rays team included Australian relief pitcher Grant Balfour.
Left in limbo by a two-day rainstorm, the Phillies seesawed to their first championship [...] Read article
