When the crack of the bat signals opening day for the 2026 Major League Baseball (MLB) season today, there will be a new addition to the diamond: robot umpires. The technological change has been fiercely debated among sports enthusiasts for years but has finally made its way to the big leagues. It marks one of the biggest changes in the history of modern baseball.

What are robot umpires?

While the term makes it sound like robots are replacing the game’s human umpires, this is not the case. The robot umpires aren’t on the field. Instead, they are a “network of specialized cameras set up in every ballpark to track the baseball’s exact location,” said The New York Times. The system, officially called the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, will allow teams to challenge balls and strikes.

Each team starts the game with two challenges it can use throughout the game. By tapping his head, a pitcher, catcher or batter can request to “summon the robot umpire and see whether the human behind home plate missed a ball or strike call,” said the Times. A successful challenge allows the team to reuse a challenge, but after two incorrect challenges, the team “loses the power altogether.”

MLB is not the first baseball league to adopt this technology. It has been tried in minor league baseball for several years and was also tested during the 2025 MLB All-Star Game. This “testing, which started in 2021, led to Triple-A players in 2023 using ABS challenges three days a week and a full ABS system, with every pitch adjudicated by computer, the other three,” said ESPN. Following positive feedback in the minor leagues, MLB announced last year it would adopt the ABS system.

Why is this such a big change?

It allows players and managers to do what is typically forbidden in baseball: argue balls and strikes with the umpire. Doing so has generally led to ejection from the game; last season, at least “61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches (99 of 161) were related to ball/strike calls,” said The Associated Press, though this figure also “included what MLB counted as inappropriate comments and conduct, and throwing equipment in protest.”

This change “should in theory make everyone better off,” as it will give teams an “appeal in the event of a potential blown call at a crucial moment,” said Vox. As is the case with AI, some are worried about the bigger changes robotic umpires could have. Once “you’ve conceded that the machine is the final authority on whether a call is right — which is exactly what baseball has done here — you’ve quietly eliminated the case for having the human there.” And if they are there, the “human behind the mask doesn’t stay independent.”

Despite this, most players and managers don’t seem to have an issue with the change — for now. “I’m in favor of anything that allows our technology to play in this game,” Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash said to the AP. “We have so much of it. Why not use it?” Even people formerly around the game agree. “I really like the ABS,” Jim Leyland, a retired manager who led four MLB clubs, said to the outlet. “I think it’s going to be great for the game.”

What happened

Venezuela beat Team USA 3-2 on Tuesday night to win its first World Baseball Classic title, with Eugenio Suárez’s ninth-inning tiebreaking double topping Bryce Harper’s eighth-inning two-run home run. The championship game, in Miami’s loanDepot Park, capped the sixth edition of the 20-nation event, which is held every three years. As the heavily Latino crowd cheered Venezuela’s win in Miami, thousands of people also celebrated in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

Who said what

“Thirty million people around the world were watching this game today,” Venezuela captain Salvador Perez said after the game. “The World Series, as you all know, is one of the most important championships in the major leagues, but when you fight for your country, that goes beyond.” Team USA captain Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, said his teammates “put on this uniform, signed up to go out there and get a gold medal,” and “we just fell short.”

This year’s Team USA was “the greatest collection of American baseball players ever assembled for the World Baseball Classic,” bringing together “All-Stars and MVPs and future Hall of Famers,” said The Athletic. But “despite the gaudy statistics and lucrative contracts,” the team “lacked cohesion and performed as less than the sum of its parts.” Venezuela was overshadowed ahead of the tournament by the U.S., Japan and the Dominican Republic, the only other Latin American team to win the WBC, in 2013. But Venezuela’s “success was not that surprising,” The Associated Press said, given that 63 Venezuelan-born players “appeared on Major League Baseball opening-day rosters last year.”

What next?

Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, declared Wednesday a National Day of Joy, giving everyone but essential workers the day off. Team USA — which has only won one WBC championship, in 2017 — will get its next shot at the title in 2029.

When the once-niche statistic of WAR (Wins Above Replacement) slowly became the most important way teams and fans evaluated players over the course of this century, it also revealed players who were overlooked in their heydays, especially by Hall of Fame voters.

While some of the best players in baseball history, like Alex Rodriguez, remain outside of Cooperstown due to their association with the sport’s steroid scandal (or because of gambling, like Pete Rose), these ten players were clean — and deserve their Cooperstown spots.

Curt Schilling (79.5 WAR)

Perhaps the only player in baseball history whose retirement exploits seem to have cost him his place in the Hall of Fame, hurler Curt Schilling didn’t become a full-time starting pitcher until age 25. Nevertheless, Schilling racked up 216 career wins, over 3,000 strikeouts and was an absolute beast in the postseason, starring for three world championship-winning teams (including the 2004 Boston Red Sox club that broke the “Curse of the Bambino”) and posting a 2.23 ERA in 19 playoff starts. Schilling’s “inflammatory, intolerant and conspiratorial statements” unfortunately overshadowed his playing career and his status as a “top-20 or top-30 pitcher of all time,” said Ben Lindbergh at The Ringer.

Lou Whitaker (75.1 WAR)

On-Base Percentage (OBP) was one of the statistics that was traditionally undervalued, until Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane (of “Moneyball” fame) led a perception revolution. Second baseman “Sweet Lou” Whitaker, who played his whole career with the Detroit Tigers, is someone whose value would have had a better chance of being elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America if OBP had been properly appreciated.

Whitaker slowed down as he aged, but he got even better at getting on base, putting up a 6.8 WAR season in 1991 at age 34 on the strength of a .391 OBP. While he may never have been the best player in the league, “he was always really good, always played at an All-Star level, and when you play 15 years at an All-Star level you are a Hall of Famer in my view,” said Joe Posnanski at The Athletic.

Bobby Grich (71.1 WAR)

Grich, a second baseman, spent most of his career with the California (now Los Angeles) Angels, who made only three postseason appearances in his ten years there. But while his counting stats look like they fall short, including just 1,833 hits and 1,033 runs, he was a gifted defender who won four gold gloves and made enormous contributions to his teams’ run prevention efforts.

His WAR totals put him ahead of the best second basemen of the subsequent era, including Craig Biggio and Ryne Sandberg, both players who are in the Hall. Grich was “one of the most underrated players of the last 40 years,” said Bruce Markusen at The Hardball Times.

Rick Reuschel (69.5 WAR)

Like Kevin Brown, the burly Reuschel was largely unappreciated during his time. A pitcher who lacked overpowering velocity and extended his career by refining pinpoint precision, Reuschel pitched in parts of 19 seasons for the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees and was often “treated as a curiosity rather than a talent,” said Tim Castelli at The Society For American Baseball Research.

That was before the analytic revolution of the early 2000s prompted a “reevaluation of Reuschel’s career and his place in baseball history.” A reserved person who didn’t enjoy spending time with the press, he won 214 games pitching for mostly terrible teams and garnered less than 1% of the vote in his one year on the Hall of Fame ballot.

Kenny Lofton (68.4 WAR)

A slick-fielding, base-stealing center-fielder, Lofton holds the distinction of being the player with the most postseason at bats in baseball history without playing on a championship winner. Mostly a leadoff hitter, Lofton posted OBPs over .400 in four separate full seasons, and served as the offensive sparkplug for the powerhouse Cleveland Indians teams of the 1990s.

Even past his peak, though, Lofton was a valuable player and a deserved fan favorite who ranks seventh in stolen bases among players in the post-WWII era. He was “overshadowed since he played in the steroid era” and remains “one of the most egregious exemptions from the Hall of Fame,” said Drew Thirion at Deadspin.

Kevin Brown (67.8 WAR)

Possibly the most notable instance of a player falling off the ballot after a single year, pitcher Kevin Brown seemingly had it all — several top five Cy Young Award finishes, 211 career wins, a championship with the 1997 Florida Marlins and two years leading the league in WAR for pitchers.

He’s a surefire Hall of Famer, and it’s “not unreasonable to argue that he’s one of the 50 greatest pitchers of all-time,” said Dayn Perry at Fangraphs. Brown being generally regarded as unfriendly by reporters (who are tasked with the Hall of Fame voting for the Baseball Writers Association of America) probably did not help his case.

Dwight Evans (67.2 WAR)

Evans spent all but his final season with the then-luckless Boston Red Sox, racking up 385 home runs, 2,446 hits and nearly 1,500 runs scored and finishing his career with an elite .370 OBP. He also has a good case as the rightful winner of the 1981 American League MVP Award and led all of baseball in extra-base hits during the 1980s.

In addition to his offensive exploits and status as one of the most feared hitters of the era, he starred on defense, winning eight Gold Glove Awards. Evans “wasn’t just a good outfielder, he was great, playing in a Fenway Park right field that might have been the toughest in the sport,” said Peter Gammons at The Athletic.

Luis Tiant (66.1 WAR)

The Cuba-born Tiant had his best season in 1968, a year that was so bad for offense that it prompted baseball to lower the height of pitching mounds. His struggle with Cooperstown voting is often attributed to him sharing the limelight with too many slam-dunk Hall of Fame pitchers of his era, like Jim Palmer and Tom Seaver. The “winningest Cuban-born pitcher in major league history” was also a beloved, “larger-than-life character, so inseparable from his trademark cigars that he chomped them even in postgame showers,” said Jay Jaffe at Fangraphs.

Tommy John (61.9 WAR)

John won 288 games and has the seventh highest WAR total of any pitcher not in the Hall. But John’s name is also indelibly associated with the modern sport.

In 1974, John was in the midst of his 12th season when he blew out his pitching elbow and elected to undergo the then-experimental ligament-replacement surgery that still bears his name. After missing the 1975 season, John returned to play 14 more seasons, winning 20 games three times — all after the surgery. This surgical miracle’s place in the game’s lore alone should make him a Hall of Famer. “Tommy John isn’t famous because of the surgery that bears his name. Instead, the surgery is famous because of John’s performance afterward,” said Mark Bennett at Yahoo Sports.

What happened

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn Sunday unsealed an indictment charging Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz with rigging their pitches to enrich bettors and themselves.

Prosecutors alleged that Clase, “one of baseball’s best closers over the past several seasons, received bribes and kickbacks for participating in the scheme,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Who said what

Ortiz and Clase “betrayed America’s pastime,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said. The indictment was the latest “involving gambling to rock the world of professional sports, and the third in the past month” from Nocella’s office, The New York Times said. Last month, he charged more than 30 people, including an NBA star and head coach, in alleged gambling schemes that shook professional basketball.

Sports betting scandals “have long been a concern,” The Associated Press said, “but a May 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling led to a wave of gambling incidents involving athletes and officials.” The details of this indictment “are jarring for a sport that maintains its most sacred rule is not betting on baseball,” The Washington Post said. Prosecutors said Clase, 27, “began rigging pitches as early as May 2023, a year after he signed a five-year deal with Cleveland worth $20 million.” Both pitchers denied the allegations through their lawyers.

What next?

Clase and Ortiz were charged with wire fraud, money laundering and bribery conspiracy counts punishable by decades in prison. They also face possible lifetime bans from MLB. Ortiz, 26, was arrested Sunday at Boston Logan International Airport and was scheduled to make his first court appearance today. Clase was “thought to be in his native Dominican Republic,” the Journal said.

In the last year, Shohei Ohtani has become as famous for the financial scandals surrounding him as he has for his ability to slug baseballs. Now the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar is embroiled in yet another financial scandal, this time involving allegations made about a real estate deal in Hawaii. In addition, Ohtani continues to deal with blowback from a gambling fraud incident that landed his interpreter a nearly five-year prison sentence.

'Threats and baseless legal claims'

The latest scandal involves two Hawaiian real estate developers who are suing Ohtani and his agent. The lawsuit claims that Ohtani's agent, Nez Balelo, got the developers "fired from a $240 million luxury housing development [the Vista at Mauna Kea] on the Big Island's coveted Hapuna Coast that they brought [Ohtani] in to endorse" and build a home in, said The Associated Press.

Balelo "increasingly demanded concessions" from the developers before allegedly "demanding that their business partner, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, drop them from the deal," said the AP. Ohtani and Balelo "exploited their celebrity leverage to destabilize and ultimately dismantle" the developers' "role in the project — for no reason other than their own financial self-interest," the lawsuit claims. The pair allegedly "used threats and baseless legal claims to force a business partner to betray its contractual obligations and strip Plaintiffs of the very project they conceived and built."

The lawsuit is "completely frivolous and without merit," Kingsbarn told the AP in a statement. The company added that it "takes full responsibility" for removing the developers. Ohtani himself said he was "focused on what the team is doing" when asked about the lawsuit.

Another scandal for Ohtani

This is the second major financial scandal for Ohtani, who is widely considered one of the best baseball players in the world. His ex-interpreter was "sentenced to 57 months in prison for stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani," said ESPN, in a controversy that had some initially questioning Ohtani despite his denial of any knowledge.

This also comes in the aftermath of Balelo being "behind Ohtani's free agent deal with the Dodgers, which is one of the most lucrative — and management-friendly — contracts in MLB history," said NBC News. At the time, the deal was "reported to be the biggest contract in baseball history, at $700 million for 10 seasons." He is also set to earn "$100 million in endorsements in 2025 alone, tops among MLB players," said The Athletic.

But despite the controversy around his finances, the lawyers currently suing him have "left the door open for Ohtani to have once again been a victim of someone in his inner circle bringing him legal trouble," said SFGate. It is "uncertain at this time whether his agent's alleged contractual interference and misdeeds were even known to Mr. Ohtani at the time, or whether he may have himself been misled by Mr. Balelo — but we aim to find out," attorneys for the developers said to the outlet.

The status of the deal is unclear, but Ohtani's interest in Hawaii has been longstanding; The Wall Street Journal first reported in 2024 that he was looking to build a home in the state, which is a "beautiful blend of Pacific Ocean cultures" and a "special place — a place I will soon call home," Ohtani said in a press release. The Vista at Mauna Kea's website still lists Ohtani as "our first resident."

Drafting baseball players is more of an art than a science, and every year players are selected in the first round of Major League Baseball's amateur player draft who never reach the majors. The top overall pick, however, is more of a sure thing, and most of the players selected first since the draft was instituted in 1965 have played at least one game in the majors. The Washington Nationals probably hope that their top choice this year in the spot, 17-year-old infielder Eli Willits, doesn't end up on this list of the five biggest busts, organized by career Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

1. Brady Aiken, Houston Astros (0 WAR)

Aiken earned his spot on this list by being a first-round draft pick twice. The first was in 2014 by the Houston Astros. After his selection, a routine "MRI of Aiken's elbow revealed an abnormality, reportedly a 'small' ulnar collateral ligament," said Sports Illustrated. The Astros then controversially backed out of an agreement with Aiken and sought a lower signing bonus. Ultimately, Aiken chose not to take the Astros' offer and was selected 17th by the Cleveland Indians in 2015 after he had "Tommy John surgery" that winter. Aiken's elite velocity, unfortunately, didn't return after the surgery, and he never pitched above Class A ball.

2. Steve Chilcott, New York Mets (0 WAR)

In 1966, the second year of the sport's amateur player draft, the New York Mets used the first pick in the draft on Chilcott, a "hard-hitting catcher" the team drafted out of Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, California, said The New York Times. Infamously, the Kansas City Athletics took future Hall of Fame outfielder Reggie Jackson with the second pick. Chilcott was "actually hitting well in the Florida State League in 1967" when he suffered a shoulder injury that completely derailed his career, said ESPN. He briefly reached Triple-A but remains one of just three number one picks (excluding 2024 top draftee Travis Bazzana) who never reached the major leagues.

3. Brien Taylor, New York Yankees (0 WAR)

Taylor, a hard-throwing high school right-hander who drew comparisons to the New York Mets' Dwight Gooden, was a key figure in dramatically increasing signing bonuses for baseball's amateur draft picks. Represented by young superagent Scott Boras, Taylor held out for a then-record $1.55 million bonus after the Yankees selected him in the 1991 draft. Taylor was blowing through the minor leagues when he got into a fistfight to protect his brother Brenden and "fell or was thrown onto his left shoulder while wrestling" a man on December 18, 1993, said the Society for American Baseball Research. The shoulder injury eventually required surgery, and Taylor never regained the form that made him a phenom.

4. Danny Goodwin, California Angels (-1.7 WAR)

The only player in history to be taken with the first overall selection twice, Goodwin, a catcher, was selected out of high school by the Chicago White Sox in 1971. They offered him a "lower-than-anticipated figure" as a signing bonus, and "combined with Goodwin's desire to earn a college degree," this led him to turn down the offer and accept a scholarship from Southern University instead, said Major League Baseball. The California Angels took him first in the 1975 draft, and he signed for $125,000. Goodwin spent parts of seven seasons in the majors with three different teams, but his career never took off the way the teams that drafted him had hoped.

5. Henry Davis, Pittsburgh Pirates (-1.4 WAR)

In fairness, the jury is still out on Davis, a catcher who is currently playing for the Pirates, albeit not very well. In 2021, the Pirates "took him knowing he probably wasn't the best player in the draft" because paying him a smaller bonus "allowed the Pirates to overpay for highly touted high schoolers with their next three picks," said Fangraphs. One of them, pitcher Bubba Chandler, is the team's best prospect today — but Davis continues to struggle. He was hitting just .198 with four home runs through the 2025 All Star break.

Baseball's single-season loss record, long held by the 1962 New York Mets, stood for more than 60 years until it was broken last year by the Chicago White Sox. But the new low might last only a year. At 7-36, the Colorado Rockies are off to the worst 43-game start in the sport's modern history, and while analysts are split about how serious a run they are likely to make at the loss record this season, the team will have to improve significantly to avoid a history-making disaster.

How bad have the Rockies been?

Baseball is a game where seemingly random bursts of bad luck can add up quickly to an undeserved fate. But the underlying data and metrics show that the Rockies have mostly earned their miserable record in the early going. They had the "second-worst run differential through 40 games since 1900," said ESPN. They've been bad as hosts and as visitors. "The Rockies are 2-20 on the road" and have "lost all 14 series this season," said Yahoo Sports.

The Rockies have also been almost implausibly terrible on both sides of the ball. They lead baseball in runs allowed per game with 6.4 — not surprising, given that the thin mountain air of Coors Field is by far the friendliest environment for hitters in the sport, as it decreases the movement on pitches. That makes the park "simultaneously a breathtaking place to watch a baseball game and a challenging venue in which to build a team," said The Athletic.

But they are also near the bottom in both raw offensive totals — ranking 29th out of 30 in the sport with just 3.29 runs scored per game — as well as measures that adjust for Denver's ballpark effects, like OPS+, which ranks the Rockies' hitters dead last in baseball. The team currently features just two regulars who have performed better than the league average. Even in comparison to last year's record-setting White Sox, the Rockies are "worse. Maybe a lot worse," said FanGraphs.

What is the outlook for the team?

As bad as the Rockies have been, they may not have hit rock bottom. They have played comparatively few games in their own very strong division, the National League West, which features the lavishly-funded Los Angeles Dodgers as well as a "trio of strong contenders," said MLB Trade Rumors. The strength of their opponents for the remainder of their schedule means that "things may get worse in Colorado before they get better," said CBS Sports.

The team's outlook is also grim because the Rockies are widely regarded as the worst-run franchise in baseball. The Colorado Rockies, as "an organization, are utterly clueless," said Yahoo Sports, dubbing the club the "Rocky Mountain horror show." This is "perhaps the most insular organization in baseball," said Sports Illustrated. "They don't make trades," and the team's "major league development is poor."

While the Rockies aren't the biggest spenders in the sport, analysts agree that their predicament is not entirely down to their spendthrift ways. "Every crappy Rockies team since 2019 has cost at least $118 million to field," while ownership has "locked up their promising homegrown players and dipped into at least the middle tier of free agency with some regularity," said Fangraphs. It just hasn't worked out, which was never more clear than when the team gave oft-injured slugger Kris Bryant a seven-year $182 million contract before the 2022 season, "one of the worst contracts in franchise history," said Mile High Sports. Bryant has played in only 11 games this season and even when he's been on the field, he's been a disaster.

Not all the news is bad. Thanks in part to a strong bullpen, FanGraphs "projects them playing close to .400 ball the rest of the way," which would "help them avoid the fate of the White Sox," said ESPN. But overall, it is clear that the Rockies "need to turn things around, and in a hurry, if the wrong kind of history is to be averted," said Fox Sports.

'We are desperately short of air traffic controllers — could AI help close the gap?'

Sheldon H. Jacobson at The Hill

The "modern era's volume of flights is overwhelming how controllers communicate with flight crews and perform flight tracking," says Sheldon H. Jacobson. What is "needed is an overhaul of the air traffic control system and the technology being used." AI "cannot replace air traffic controllers, nor should it." But it "can, however, support their efforts, making it possible for air traffic controllers to be more efficient and effective, and perhaps reduce the risk of miscommunications."

Read more

'I love the Phillies and admired Pete Rose. MLB, keep him out of the Hall of Fame.'

Chris Brennan at USA Today

Pete Rose "knew that betting on baseball, wagering on teams he was managing, was stupid and reckless. He did it anyway," says Chris Brennan. The MLB has "now decided to rescind Rose's lifetime ban," but "that is a mistake." Rose was an "exceptional player who earned a place in that hall but squandered it for all of us to see." Rose was "right where he put himself, and there was nobody to blame but Rose."

Read more

'We've been thinking about gun violence all wrong'

Jens Ludwig at Time

"Gun violence is a uniquely American problem," but the "way we've thought about gun violence has made the politics of progress nearly impossible," says Jens Ludwig. The "even bigger problem is we've been thinking about gun violence all wrong." The "most politically contentious part of the debate has been about gun control," but "even if we can't do all that much about guns, we can make real progress on gun violence by reducing interpersonal violence."

Read more

'UnitedHealthcare's collapse has nothing to do with Luigi Mangione'

Alex Kirshner at Slate

The UnitedHealthcare CEO's "killing didn't hurt UnitedHealthcare much, but the reaction to the killing did," says Alex Kirshner. The "deep swell of interest in the event had become a public-relations problem." The company's "recent problems are not because it has stopped being stingy with claims." It is "struggling because its business is taking money from people ahead of time and hoping they don't need it back in the form of payments to cover medical costs."

Read more

What happened

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred Tuesday reinstated disgraced baseball great Pete Rose and other deceased players on MLB's permanently ineligible list. Manfred's decision, announced in a letter to the Rose family's lawyer, opened the door for Rose and 16 other dead people banned for gambling and other scandals to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Who said what

Rose, who died last September, agreed to a permanent ban in 1989 after he was caught betting on his team, the Cincinnati Reds, as a player and as manager. Other players now eligible for posthumous induction include Shoeless Joe Jackson and his seven Chicago Black Sox teammates banned for throwing the 1919 World Series.

"In my view, once an individual has passed away, the purpose of Rule 21" — which prohibits players and team staff from betting on any game in which they are directly involved — "has been served," Manfred wrote. Deceased players no longer "represent a threat to the integrity of the game." Marcus Giamatti, the son of the late MLB commissioner who banned Rose, disagreed. Manfred's decision "makes this a very dark day for baseball, the country and the fans," he said.

What next?

"Convincing Manfred to lift the ban on Rose may turn out to be the easy part" for his supporters, The Wall Street Journal said. Rose's stats are "unimpeachable," but he "committed one of baseball's gravest sins" and could "still face long odds" when the Hall of Fame's "Classic Era Committee" next votes in late 2027.

Gawr Gura, the most popular VTuber in the world, has officially announced her retirement. A computer-generated cross between a girl and a shark, Gawr Gura acted as a "torchbearer" of this fast growing internet subculture, said The Gamer.

VTubers, or virtual YouTubers, use face or body tracking to "puppeteer a digital avatar" anime character and sing, stream and speak often to massive audience bases, said Polygon.

The online community, which started in Japan, has "exploded in popularity" in the past few years and is now gaining fans across the world. Entertainers' real faces and voices never appear online – instead, fans follow the avatars, the majority of which "derive their visual style from anime".

With millions of subscribers, Gawr Gura decided to retire due to issues with her agency – the largest of a handful that "recruit and foster talent to become virtual entertainers", said Polygon.

The VTuber's decision feels "bittersweet" to long-time fans, said The Gamer. "They weren't just cheering for a cute anime shark girl, but the voice, personality, and presence they had come to know."

Anime streamers

VTube was first taken mainstream by Kizuna AI, an avatar brought to life by Japanese company Activ8 nearly 10 years ago. Since then, agencies have capitalised on the growing market, building up bases of avatar talent. Cover Corp, the agency that managed Gawr Gura, is the largest, handling dozens of creators and facilitating about a quarter of all VTube views.

VTubers, managed by an agency or not, take to streaming services like YouTube and Twitch to connect with their fans. Masquerading as their character and often taking on a signature, high-pitched anime voice, creators put on performances or simply chat – and people tune in by the millions.

Fans of VTubers often develop parasocial relationships with their favourite entertainers, becoming attached to the real people behind the avatars. In many ways, the community mirrors Japan's "idol" culture, in which singers and entertainers are intentionally marketed to fans as role models, friends, or even potential romantic partners.

Motoaki Tanigo, CEO of Cover Corp, said that despite visual comparisons to artificial intelligence, fans might become confused or disconnected if VTube creators started to use AI in their videos. "This whole business is based on fans' desire to support someone because of their extraordinary artistic talent," he told The Japan Times.

Hitting a home run in LA

Viewership of VTube is growing, and it is slowly "becoming a staple of live content", said Esports Illustrated. Last summer, even more people were exposed to VTube when Cover characters made some special appearances at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game.

The avatars took to the jumbotron, were found in photo spots as cardboard cutouts and sold special merch, like t-shirts and baseball cards. "Gura even went viral for her rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game in the 7th inning," said Esports Illustrated.

Baseball and VTube may seem like an unusual combination, but "the collaboration was a success" even before the Dodgers took home the World Series in October. The sport is incredibly popular in Japan, and the Dodgers with "superstar Shohei Ohtani on the roster" gave the collaboration plenty of momentum.

The agencies behind VTube aren't slowing down anytime soon. For Cover, "the Dodgers' promotion is one step in a campaign to broaden the appeal of VTubers beyond the fervent core" of young men in Japan, said the LA Times.

The company has since launched Cover USA, opening an office in Los Angeles, said Esports Illustrated. And alongside its expansion, Cover has introduced "its VTuber talent" to anime conventions and concerts, hoping to "spread awareness of its creators and brand in the English market".

The New York Yankees smashed 15 home runs in their first three games of the 2025 Major League Baseball season last week, largely thanks to a brand new tool: torpedo bats. These revolutionary new bats, which alter the design of the bat's wooden barrel, have other teams around the league taking notice and wondering if this could have a lasting impact on baseball.

While other types of modified bats, such as corked bats, are strictly forbidden in the major leagues, MLB has already confirmed that torpedo bats are legal and allowed; the league itself has even released news articles highlighting them. This could pave the way for a new era of baseball, one in which home-run hitters take precedence.

Lower barrel

Unlike a traditional bat, on torpedo bats the wooden portion starts further down the barrel, moving the "wood toward the sweet spot of the bat, where players try to make contact and where the bat will produce optimal results," said USA Today. This gives the torpedo bat a "slightly different shape than a traditional one," and this "redistribution of weight moves the 'barrel' area slightly toward the hands, rather than toward the end of the bat."

The theory is that this redistribution allows batters to hit the denser, sweet spot of the bat more often, which in turn creates more hits — a shift the Yankees have clearly exploited. So the torpedo bat "isn't an automatic cheat code for a home run like the Yankees have made it seem, but it could be the tweak some hitters need to improve their performance at the plate," said Sports Illustrated.

'Other teams can do it too'

The bat was created because players "wanted to make more contact with pitches and they wanted to strike the ball more often," Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT physicist turned baseball coach who invented the torpedo bat, said to The Athletic. In "some sense, you can have your cake and eat it here too. You can get some gains without actually making sacrifices."

The Yankees have been the breakout users of the torpedo bat so far, but other clubs could follow, making the bats the norm. "Other teams can do it too. It's not just us," Yankees prospect Jasson Dominguez said to Fox Sports. But the opinion among major league players seems to be split on the bats.

Players are "doing everything to try to get an edge today legally, and I think they should. I think whatever is good for the offensive game is good for the game," Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy said to Yahoo Sports. Murphy had this opinion even after the Yankees hit nine home runs in a March 29 game against his Brewers. Others were not on board. "It's terrible — I feel like it's something used in slow-pitch softball," Brewers reliever Trevor Megill said to the outlet. It "might be bush league. It might not be."

Nevertheless, the trend is slowly creeping into other clubs. The "Twins' catcher Ryan Jeffers and the Rays' Junior Caminero and Yandy Díaz were also spotted using torpedo bats in Spring Training and over opening weekend," said CNN. The bats are likely here to stay, as a "lot of teams are doing that around the league," Baltimore Orioles hitting coach Cody Asche said to MLB.com. If you "were around the clubhouse, all 30 teams, you would see a guy or two that's kind of adopting a bat that's kind of fashioned more specifically to their swing."

The crack of the bat is almost here with Opening Day for the 2025 Major League Baseball season set for March 27. But while MLB has become known for its melting pot of backgrounds among players, this diversity may be putting a strain on the Japanese baseball industry.

Baseball has long been the most popular sport in Japan, with its top league, Nippon Professional Baseball, drawing nearly 27 million attendees last year. Yet players like Shohei Ohtani have become major stars in the U.S., and others are bypassing NPB entirely. This could mark the beginning of a new trend where Japanese baseball players are recruited in the U.S. straight away.

Why are Japanese players flocking to the US?

The phenomenon of Japanese players moving to MLB is not new. Hideo Nomo's stellar 1995 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers is credited with the "explosion of Japanese talent in MLB over the last 30 years," said CNN.

But the emergence of superstars like Ohtani — considered by some to be the best player in baseball history — has "helped revitalize baseball, a sport that some say has experienced waning popularity in the U.S. for some time," said NBC News. Japanese influence has gotten so popular in MLB that the Chicago Cubs recently played the Dodgers in Tokyo for their season opener. Both teams also played exhibition games against Japan's Hanshin Tigers.

This popularity has led to some Japanese ballplayers going straight to MLB. Shotaro Morii, 18, and Rintaro Sasaki, 19, "moved directly to American baseball," bypassing Nippon restrictions and "unwritten societal norms of playing first in Japan," said The Associated Press. Morii already has a $1.5 million professional contract with the Athletics, while Sasaki plays at Stanford University.

What does this mean for Japanese baseball?

It is unclear whether this trend will continue in the long term. "I don't know how I will influence Japanese high school baseball players, but I'm just going on my path, my way," Sasaki, who will be eligible for the MLB draft in 2026, said to the AP. But some experts are worried that this tendency to forego NPB will lead to less of a baseball presence in Japan.

Japanese professional baseball has been "replaced by an obsession with Japanese stars in America," baseball expert Robert Whiting said to CNN. Japanese baseball is "still an ongoing sport, but people don't watch their own homegrown game like they used to." The sport "has sort of disappeared from network television" in Japan. Whiting cited Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants, Japan's oldest professional sports club, who have "their own cable channel, which has a limited audience." People in Japan "don't see the Giants games on every night."

Nippon does not seem to be sweating it. The "success of young players has attracted attention, which has led to the popularity of NPB without any loss of interest from fans," Nippon officials said to the AP. The league "believes that this has maintained the appeal of the league as a whole even after star players have moved to MLB." And even MLB's "general philosophy is to have locally born players play in their local professional leagues," MLB Chief Operations Officer Chris Marinak said to the AP.

For now, the trend remains in full swing. Sasaki "embodies a new era of Japanese ballplayer. And already, one thing is clear: Plenty more are gearing up to take the same path," said The Wall Street Journal. The "average Japanese baseball player now, they have a dream to play in the big leagues," Sasaki told the Journal.

Over the past two offseasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers have committed more than $2 billion in future player salaries, reigniting debate about whether a salary cap would ease the equity woes across the league. After reaching a $700 million deal with star Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers won their second World Series in four years and are positioned for another deep run following another offseason spending spree.

With frustration growing among fans of smaller market teams, baseball may be headed to a standoff after its Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the players expires in 2026.

Why aren't there salary caps in baseball?

Baseball is unique among the four major North American sports in that it does not have a salary cap, largely because the last effort by the sport's owners to impose one ended in catastrophe. The 1994 season began without a CBA between the players and the owners, who were unified in their desire for a salary cap. By August, the owners were "still pushing hard for that cap, and no agreement was going to be reached while that remained on the table," said Baseball Prospectus. The players struck, and the rest of the regular season games and the playoffs were canceled. Fans were livid, and the "average attendance dropped from over 31,000 per game to just above 25,000 between 1994 and 1995," said Yahoo Sports.

Players and owners agreed to a compromise "competitive balance tax" in 1996, which set a soft spending limit. Teams that "carry payrolls above that threshold are taxed on each dollar above the threshold," said Major League Baseball. In 2024, the luxury tax threshold was set at $237 million and nine teams went over it, contributing $311 million in taxes. The Dodgers alone were assessed more than $103 million in taxes, meaning that they "outspent just in luxury tax the entire payrolls of the bottom six teams or 20% of the league," said Baseball Purist.

Are the rules working?

In some ways, baseball's spending rules have led to parity this century. The MLB "hasn't had a repeat champion since 2000," said CBS Sports, meaning that no team has won back-to-back World Series championships since the Yankees in 1999-2000. There have been 16 different champions in that time, including small-market teams like the Miami Marlins, Kansas City Royals and Washington Nationals. But the Dodgers have been quietly building an empire for more than a decade, reeling off "14 consecutive winning seasons and 12 consecutive playoff appearances," said The Ringer.

Recently, the biggest spenders have "not shown much concern about the impact of their activities on smaller-market clubs," said Front Office Sports. The Dodgers' spending will "only accelerate renewed talk of a cap," said The Athletic. And it's not just the Dodgers: outfielder Juan Soto signed a $765 million contract with the New York Mets this offseason that put him out of reach for almost every team. That reality means it is "possible that some baseball owners may realize they simply aren't wealthy enough to compete against their so-called peers without a cap," said Puck.

Not everyone is convinced that a salary cap is the answer to the sport's inequalities. "It's a cyclical thing, and the cycle has come back around to a tired narrative," said Bill Shaikin at the Los Angeles Times. More teams could easily afford to spend like the Dodgers and the Mets, but "half the league spends less than half of their revenue on the team itself," said Marc Normandin on his baseball analysis site. The issue isn't the Dodgers or the Mets, it is the "lower payroll teams not doing more to field a competitive group," as they pocket revenue sharing while consistently putting up terrible results, said Rowan Kavner at Fox Sports.

All of this is leading to speculation about a work stoppage after the CBA expires. "At this point, I would be surprised if there wasn't a lockout," said Deesha Thosar at Fox Sports. "If owners decide to push aggressively for a cap, history says the fallout will be ugly," said The Athletic.

After weeks of speculation about where he would land, sought-after baseball outfielder Juan Soto, who hit 41 home runs and drove in 128 runs last season, signed with the New York Mets for 15 years and $765 million on Dec. 11. It is the longest and richest contract in global professional sports history; but while the Mets' rivals are likely disappointed they did not land him, there is no guarantee Soto will be worth the historic investment.

Soto, who is represented by prominent agent Scott Boras and played the 2024 season with the New York Yankees, debuted with the Washington Nationals in 2018, at age 19 — significantly earlier than most players reach the majors. Baseball's system of free agency guarantees teams six years of exclusive control over their own players, and many players are "reaching free agency later, often after their peak seasons are behind them," said Baseball America. This made Soto, who will be 26 for the 2025 season, a rarity: a superstar position player whose best years might still be ahead of him. Even Shohei Ohtani, the two-way player who signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers last offseason, was 28 at the time of the agreement.

Some teams, especially small market clubs like the Tampa Bay Rays, are worried by cautionary tales like the disastrous 8-year, $248 million contract extension signed by Detroit Tigers infielder Miguel Cabrera in 2014. The year that extension kicked in, 2016, was Cabrera's last valuable season before he "reached the part of the rollercoaster where the cars plunge with gut-shaking speed," said Sports Illustrated.

What did the commentators say?

Despite the astronomical value of Soto's deal, the reaction to the Mets' gamble has been mostly positive. "If you made me pick one hitter in baseball to have on my team until he retired, and told me money were no object, I'd pick Soto," said Ben Clemens at Fangraphs. While the terms "blew away even veteran baseball executives," Soto is "is the surest investment in baseball," said Sports Illustrated.

Others noted the significance of the Mets swiping a player out from under the nose of the Yankees, their storied cross-town rivals. The Soto signing "looks like the beginning of a golden era for Mets baseball," said ESPN. Soto's deal means that the "power in New York swings to Queens," where the Mets play, said Yahoo Sports.

Not everyone was sold. Because of the size and length of the contract, "it won't necessarily be easy for Soto to perform to the level of his salary," said The Athletic, citing recent examples of players like Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout suddenly declining. The Angels signed Trout to a 12-year, $430 million extension in 2019, when he was 26, and the slugger has been injured frequently, playing in just 29 games in 2024. The Mets likely hope this record-setting contract will see a different trajectory.

What's next?

$765 million is an extraordinary amount of money, and calculating a baseball player's value is more of an art than a science. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is the metric that most teams use to determine an individual player's contributions to the club, in comparison to a "replacement player," which refers to a "Minor League replacement or a readily available fill-in free agent," said Major League Baseball. The WAR aims to "provide a holistic metric of player value that allows for comparisons across team, league, year and era," said Fangraphs, a site that tracks MLB statistics.

Last year, Soto was worth 8.1 WAR to the New York Yankees, using the Fangraphs version of the stat, which was the fourth-highest total in the sport. Soto is projected to accumulate 65.8 WAR over the life of his contract, according to the site, which they estimate at a value of $719 million. "For a bidding war between rich teams, the money made a lot of sense," said Fangraphs. The Mets, who fell just short of reaching the World Series last year, now have high hopes that Soto will carry them to glory in 2025, whatever the cost.

'How JD Vance could become the most powerful VP in American history'

Jeff Mayhugh at The Hill

J.D. Vance "might be the most powerful vice president in American history," says Jeff Mayhugh. Vance "could use his intellectual prowess, congressional and venture capitalist relationships, and competitive roots to expand the power of the vice presidency." If "Trump recognizes Vance's growing influence and reacts unpredictably, Vance's position as vice president would make him the only person in Trump's inner circle who cannot be fired." Vance has the "potential to wield that power in ways never seen before."

Read more

'What Scotland can teach America about democracy'

Joe Mathews at the San Francisco Chronicle

Earth's "2.3 billion children now represent a rising global superpower," says Joe Mathews, and "children are demanding more of the democratic rights that they are now denied." In Scotland, all children "have been able to register to vote at age 14 and cast ballots at 16." When "looking at the world in Edinburgh, children's power feels like a rising tide. Who, but a fool or an adult, would dare stand in our kids' way?"

Read more

'Abortion has always been more than health care'

Christen Hammock Jones at Time

Abortion "is health care in the broad sense of the term," says Christen Hammock Jones. But "many feminists working towards abortion rights in the 1960s and '70s would have viewed this framing with suspicion." Many "thought medicine itself was a lost cause because of the hierarchy that placed 'expert' doctors above patients." Like "feminists in the 1960s and '70s, those calling for the return of Roe should widen their vision of abortion rights beyond the clinic."

Read more

'Baseball has much larger problems than the farcical "golden at-bat"'

David Lengel at The Guardian

A baseball rule change "would allow a team to send their preferred player to the plate, at any time, even if it wasn't his turn to hit, once a game," but this "transforms the game into a different code," says David Lengel. Baseball needs "real solutions to the crisis of endless arm injuries," but "instead we get the golden at-bat, the equivalent of being bored at 2 a.m. on the Fourth of July and stuffing M-80s inside cinder blocks."

Read more

On October 9, when Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida's west coast, winds destroyed the roof of Tropicana Field, the domed stadium that has been home to Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays since 1998. The Tampa Bay Times reported on October 15 that the field could not be repaired in time for the team to play its 2025 season there. Most surprisingly, Pinellas County officials recently cast doubt on whether they will move forward with the planned new facility that was set to open in 2028, throwing the team's future in the area in doubt.

A troubled history

The story of the Rays embodied the idea of "If you build it, they will come." Boosters who wanted to attract an MLB expansion franchise spearheaded the construction of a domed facility (then called the Florida Suncoast Dome) in St. Petersburg, which was finished in 1990 without a professional sports tenant. Baseball owners blocked the relocation of the San Francisco Giants to the area in 1992, and it was not until 1995 that MLB announced its expansion into the Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg and Phoenix markets. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays began playing at the newly renamed Tropicana Field in 1998.

From the get-go, the Trop was regarded as one of the least attractive facilities in North American professional sports. The team (renamed the Rays before the 2008 season), has ranked last or next-to-last in the American League in attendance almost every year of its existence, despite a long run of innovative management and competitiveness that began in 2008 and has seen the team reach the World Series twice. The stadium's artificial turf is disliked by players, the catwalks that held up the now-destroyed roof hung so low that they frequently interfered with batted balls in play during games and there are no public transit options for fans. "The Trop is a bad facility in a bad location," said sports economist Andrew Zimbalist in The Tampa Tribune in 2013.

In 2023, the Rays announced an agreement to build a $1.3 billion fixed roof stadium in neighboring St. Petersburg with $600 million in public financing. That seemed to secure the team's future in Florida. Then came Hurricane Milton.

And where to now, Tampa Rays?

After the Trop's roof was destroyed, the league scrambled to choose a stadium somewhere near the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area that could accommodate the team in 2025, settling on the Yankees' 11,000-seat spring training facility in Tampa. But on November 19th, the Pinellas County Commission pushed back a vote to issue bonds for the new stadium and also did not allocate the estimated $55 million needed to repair the Trop for the Rays' final two seasons there in 2026 and 2027. The new stadium deal is perhaps not dead, but it has put relocation of the franchise back on the table. "The future of baseball in Tampa Bay became less certain after that vote," said Rays owner Stu Sternberg in the Tampa Bay Times.

Franchise relocations require the support of 75% of the sport's 30 franchise owners, and in the past, such moves have been stymied by turf wars related to attendance or TV rights. The 2023 decision to move the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas was the first relocation in nearly 20 years. Baseball may now have to do it again. Potential legal battles between the Rays and the city of St. Petersburg, which is obligated to provide a stadium for the Rays in 2026 and 2027, loom large. "I think Major League Baseball in the Tampa Bay Area is at greater risk today than it's ever been," said Tampa Bay Times sports columnist John Romano in an interview with WUSF radio.

The North Carolina cities Charlotte and Raleigh, as well as Nashville, Tennessee, have been the subject of speculation if the Rays decide to move, but that process would likely take years to play out. The Rays, in the meantime, open the 2025 season in their temporary Tampa home on March 27.

A vacancy in America's pastime could soon be filled, as it was announced in October that a new baseball league for women is on the horizon. The Women's Professional Baseball League (WPBL) is currently in development and aiming to debut in 2026. This would mark yet another high point for the rise of professional women's sports in the United States.

There has not been a professional women's baseball league in the U.S. since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League; this league, made famous in the film "A League of Their Own," was dissolved in 1954. But there have been renewed efforts to revitalize women's baseball on a professional level, and now the first women's league in 70 years is coming to fruition.

What are the details of the WPBL?

The WPBL will "be a national league with teams based across the U.S.," and "will launch for the 2026 season with six teams in the Northeast," according to a press release. Cities, team names and branding have not yet been revealed, though the league's website does have a page set up for team ownership opportunities. The league is also working on securing broadcasting deals for television.

The league was started by Justine Siegal and Keith Stein. Siegal was the "first woman to coach a professional men's baseball team and to pitch batting practice against a Major League Baseball team," the press release said, and is also the founder of the nonprofit women's group Baseball for All. Stein is a "lawyer and businessman with a history in professional sports leagues and team ownership."

How could the WPBL grow women's sports?

There has been an increasing interest in women's sports that "made this an ideal time to launch a women's baseball league," Siegal said to The Associated Press. Women's sports have been skyrocketing in popularity in recent years; basketball in particular has seen a massive boost thanks to WNBA stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Cameron Brink. The women's professional sports industry will "generate global revenues of $1.28 billion in 2024," said consultancy group Deloitte, marking the "first time that annual global revenues for women's sports will have surpassed $1 billion."

But women's baseball faces an uphill battle, as "securing franchise owners, six Northeastern cities, stadiums and sponsors might pale in comparison to the league's most basic need: players with experience," said NBC News. There are no states currently offering girls' high school baseball, but there were "1,372 high school girls who played on boys baseball teams across America last academic year," according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. This number is much lower than the "471,761 boys who played baseball" this year, said NBC.

Despite this, there are "girls playing baseball and local leagues around the country right now," Siegal said to NBC, and she hopes they will be able to capture this market. The WPBL is "going to be able to give a pipeline for girls who are being told they should quit when now they know that they have a place that they could play in."

There is more good news for those hoping to see continued expansion in women's sports. The WNBA is "adding three new teams over the next two years — starting with the Golden State Valkyries next summer," said Yahoo! Sports, while the "National Women's Soccer League is expected to announce a 16th franchise by the end of the year, and the Professional Women's Hockey League is gearing up for its second season next month." All of this bodes well for the potential growth of the WPBL.

What happened

The New York Liberty, one of the original WNBA franchises, won their first championship title Sunday, beating the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in overtime of a hard-fought Game 5. It was New York's first pro basketball title since the Knicks won the NBA championship in 1973. New York City lost a guaranteed World Series victory, however, when the Mets fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers Sunday, a 10-5 defeat in the deciding Game 6 of the National League championships. The New York Yankees, though, punched their ticket to the World Series on Saturday night in a 5-2 Game 5 win over the Cleveland Guardians.

Who said what

The Liberty's win capped "27 seasons of disappointment," including five previous trips to the finals since the team's debut in the "WNBA's inaugural season of 1997," The Washington Post said. It was "far from New York's most aesthetically pleasing game," The Athletic said, but "the only number that matters is the final margin." As star Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu said, Sunday's most important stat was "one more [point] than the other team."

There is less novelty in the 12th World Series matchup between the Dodgers and the Yankees, though the players have changed many times since the Dodgers won their last face-off in 1981. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani will lead his injury-hobbled, deep-benched team against Yankees slugger Juan Soto and a trio of veterans in their 30s — Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole — who covet a "championship as validation as much as accomplishment," The Associated Press said.

What next?

The Yankees and Dodgers play Game 1 this Friday night in Los Angeles. The Liberty will be celebrated with a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan; the date is expected to be announced Monday.

'Let death be the end of Pete Rose's punishment'

Charles Lane at The Washington Post

Pete Rose "repeatedly bet on baseball games, including his own team's," and Rose, a "betrayer of the game, did not belong in the Hall. Rose's accomplishments, though, do," says Charles Lane. A posthumous Hall of Fame induction "could provide an appropriate resolution to that conundrum." This "is, or should be, a case study in the relationship between remorse and forgiveness," and "yet — the records. The on-field impact." That "belongs in the Hall; the time is finally right."

Read more

'Hate against Haitian immigrants ignores how US politics pushed them here'

Régine Théodat at USA Today

The "political back-and-forth might lead those unfamiliar with Haiti's struggle to wrongly assume that Haitians are incapable of being at the center of their self-determination," but "anti-immigrant rhetoric ignores key factors that brought us here," says Régine Théodat. Haitians "have, and always have, embodied the wherewithal to seek self-determination." Like their "ancestors, who turned from everyday people into soldiers, today's Haitians became activists and investigators," and there is an "urgent call to action for a brighter future."

Read more

'Jimmy Carter, a humble centenarian'

Chris Matthews at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Jimmy Carter was "authentic, and he was new," says Chris Matthews. Americans "saw a peanut farmer from rural Georgia out there asking for their votes." But Carter "believed, rightly or wrongly, that he could not go to war with Iran over that country's blatant violation of diplomatic rights. Other presidents, obviously, would have." Doing so "might have given Carter a second term," but the "voters thought him wrong. Someday, we'll see how history views him."

Read more

'The Supreme Court tanked its reputation. This is the way back.'

Noah Feldman at Bloomberg

It is "clear that the U.S. Supreme Court's legitimacy crisis is getting worse," and the "task of restoring faith in the court falls to the justices themselves," says Noah Feldman. An "ethics code is only going to reestablish legitimacy if a skeptical public believes it is being followed," so "justices should, at a minimum, bend over backward to show they are in full compliance with the code." The justices could also "start splitting along less obvious ideological lines."

Read more

Losing can be a beautiful thing. That's the message I took away from a New York Times report on the Chicago White Sox's historically bad season, which has seen the team match the 1962 Mets' record of 120 losses — a record they may have shattered by the time you're reading this. Times writer Sam Anderson details how the White Sox have "explored the full spectrum of losing," like "the way a jazz saxophonist probes every note in a scale." They've gone down in squeakers and in routs, on sunny days and in the rain, and in games in which the entire team played like All-Stars and in one where the White Sox "hit their catcher in the groin with the baseball three separate times in a single inning."

Despite those many humiliations, a group of dedicated fans continues to show up in Section 108 of the White Sox stadium to gripe and (occasionally) cheer. Those loyalists say they're now rooting for an all-time loss record; one is selling T-shirts that declare, "We witnessed history." Meanwhile, the players themselves have shown remarkable grace, Anderson writes, a willingness to talk about losing and then "stride forward into the next potential loss."

At this fraught political moment, the "White Sux" might be the role models America needs. In MAGA world, it has become a sin to lose. After trying and failing to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, Trump and his allies are now aiming to head off the possibility of defeat in November by changing the rules of the game. GOP activists are attempting to toss tens of thousands of voters from the rolls in critical battlegrounds and are pushing for last-minute changes to election procedures in Georgia and other swing states.

Chaos and ugliness seem all but certain in November because our two-party democracy needs one side to admit defeat and walk away. Swallowing a loss is miserable, as the fans in Section 108 can attest. But as Anderson notes, it's also a "civic miracle that keeps us from tearing each other's heads off."

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

Major League Baseball's Chicago White Sox are currently set to eclipse the mark of 120 defeats set by the 1962 New York Mets. They are the most miserable team of the 2024 season — but are they the worst franchise? Not quite. Baseball has been around for a long time, so it's hard to generalize all the way back to the 1880s, but the Sox and the Mets have been two of the most troubled teams since baseball began expanding its playoffs in 1994, a time better known as the Wild Card era. 

The qualifications for inclusion on this list of worst franchises: they can't have won any championships during this period (excluding the White Sox themselves, due to their 2005 championship), have seldom made the postseason, and have failed to field consistently competitive teams. Here are five of the most disappointing baseball teams of the Wild Card era. 

1. Oakland Athletics

While the other teams here have problems, none of them are quite as acute as the A's, who have to play in a concrete mausoleum after failing to extort Bay Area taxpayers for a new stadium, in front of a dwindling fan base that knows the team will be leaving for Sacramento next year and then Las Vegas. The A's haven't won a title since 1989, and have spent most of this century trying to operate a contender on a shoestring budget. Because they had visionary executive Billy Beane (the subject of the movie "Moneyball") at the helm for most of this period, they were able to compete in a predictable boom-and-bust cycle using innovative player evaluation metrics. But since 2021, they've been the worst team in the sport by a country mile, including a spirited run at the loss record last year. 

2. Seattle Mariners

After giving the city the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969, only to see them decamp for Milwaukee the very next year to become the Brewers, baseball awarded Seattle a franchise in its 1977 expansion. And the Mariners have been pretty consistently bad ever since. Despite a fluke 116-win season in 2001, the Mariners then missed the playoffs for an unfathomable 20 straight years. The Mariners aren't cheap, exactly — their payroll has frequently ranked in the top half of the sport — but management usually leaves enough holes on the roster to sink the team. They look likely to miss the playoffs in 2024 for the 22nd time in 23 years. 

3. San Diego Padres

The Padres are another franchise still looking for their first title. Part of the 1969 expansion, they've been to the playoffs just six times in the Wild Card era. More recently, it certainly hasn't been for lack of trying. Situated in one of the game's smallest media markets, the Padres under General Manager A.J. Preller have spent lavishly and made a series of splashy acquisitions, but keep getting outfoxed by their upstate rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2023, the team missed the playoffs despite sporting an enormous $250 million payroll. 

4. Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates have made only three playoff appearances in the Wild Card era. That's not as bad as the Kansas City Royals (who have been just twice, although they are en route to a third this year), but the Royals made one of them count, winning a gritty, underdog World Series championship in 2015. In the Wild Card era's 31 seasons, the Pirates have had a losing record in 27 of them. Despite playing in one of the game's most magnificent ballparks, the Pirates simply have failed to crack the code of being remotely competitive year after year. 

5. Colorado Rockies

Part of baseball's 1993 expansion into Miami and Denver, the Rockies have been beset by difficulties from the team's inception. The basic problem is that Denver's thin mountain air makes it harder for pitchers to throw effective off-speed pitches, and hitters therefore tend to bludgeon them night after night. The club has made the playoffs just five times. Worse, the team's ownership sometimes seems clueless. For years, the Rockies have sat on their existing assets at the trade deadline rather than selling off to contenders, a stance that has become an industry-wide mystery. The Rockies are on their way to their second consecutive 100-loss season.

'Willie Mays was the best to ever play the game'

Frederic J. Frommer at CNN

Choosing the best baseball player ever is a "fraught exercise," but Willie Mays is the "clear choice, for his superhuman combination of speed and power, his incredible defense, his hitting prowess — and his grace on the baseball diamond," says Frederic J. Frommer. While a "case can be made for New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth," Mays combined his own slugging ability "with outstanding speed and defense, two qualities that were not hallmarks of Ruth's game."

Read more

'Bump stock, gun show verdicts show absurdity of 2nd Amendment absolutism'

The Dallas Morning News editorial board 

Recent court decisions "show the levels of absurdity to which our nation's gun debate has fallen," because the "logic of Second Amendment absolutism has officially turned back on itself," says The Dallas Morning News editorial board. A "critical observer might think that loopholes for flea markets and gun shows would be exactly the kind of back doors conservatives would want to close. But "sorting out who's on whose side is becoming ever more complicated."

Read more

'The lifelong incoherence of Biden's Israel strategy' 

David Klion at The Nation 

President Joe Biden "has offered what he has accurately described as "unprecedented" levels of American support for Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza," says David Klion. But "while the narrative that Biden's support for Israel has been stalwart over decades is broadly accurate, a closer examination of the president's long career in public life reveals scattered moments of ambivalence." Biden's "muddled record" on Israel "accounts for a policy course that voters across the political spectrum find unsatisfactory."

Read more

'It's time to reset EU-UK relations'

Daniela Schwarzer at the Financial Times

With corresponding elections in the U.K. and the EU, the "alignment of electoral calendars provides an opportunity" for the EU to improve relations "with a country that is one of the world's largest economies, a nuclear power, staunch supporter of Ukraine and an obvious stakeholder in Europe's security concerns," says Daniela Schwarzer. This will allow the EU a "chance to rethink its approach towards relations with the U.K." and a rare opportunity to shape the continent's new political architecture together."

Read more

'There's no 'invasion' at the US-Mexico border. I know. I design our ports of entry.'

Eddie Jones at USA Today

"There are challenges" within the immigration system, says Eddie Jones, but there are "no caravans, no invasions, no surges." Rather, it is a "crisis of human suffering and is due to the inaction of our elected officials, who have no incentive to turn off their fundraising faucet." The border problem "cannot be solved by narrow-minded, 3,000-year-old thinking." China, for example, "built the Great Wall to keep people out; it failed to achieve its presumed goal." 

Read more

'Democrats are taking Latinos for granted'

Luis Miranda at The Washington Post 

Many Democrats "believe that Latinos behave like other elements of the party's base: as something of a bloc, with widely shared experiences of oppression," says Luis Miranda. But Latino politics are "far more complicated than that." While they do lean Democratic, Latinos "are not automatically Democratic voters. They are persuadable swing voters, and that single misconception is hurting President Biden and his party." The upcoming election is "not about Trump gaining support as much as Biden losing it — at least for now."

Read more

'The real value of the Negro Leagues can't be captured in statistics'

Doug Glanville at The Atlantic 

MLB has combined Negro League statistics with its own record books, and "some are hailing this change as a long-overdue honor for the Negro Leagues, but I think that gets it backwards," says Doug Glanville. It's the MLB that is "honored by the inclusion" of Negro League players. But the Negro League "was never defined by statistics." The league's players "found a way to navigate the injustice of segregation, turning it into a means of self-empowerment."

Read more

'Silicon Valley's coming energy crisis' 

Peter Huntsman at The Wall Street Journal 

The campaign to eliminate fossil fuels "is on a collision course with the artificial intelligence revolution," says Peter Huntsman. But the irony is that "Big Tech helped give life to climate catastrophism and has advocated a net-zero energy transition." Silicon Valley has "financed the political and cultural movement against the extraction, refinement and transportation of fossil fuels," and now these tech leaders "will have to fight to fuel their latest innovations," despite the "high financial and societal costs of their policies."

Read more

What happened

Major League Baseball finished incorporating the Negro League's 1920-1948 statistics into its record books on Tuesday following three years of research. When the new rankings are unveiled Wednesday, The Washington Post said, "the Top 10 lists" for several "hallowed statistics" will "change dramatically," notably boosting Homestead Grays powerhouse Josh Gibson (pictured above with Satchel Paige).

Who said what

Gibson, who died in 1947 at age 35, will overtake Ty Cobb as MLB's career leader in batting average (.372 versus .367), Hugh Duffy in single-season batting average (.446 versus .440), and Babe Ruth in slugging percentage (.718 versus .690) and OPS (1.177 versus 1.164). "When you hear Josh Gibson's name now, it's not just that he was the greatest player in the Negro Leagues," Sean Gibson, Gibson's great-grandson, told USA Today, "but one of the greatest of all time."

The stats integration is a belated "acknowledgment that, had Black players been allowed to compete with their white counterparts in MLB's early decades, its leader boards would look very different," the Post said.

What next?

MLB will make its new database public before a special Negro League tribute game on June 20.

The U.S. is continuing to see a rapid influx of new sports stadiums either being proposed, approved by city councils or already being built. The soon-to-be Las Vegas Athletics will have a brand-new ballpark built for them when they move to Sin City, the Tennessee Titans broke ground on a new football stadium earlier this year, the Buffalo Bills are prepping a new stadium for 2026 and the Chicago Bears are negotiating on a new stadium to replace their aging current venue. And these are merely a few notable examples. 

But these stadiums do not come cheap, and they are often at the expense of taxpayers — many times more so than the team's fans may realize. The Titans' new stadium will cost about $2.1 billion, the new Las Vegas stadium is pegged at about $1.5 billion and the Bears are looking to secure $2.4 billion for a new stadium. While it might seem obvious that the team and their owners would be the ones financing these stadiums, cities often look to taxpayers to help offset the cost of these behemoth structures.  

This has led to controversy over whether or not taxes should be going to fund sports stadiums when there are many other problems that are seemingly more pressing. What are the economics of stadiums and tax subsidies, and what are the benefits and drawbacks of the system?   

How do stadium subsidies work? 

Like any other subsidy, city and state governments will often grant expenditures from taxpayers to help fund the construction of new stadiums. From 2020 to January 2023, there were five new stadiums built in the U.S. that cost a total of $1.97 billion, of which taxpayers funded $750 million, according to a report from the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM). 

While this is still a large amount, it is actually significantly less than in prior decades, according to the report. In the 1990s, there were 18 stadiums built at a cost of $342 million — but taxpayers spent significantly more on the projects, with JPAM reporting that subsidies footed $281 million of this price tag. And in the 1970s, all $287 million worth of new stadiums built were paid with tax subsidies. 

However, this assessment minimizes one key fact: Stadiums cost significantly more to build today than they did in earlier eras, leading to the nearly $2 billion price tag in the 2020s. 

What are some notable examples of subsidized stadiums?

While all four major North American sports leagues (Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League) play in taxpayer-funded stadiums, the NFL has among the most. Of the 30 stadiums that host NFL franchises, only three were completely funded by private money: SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. 

The other 27 NFL stadiums were all constructed using taxpayer subsidies for portions of the bill — and this trend will not be changing anytime soon. The aforementioned new stadium being built for the Buffalo Bills will have taxpayers "picking up most of the $1.4 billion-dollar tab," said USA Today. And the new Titans stadium appears to hold the record. While the Titans ownership will pay $840 million, the "total amount of public funding for the state-of-the-art stadium [will be] roughly $1.26 billion," according to Forbes. 

Baseball has similarly seen large-scale public funds going toward stadiums. Globe Life Field, the new home of MLB's Texas Rangers, opened in 2020 after a four-year construction process, with $500 million of the $1.2 billion cost being taxpayer-subsidized. Controversy also ignited in Georgia in 2013 after Cobb County officials announced plans to build a new ballpark for the Atlanta Braves, with $300 million in public funds being put toward the $722 million project. Despite local pushback, the $300 million subsidization was eventually approved, and ended up "being far lower than initial reports of up to $450 million," said the Augusta Chronicle at the time. 

And it is not only brand-new stadiums that use taxpayer dollars. In 2002, the Chicago Bears invested $587 million in renovations to their stadium, Soldier Field. Of this total, Chicago taxpayers "financed $387 million through municipal bonds levied by a tourism tax in Chicago," said CNBC. When NBC Chicago checked in on the renovation's finances 20 years later in 2022, it was found that the city still "[owed] $640 million on its initial $387 million bonds after years of deferring payments." 

What is the bigger picture? 

Like any taxpayer-related issue, subsidizing public funds for sports stadiums remains controversial. This is because these stadiums are largely a "boondoggle for taxpayers, who have spent nearly $30 billion on stadiums over the past 34 years, not counting property-tax exemptions or federal revenues lost to tax-exempt municipal bonds," said The Atlantic. 

This is an issue because, to an extent people may not realize, stadiums are not automatic cash grabs. Sporting venues "do not come close to generating enough economic activity to pay back the public investment involved in building them," said The Atlantic. This is especially true when they are "coupled with lease agreements that funnel revenue back to owners or allow teams to play in the stadiums rent-free." 

Examples of the slow-recouping of public funds for stadiums can be seen all over the country. Taxpayers in Cobb County are losing an estimated $15 million annually on the new stadium for the Braves, according to a 2022 study cited by Axios. At the time, Cobb officials "touted the deal as a 'home run' for the county that would increase property values and drive more tax revenue," said the author of the study, Kennesaw State University economic professor J.C. Bradbury. But this hasn't been the case, as the "increase in property values Cobb has seen since the stadium opened in 2017 is not any greater than in neighboring counties," Bradbury said to Axios. 

With all of this being said, you "would think that three decades' worth of evidence would be enough to put an end to the practice of subsidizing sports stadiums," but "America finds itself on the brink of the biggest, most expensive publicly-funded-stadium boom ever, and the results will not be any better this time around," said The Atlantic. Often, the reality of these construction projects show a disparity from the vision of team owners. Prior to the Athletics choosing to relocate to Las Vegas from Oakland, Athletics President Dave Kaval said that building a new stadium in Oakland would create "seven billion dollars in economic impact. 6,000 permanent and mostly union jobs. 3,000 construction jobs. We're building more than a ballpark here."

But "stadiums don't actually do these things," said The Atlantic. Especially for outdoor venues, the "jobs they create are seasonal and low-wage" and they "tend not to increase commercial property values or encourage much in the way of economic activity, besides a bit of increased spending in bars and restaurants surrounding the venue — which is mostly being substituted for dollars that were previously being spent elsewhere."

This is where the crux of the controversy lies, as the "biggest debates around tax policies for pro sports teams often reflect that — unlike with many municipal efforts, such as sports fields, parks and bike paths — a private party owns these sports teams," said Sportico. The argument "becomes more complicated, in my view, in that a good part of the public subsidies that we see in the United States you don't see elsewhere in the world," Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist said to Sportico. This makes the case for subsidies even more questionable given that almost all sports team owners are billionaires. 

"Should we be supporting billionaires with public money?" Zimbalist asked.

Being a pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) means that, more likely than not, you will injure your arm, hand or wrist at some point. But while these types of injuries have always been common among MLB pitchers, evidence shows that the number of pitching injuries has been steadily rising over the past few years — and seems to have reached a breaking point as the 2024 season has gotten underway. 

The last four American League Cy Young winners, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander, Robbie Ray and Shane Bieber, are all on the injured list, with Bieber slated to miss at least a full year following elbow surgery. In recent weeks, several other pitchers also got hurt: Jonathan Loáisiga, Eury Pérez, Nick Pivetta, Spencer Strider and Framber Valdez. And the list goes on: Ace starters such as Sandy Alcantara, Jacob deGrom, Clayton Kershaw, Germán Márquez, Shohei Ohtani and Justin Steele have also battled recent injuries. 

Overall, out of the 166 players who began this season on an MLB team's injured list, 132 were pitchers — nearly 80%. What is causing all of these pitching injuries?

Why are so many pitchers getting hurt? 

MLB is "conducting a wide-ranging study of pitchers at all levels to examine the origins of the [injuries] and help develop recommendations to address it," a spokesperson for the league said to The Washington Post. While this study is not expected to be finished before the end of this season, analysts — and the Major League Baseball Player's Association (MLBPA) — claim to have identified the culprit of the injuries: the pitch clock. 

The clock, first implemented in 2023, is designed to make games move faster, and gives pitchers 18 seconds to rest between pitches when there are runners on base. The MLBPA blames this short time between pitches for the increased injuries, and the group's "concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified," the MLBPA said in a statement. 

"Of course the pitch clock could be contributing to the increase in pitcher injuries" when it comes to anecdotal cases, CBS Sports said. This is because the clock "affords pitchers less recovery time between pitches, and thus they are making more pitches while fatigued," said CBS, and "greater fatigue equals greater injury risk." 

However, one group that does not believe the pitch clock is causing injuries is MLB itself. After the MLBPA's statement, MLB fired back, stating that blaming the pitch clock "ignores the empirical evidence and much more significant long-term trend ... of velocity and spin increases that are highly correlated with arm injuries." MLB also cited a study from Johns Hopkins University which "found no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries," though this study has not been published.

While the pitch-clock conclusion is up in the air, MLB's assertion that changes in pitching velocity are causing injuries also seems to hold water. The elbow's ulnar collateral ligament "cannot withstand the torque modern pitchers are imposing on it. It's that simple," Sports Illustrated said. While trying to make themselves throw harder, pitchers "forget about the UCL, a ligament with notoriously poor blood flow," said Sports Illustrated. 

"How hard you throw has emerged as the biggest issue," Glenn Fleisig, the biomechanics research director of the American Sports Medicine Institute, said to Sports Illustrated. The "faster you pitch, the higher the torque on the elbow," Fleisig said, and pitchers "are going beyond what the body can withstand."

What can be done to make pitching safer? 

The aforementioned study being conducted by MLB does not have a clear timetable. In the meantime, some possible solutions have been raised by people connected to the game. Pitchers themselves should "[factor] heavily in MLB's decision-making," ESPN said. They should also be "entitled to one or two time-outs a game when they feel discomfort," and pitchers should be allowed to use an "accepted grip agent to help with balls they believe remain inconsistently manufactured," said ESPN. 

But at the end of the day, no matter the cause, being an MLB pitcher is "incredibly stressful on the arm — the shoulder, the rotator cuff, and most of all, that tiny little ligament whose efficacy means the difference between winning and losing," USA Today said. So pitchers should not "expect a quick fix – because there may never be one."

Jerry Seinfeld once said that rooting for professional sports is kind of silly — players change teams so often that "you're actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it." But nobody is cheering for the uniforms in Major League Baseball this year. The league has a "uniform crisis" to start the season, said The Athletic. Teams are taking the field with a new generation of "MLB-approved, Nike-designed, Fanatics-produced" unis that have drawn wide derision from players and fans alike.

The new uniforms "leave little to the imagination," said The New York Times. The fabric is so sheer that one online fan joked that he would buy his wife "baseball pants instead of lingerie." The chatter increased on Opening Day when members of the New York Yankees sweat through their uniforms — an unsightly look to say the least. Another criticism: The lettering on the backs of uniforms is smaller than in previous versions. The overall feeling, said the Times, "is that the new uniforms are a huge step back in terms of quality."

"They're designed to be performance wear, as opposed to what has traditionally been worn, so they are going to be different," MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told PBS NewsHour. And it's true that players "like the idea of something more breathable on a hot summer day." But maybe the league was trying too hard, Washington Post critic Robin Givhan suggested. The new designs have "this element of fashion and style, which ended up leading these uniforms astray."

What did the commentators say?

"Complaints about jersey changes are far from new, in baseball or in any other sport," Amanda Mull said at The Atlantic. The bigger problem is that there are "two distinct purposes" for the production of any major sports uniform — one is to be worn by players, but also to be purchased by fans. But the impulse to design for the mass market has resulted in a worse product for everybody. "No one has to do a very good job, and they'll still get to charge you $400."

"Every sports story is a labor story," Stephanie Apstein said at Sports Illustrated. People can disagree with the "aesthetics" of the uniforms — the real problem here is "the players' belief that the league is trying to get one over on them." The men who play the game believe their feedback on uniforms has been disregarded by the league. The result? "It's crazy that my son's travel team … has better quality uniforms than the Philadelphia Phillies," said Phillies' right-fielder Nick Castellanos. 

The new uniforms are "about finding ways to bring attention to the sport," Rick Morrissey said at The Chicago Sun-Times.  Baseball has problems — "sagging TV ratings and the reality of young people ignoring baseball in droves." Last year's World Series drew record-low ratings. As for the remaining fans? "They'll wear last year's jersey to weddings and baptisms."

What next?

The league keeps running into uniform problems. MLB's special edition "City Connect" uniforms — special designs, worn mostly on Friday nights — weren't being delivered by Fanatics to the teams in a timely fashion, forcing teams to play in their regular jerseys, USA Today said. "The confusion over shipments add to a long list of embarrassing errors for Fanatics, Nike, and MLB," said Forbes. And the "performance wear" justification for the new uniforms is also under scrutiny: The Detroit Tigers' Riley Gaines ripped his pants this week on a slide to home plate against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Changes are probably coming, said CBS Sports. Nike is now testing options to solve the sweat stain issues in the MLB uniforms. But it will take time to settle on a fix and "manufacture a league worth of uniforms." Which means it's "unclear if they'll be able to make meaningful changes that can correct for the problem this year."

For nearly 40 years, baseball executives have been tormented by Scott Boras, long the most feared player agent in the sport. His brinkmanship on behalf of his clients almost always paid off handsomely with large contracts. Boras' calling card was unapologetic player boosterism, including glossy, book-length treatises about their on-field exploits and future canonization and a willingness to stare down teams during negotiations without blinking. In 1998, the New York Times dubbed him "the most hated man in baseball."

But Boras' strategies have not been working as well as of late, with the 2023-2024 offseason looking like a disaster for some of his clients, including outfielder Cody Bellinger, pitchers Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell, and third baseman Matt Chapman. These players were unable to secure the long-term contracts they were anticipating and had to settle for shorter deals. Is the Boras era over?

A long climb to the top

A former ballplayer who topped out in Double-A in 1977, Boras went to law school and practiced as a defense attorney before getting his big break as a baseball agent. That break happened after the 1984 season, when he negotiated a five-year, $7.5 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays for his former minor league teammate, relief pitcher Bill Caudill.

Caudill turned out to be a terrible investment as a player, but that did not blunt Boras' momentum to the pinnacle of the sport's agent hierarchy. Beginning in the early 1990s, Boras was responsible for negotiating many of the game's most lucrative contracts, including the five-year, $57 million contract for future Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux prior to the 1998 season, and the deal that was at the time the largest contract in professional sports history, the 10-year, $252 million pact that infielder Alex Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers in 2000. 

Boras also represented amateur players and pioneered hardball negotiations with teams trying to sign their draft picks. Once such tactic was refusing to sign and then having the player suit up for independent league teams, as happened with outfielder J.D. Drew, the second overall pick in the 1997 amateur draft, who went to play for the St. Paul Saints rather than sign with the Philadelphia Phillies.

The analytics revolution

Over time, Boras negotiated a number of contracts that ended up being catastrophes. In December 2006, Boras negotiated the largest contract ever awarded to a pitcher for Barry Zito, who signed with the San Francisco Giants for seven years and $126 million. The booklet that Boras assembled for Zito projected that he would end his career as one of the all-time greats. Instead, Zito was a mess over nearly his entire tenure with the Giants, one of the worst value-for-investment outcomes since the free agency era began.

Fast forward almost twenty years, and today almost every team in baseball has an enormous analytics operation designed to predict future player performance and avoid Zito-sized mistakes. And it turns out that Boras's booklets aren't working the same magic because front offices can see through the gloss. For example, outfielder Cody Bellinger, one of Boras' players, won the Comeback Player of the Year award last year with the Chicago Cubs, with eye-popping surface statistics. It was a feel-good story that seemed to prime him for a big payday.

But underneath the hood, teams didn't like what they saw. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel predicted that Bellinger would get a seven-year, $147 million deal. Instead, faced with limited interest, Bellinger had to settle for a three-year, $80 million pact with the Cubs that allows him to opt out after the first and second seasons. 

Another Boras' client, Blake Snell, the defending National League Cy Young winner, reportedly turned down a $150 million contract from the Yankees and had to settle for a two-year contract with the Giants, a pattern repeated with Boras clients Jordan Montgomery and Matt Chapman. 

It may be true that Boras "took some big hits," said Buster Olney at ESPN. And some consider him the "biggest loser" of the offseason, said Zachary Rymer at Bleacher Report.  But until Boras starts losing clients, it is too early to say if his reign is over.

There is perhaps no bigger star playing Major League Baseball today than Shohei Ohtani. Over the course of his career in both his native Japan and in the United States, Ohtani has frequently been compared to — and sometimes described as even surpassing — baseball greats like Babe Ruth and other mythological figures of the game. As both a pitcher and hitter he has proven himself to be the sort of generational talent who becomes synonymous with baseball as a contemporary sport and with the broader legacy of baseball as both a national and international institution. 

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that Ohtani had been named in connection to a sprawling federal investigation into alleged gambling bookkeeper Matthew Bowyer and Ohtani's since-fired interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. It's a scandal that has threatened to overshadow Ohtani's legacy in baseball, even as his exact involvement remains unclear. Ohtani's representatives claimed the baseball star had been the "victim of a massive theft" of millions of dollars. Mizuhara claimed to ESPN that Ohtani had agreed to help him pay off a large gambling debt. While multiple money transfers from Ohtani's bank account were wired to an associate of Bowyer, the baseball star himself had "zero involvement in betting." One day later, he recanted, and claimed Ohtani had no knowledge of the debt or payments. 

'The central figure in a whodunit'

While the details of the case are murky, what's at stake for Ohtani "couldn't be clearer," The Ringer said. At risk is not only the "career and reputation of baseball's best, highest-paid, and most famous player" but more broadly, Major League Baseball's "perceived integrity in an era of ever-tightening ties between sports leagues and sportsbooks." Ohtani, meanwhile, is the "central figure in a whodunit in which we don't really know any of the three components of the word 'whodunit,'" Defector said. There are many possibilities: Ohtani could merely be a "loyal yet incompetent friend," or perhaps a "degenerate gambler" setting Mizuhara up for a fall, or a "semi-amiable lummox caught in a series of bizarre switches beyond his comprehension."

The saga is shaping up to potentially be the "biggest gambling scandal for baseball since Pete Rose agreed to a lifetime ban" more than three decades ago, The Associated Press said. With its policy on gambling "posted in every locker room," MLB's rules say that betting on baseball itself is punishable by a year's ban from the game, while "betting on other sports illegally is at the commissioner's discretion." In his interview with ESPN, Mizuhara initially insisted he "never bet on baseball"

Several days after the allegations against Mizuhara were announced, the league said it had opened an investigation into the case, although it is "unclear how much teeth the MLB investigation will have," The Athletic said. For now, at least, the league is "unlikely to place Ohtani under administrative leave, as is common during other investigations" since he has not been officially implicated in a crime. 

A 'cautionary tale'

For some lawmakers, the Ohtani scandal has the "silver lining" of shining a "spotlight on the plague of gambling addiction," NBC News said. While Ohtani's case centers on gambling done illegally in California, it comes amid "growing scrutiny about the rise of legalized sports gambling" in the U.S. In a statement to the network, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), sponsor of the SAFE Bet Act, predicted that the unchecked proliferation of sports betting would "make this type of incident more common moving forward."

This is a "cautionary tale for the NFL" as well, Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio said, speculating that there are players who are using friends and family as strawmen to place "legal wagers through their phone" while bankrolling the entire operation — a scenario that will "blow up at some point for the NFL." 

For Ohtani specifically, the powers within MLB are committed to him as a "moneymaker, cultural icon, and active ballplayer," Defector said. "Just how bulletproof is Shohei Ohtani?" That remains unresolved, but "based on early returns, that answer is 'as bulletproof as MLB needs him to be.'"

The results of this year's balloting for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, were announced on Tuesday night, with three players gaining induction. The sport's Hall of Fame standards and elections are the stuff of heated debate among baseball writers and aficionados, and this year's outcome will surely cause spirited disagreement. Who was elected into baseball's Hall of Fame, how did the rest of the candidates fare and do any of them have a shot at induction next year?

The winners' circle

Baseball's Hall of Fame eligibility standards are fairly high — you must have played in 10 major league seasons and have been retired for five years. To achieve induction, players need to be named on at least 75% of ballots cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and at least 5% named to appear on the ballot the following year. Players are only eligible for election for 10 years.

The highest vote total (95.1%) this year went to Adrian Beltre, a third baseman who played in parts of 21 seasons for the Mariners, Dodgers, Red Sox and Rangers. His 93.5 career wins above replacement (a measure of a player's contribution to the team's success) rank him as the fourth-best third baseman of all time. His election was nearly unanimous and never in doubt. The Athletic's Levi Weaver captured the broad consensus by writing that "Watching Adrian Beltre was like watching magic." 

After that were players whose candidacies were somewhat more divisive. Twins catcher Joe Mauer (76.1%) and Rockies first baseman Todd Helton (79.7%) unexpectedly squeaked in. Mauer was eligible for the first time this year, and with just 143 career home runs and 2,133 hits, his counting statistics were relatively low, largely due to a mid-career head injury. Celebrated baseball scribe Joe Posnanski called Mauer "a titanic force" but was surprised by his quick selection given some of his statistical limitations. For Fangraphs writer Jay Jaffe, Mauer had"a uniquely impressive resume" that made him an easy choice. 

This was Helton's sixth year on the ballot, and after getting agonizingly close to election last year, this year he increased his vote share to 79.7%. A first baseman who played his entire career in Colorado, Helton's career tapered off after age 33, and he likely suffered from perceptions that his offensive statistics were inflated by his home ballpark, where the thin air leads to prodigious offensive numbers. Yet Posnanski once declared unambiguously that "I believe Todd Helton belongs in the Hall of Fame," and his ticket to Cooperstown was punched by his career .414 on-base percentage, 2,519 hits and nearly 600 doubles, which ranks 20th of all-time. Tanner Vogt of Rox Pile wrote of Helton that "one of the most iconic Rockies players of all time got his deserved recognition." 

Just missed or long gone

Despite high hopes for induction this year, flame-throwing relief pitcher Billy Wagner got achingly close, and has one more year to get through. Wagner, who played for five teams including the Houston Astros and New York Mets, has suffered from the reluctance of some voters to elect high-leverage relief pitchers into the Hall of Fame. The New York Post's Jon Heyman, who didn't vote for Wagner, said nevertheless that "voting trends suggest he'll be a shoo-in for the needed 75% next year." The same isn't true for outfielder Gary Sheffield, who fell further short with 63.9% despite his 509 career home runs. This was Sheffield's last year of eligibility, and if he is to gain entry to Cooperstown it will now have to be part of a separate process called the Era Committee. As The Athletic's Jayson Stark noted, "every player who reached that high of a percentage eventually was elected" by that committee. 

Wagner will share ballot space with holdovers who easily cleared 5% and who appear to be on the kind of upward trajectory that landed other stars in Cooperstown, including outfielders Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones. They will also be joined by newly eligible star players like outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and starting pitcher Felix Hernandez. Suzuki, though, is regarded as the only slam dunk in next year's class of newly eligible players.

On Friday night, the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies will begin playing in the World Series, a best-of-seven contest that could go later in the calendar than any Fall Classic ever. Here's everything you need to know about this unusual matchup, what each team needs to do to win baseball's championship, and what it would mean for them.

The biggest mismatch in 116 years — on paper

When the Astros and Phillies take the field Friday night, they will sport the largest gap in regular season wins between World Series opponents since 1906. That year, the 116-win Chicago Cubs — part of the dynasty that gave us the poem "Tinker to Evers to Chance" and who still hold the record for highest winning percentage in modern baseball history — were vanquished by a vastly inferior White Sox team that won 23 fewer games during the season.

The 2022 Astros were, similarly, a terrifying steamroller, winning 106 regular season games, and they arrive at the World Series undefeated through the playoffs so far. They are just the third team in the Division Series era, which began in 1995, to reach the World Series without losing a playoff game — the other two, the 2007 Rockies and 2014 Royals, both went home empty-handed. The Astros notably will take on the Phillies, who limped into the postseason after securing the newly-added 6th wild card spot by winning a tepid 87 games. If Philadelphia were somehow to beat the Astros, they would become the third-worst regular season team ever to win the championship, after the 2006 Cardinals and the 1987 Twins, a team that was actually outscored by its opponents over the course of the season.

Of course, regular season win-loss records mean precisely nothing once you get to the playoffs. Like the wild-card-winning Washington Nationals in 2019, the Phillies have gotten white-hot at precisely the right moment, as an expensive team that played like a collection of misfit toys all year finally gelled when the postseason started. Even juggernauts get cold, and in a seven-game series, there's no guarantee that the kind of advantages that become apparent over the course of a long season will hold up. After all, Houston lost four of seven games just a few weeks ago to the Baltimore Orioles, Arizona Diamondback, and Tampa Rays, all of which were markedly worse on paper. Still, there's no question that Houston is the runaway favorite here.

What are the keys for each team?

The Phillies scored more runs than the Astros this year, and they will likely have to slug their way to the title. Reigning National League MVP Bryce Harper is healthy and on fire, with five home runs and 11 RBIs so far this postseason. He and fellow left-handed slugger Kyle Schwarber, who led the NL with 46 home runs, will have to work their magic on Houston's trio of ace right-handed pitchers: future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, Lance McCullers Jr., and Cristian Javier. Most of Philadelphia's remaining best hitters, including catcher J.T. Realmuto, first baseman Rhys Hoskins, and third basemen Alec Bohm, bat right-handed and will only have the platoon advantage against Houston's likely Game 2 starter, 17-game winner Framber Valdez.

Houston, meanwhile, will have to win at least one game against Philadelphia's pair of aces, right-handers Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler. They will be fully rested and ready to pitch twice each against Houston's righty-heavy lineup. The earlier the Astros can get into the Phillies' weak bullpen, the better off they'll be. The depth in Philadelphia's relief corps is so thin that the team called on starting pitcher Ranger Suarez to close out the San Diego Padres on Sunday. And the Astros will need a big series from slugger Yordan Alvarez, the team's best left-handed hitter, who was nursing a hand injury through most of the season's second half.

More than anything else, the Phillies will need some luck. They start out on the road, against one of the scariest teams of the 21st century, and they'll have to hope that the flaws that kept them from sustained success during the regular season can remain hidden for another 10 days.

What are the best storylines?

The Astros have taken a lot of grief over the past few years after the sign-stealing scandal that tainted the team's 2017 World Series victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Only a handful of players remain from that squad, but they are the heart of Houston's dynasty, including Verlander, third baseman Alex Bregman, and second baseman Jose Altuve. Unless they are getting away with murder again, they've proven to their detractors that they can roll through the regular season without cheating — but they have lost the World Series twice since, in 2019 and 2021. A win this year would serve as a redemption of sorts and an answer to critics who dismiss them as the informal runner-up in 2017.

And it would be no surprise — this is, after all, a team full of postseason regulars, many of whom are playing in their third, fourth, or for Verlander, fifth World Series. It is one of the most balanced teams in memory, and all of the team's key players are healthy and eager to close out their run with champagne. In a piece of arcana that only baseball can deliver, Verlander went 0-2 in the World Series for the 2006 Detroit Tigers as a rookie, on the team that lost to the history-making 83-win St. Louis Cardinals. Even better — Phillies President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski was Detroit's general manager in 2006.

Philadelphia's Harper, who signed a 13-year, $330 million contract with the Phillies before the 2019 season, will be playing in his first Fall Classic. So will most of the Phillies — only Schwarber, a rookie on the dominant 2016 Chicago Cubs, and outfielder Nick Castellanos have significant postseason experience among Phillies regulars. That's what happens when your franchise goes 11 years between playoff runs, as Philadelphia just did.

Last but certainly not least, Houston's manager, Dusty Baker, is looking for his first championship in his 25th year as a big-league manager. Baker is ninth on the all-time win list for managers but hasn't been on the right side of the season's last celebration since he played for the 1981 Dodgers.

What isn't in doubt is that one of these teams — and their fans — will soon be on top of the world.

Where and how can I watch the World Series?

The home-field advantage belongs to Houston in game one, which starts at 8:03 p.m. ET on Friday, followed by game two, also in Houston, on Saturday at 8:03 p.m. ET. The series then moves to Philadelphia, with game three set for Monday, Oct. 31, at 8:03 p.m. ET, followed by game four on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 8:03 p.m. ET.

If necessary, game five would be played Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 8:03 p.m. in Philadelphia; game six would be played Friday, Nov. 4, at 8:03 p.m. in Houston, and a decisive game seven would be played on Saturday, Nov. 5, at 8:03 p.m. ET, also in Houston.

Every game will air on Fox, and can be streamed at FoxSports.com or on the Fox Sports app.

The Houston Astros beat the New York Yankees 6-5 in the Bronx on Sunday night, finishing a four-game sweep to win the American League Championship Series and punch their fourth ticket to the World Series since 2017. The Astros will play the Philadelphia Phillies, who topped the San Diego Padres 4-3 to win Game 5 of the National League Championship Series earlier Sunday. The Phillies last played in the World Series in 2009. Game 1 is Friday in Houston's Minute Maid Park.

Bryce Harper, whose two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth won the game for the Phillies on Sunday, was named NLCS MVP. Astros rookie shortstop Jeremy Pena was named ALCS MVP.

The Astros started their final rally against the Yankees with an infield single by second baseman Jose Altuve in the 7th inning, allowing him to tie the score when Yordan Alvarez hit him home with an RBI single. Alex Bregman's single sent Pena over home plate, giving the Astros their 6-5 victory.

"Altuve and Bregman were part of the sign-stealing cabal" that brought shame on Houston after their 2017 World Series title, but as Sunday night's game ended, Yankees fans were too dispirited to even boo Altuve, "long the fall guy for the cheating Astros' 2017 vanquishing of New York," USA Today reports. Now the Astros are "headed home, their sins of the past further in the rear-view mirror and a second World Series title in sight."

The Major League Baseball playoffs begin on Friday, Oct. 7, under a new playoff format negotiated last spring by the players' union and team owners. This postseason might well run later in the calendar than ever before, with Game 7 of the World Series to be played Nov. 5, if necessary. Here's everything you need to know about baseball's revamped road to the championship.

The new rules

The biggest change from past seasons is the addition of one wild card team in both the American and National Leagues, making the playoffs a 12-team scrum rather than 10. From 2012 until last year, the two wild card teams in each league squared off in a single do-or-die game. This could be dramatic, but also terribly unfair, as when the best Pittsburgh Pirates team in a generation had the misfortune of facing the on-the-make, 97-win Chicago Cubs in 2015, getting eliminated in the span of a few hours.

So this year, the top two teams in each league get to skip the first round, and the other contenders — each league's three wild cards and lowest-ranked division winner — play best-of-three series at the home park of the higher seed. The winners of those series face the bye teams in a best-of-five Division Series before the two victorious teams meet for the League Championship Series to determine the World Series entrants.

Baseball also eliminated so-called "play-in" games in the event of ties for wild card slots or division titles, opting instead to use head-to-head records to determine the winner. Commissioner Rob Manfred must be silently stewing that the Mets and Braves, both winners of 101 games, aren't set to play a tie-breaking 163rd game in prime time for the NL East division crown, a sentiment surely not shared in Atlanta.

Streaks, stats, and stories to watch

The addition of a sixth playoff spot in each league helped end the two longest and saddest postseason droughts in baseball. The wild card–winning Seattle Mariners, led by 21-year-old phenom Julio Rodriguez, hadn't reached the playoffs since 2001, when their record-setting 116-win team bowed out to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series. And in the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies ended a decade of futility by reaching the dance for the first time since 2011, despite a wretched last two weeks that saw them nearly blow their wild card lead to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Mariners will head to Toronto to face the Blue Jays (the No. 4 seed) and their high-octane offense, while the Phillies will schlepp to St. Louis to square off against the NL Central division–winning Cardinals — the team that eliminated them from the playoffs in 2011.

At the top of baseball's success hierarchy, the 110-win Los Angeles Dodgers will be making their 10th consecutive playoff appearance after winning their ninth division title in that decade. Los Angeles put up the fourth-best run differential of any team in the sport since the beginning of the 20th century, and the best since 1939. Anything less than a World Series Championship will be a huge letdown after such a campaign.

The defending world champion Atlanta Braves continued their run atop the National League East, winning their fifth straight title in style after spending the entire season running down the New York Mets, overtaking them for good only on Sept. 30 — the 157th game of the year. The Mets have the misfortune of being only the 13th team in baseball history to finish in second place after winning 100 games or more. They'll take on the San Diego Padres at home in Queens. The Padres pulled off one of the wildest deadline trades ever in early August, nabbing Washington Nationals superstar outfielder Juan Soto in exchange for five highly regarded prospects, but they were unable to make any headway against the NL West–leading Dodgers.

In the American League, the Houston Astros are making their sixth consecutive trip to the playoffs after a stellar season that saw them win 106 games. Led by the ageless Justin Verlander, the oldest pitcher ever to return to all-star form after Tommy John elbow surgery, Houston is still stinging from their 4-2 loss to the Braves in the World Series last year. They'll sit out the first round along with the Yankees, whose impressive season will be remembered less for the team effort than for the unbelievable contract year of outfielder Aaron Judge, who set the American League record for home runs on Tuesday by swatting his 62nd longball of the season.

The Yankees will face the winner of the Blue Jays–Mariners series. The Astros will take on whoever emerges from the three games the plucky Tampa Bay Rays play in Cleveland against the Guardians, who won the division unexpectedly in their first season since abandoning the "Indians" moniker.

How's this all going to play out?

Regular season dominance is no guarantee of success in the baseball postseason. Unlike the NBA, where no seventh or eighth seed has ever won a championship, baseball's wild cards routinely sneak through to win the World Series, the most recent example being the 2019 Nationals.

Last year there were three 100-win teams in the postseason (the Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays, and the San Francisco Giants), and none of them made it to the Fall Classic. The winningest team in baseball has won the World Series just four times in the last 10 years, and that includes the Dodgers in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. But this is all part of what makes the baseball playoffs so much wild fun. The differences between a 107-win team and a 90-win team are negligible over the course of a short series, and any team that sneaks in can get hot and ride it all the way.

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the season at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday night, setting the American League record for most home runs in a single season. The previous record, 61 home runs set by Roger Maris in 1961, held for 61 years.

The official Major League Baseball record is 73 home runs, set by Barry Bonds in 2001, but Bonds and the other two National League players who hit more than 61 homers — Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire — have steroid-injected asterisks next to their records. Roger Maris Jr. alluded to Judge's "clean" MLB record in his congratulatory tweet Tuesday night.

Judge managed to break Maris' record with just one game left in the regular season. He had hit just one home run in the previous 13 games — when he tied Maris' record last Wednesday — and was visibly frustrated when he struck out in the first game of Tuesday night's double header against the Texas Rangers. "New York wound up losing 3-2 after winning the opener 5-4," The Associated Press reports. "With one game left in the regular season, the split left the Yankees with a fitting 99-62 record — Judge's number and his home run total."

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 61st home run of the season in Toronto on Wednesday night, leading New York to a 8-3 win over the Blue Jays and, more memorably, tying the American League single-season record set by Roger Maris in 1961. Judge has now surpassed the 60-homer record set by Babe Ruth in 1927 — the record Maris broke first — and has seven more games to swat in home run No. 62. Ruth, Maris, and Judge were all Yankees.

Judge's seventh-inning, tie-breaking homer Wednesday night flew over the left-field fence, hitting right below the railing and dropping into the Toronto bullpen. Blue Jays bullpen coach Matt Buschmann handed it back to the Yankees. Judge's mother and Roger Maris Jr. were among those watching the hit from front row seats.

Three National League players have hit more than 61 home runs in a season, and Barry Bonds holds the record, 73, for the San Francisco giants in 2001. Mark McGwire hit 70 homers for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1998, and Sammy Sosa topped out at 66 home runs in 1998 for the Chicago Cubs. All three records were tainted by steroid use, and many fans considered Maris the holder of the "clean" single-season record, The Associated Press reports. Major League Baseball started testing for performance enhancing drugs in 2004.

Just about everybody agrees: Baseball games are too long. But they don't necessarily agree on what to do about it.

Major League Baseball last week approved sweeping new rules that will go into effect for the 2023 season. The bases will get slightly bigger and defensive shifts will no longer be allowed. But the most significant update is the implementation of a pitch clock that will give pitchers a mere 15 seconds — 20 if a runner is on base — between pitches. Fail, and they get charged with a ball. (Hitters who aren't in the box on time will be charged with a strike.)

That should significantly shorten games, which now run more than three hours on average. "It's the fan-friendliest addition to the game of baseball since the introduction of beer," ESPN's Jeff Passan wrote on Twitter. Some major league pitchers, though, vehemently disagree. "I think it's a bunch of crap," Cubs reliever David Robertson said earlier this year. And some fans have appreciated the literally timeless nature of baseball. Putting players on a timer is "the most insidious alteration to the very fabric of baseball's being that has occurred in over a century," Jeffrey May writes for Diario AS.

These are indeed big changes for a tradition-bound game that is usually slow to adopt new ideas. How might the new rules change the character of America's pastime?

Players don't like the new rules, but fans might

MLB player representatives voted against the pitch clock and defensive shift changes. Why? Because "the guys in the majors have thrived under the status quo," Jon Heyman writes at the New York Post. Yes, baseball lovers tend to "go nuts" when the game evolves. But the league's "heart is in the right place" because the rules are designed to give the fans what they want: Shorter games with "more action, and more athleticism." Will they get that? Experiments at the minor league level suggest that while the pitch clock shortens games, batting averages and runs scored have stayed about the same. That could mean "the games will be just as dull, but end more quickly." History says nobody should panic about the new rules. "We hated the wild card, the expanded playoffs, and anything else new, yet none of those changes hurt the game one iota."

The pitch clock is wrong for baseball

"There are a lot of things that happen on the mound that few fans understand," David Gasper wrote in 2019 for Reviewing the Brew, a Milwaukee Brewers blog. It might look like players are "taking their sweet time," but the wait has a purpose. When pitchers and hitters go to work against each other, the contest "is more of a mental battle than it is a physical one." Speeding up the game might put more fatigue on pitchers' arms, and probably won't do much to grow the game anyway. Kids might enjoy elements of the game that can be converted into online memes, but "you can't do anything with a countdown clock." Instead, the result of a time limit will probably just be sloppier play. "The pitch clock will only diminish the product on the field."

Traditionalists should just chill

There's a temptation to believe that MLB has been "unscrupulously ruined in the service of satisfying TV partners and hooking TikTok-obsessed youth," but that's just "your fear of progress talking," Gabe Lacques writes for USA Today. In fact, baseball has problems, and "it certainly can't hurt to try" some new approaches. The bigger bases should make the game more exciting by increasing the odds of success when players try to steal. And the pitch clock has the support of minor league players — the same guys now showing up in the big leagues — who have already played with it. But if the new rules turn out to be no good, they can always be changed. "More likely, this is a starting point, a momentous shift (no pun intended) toward a different and possibly better game."

Will the changes bring the kids back?

"MLB really had no choice" but to make some big changes to the rule book, Paul Newberry writes for The Associated Press. "Many kids have abandoned the game" and fans in the bleachers "look mostly bused in from a retirement home." So it's good that league leaders "took bold steps to address some of the most obvious problems" in the game. The average big league matchup clocks in at more than three hours these days. But in the minors, where the pitch clock is used, the number is nearly 30 minutes shorter. The MLB's attempt to fix itself "might be a little late," however. Attendance is down nearly 6 percent from 2019. And it's not clear the young fans will come back. "It's probably too late to lure back those who've already found better ways to spend their free time."

Los Angeles Angels two-way player Shohei Ohtani is having an incredible season, both as a pitcher and a hitter. Just how unique are Ohtani's accomplishments? The Angels are having another lackluster season, but Ohtani's numbers this year might be the most impressive athletic accomplishment in the history of North American sports. Here's everything you need to know about the baseball superstar's extraordinary 2022:

What has Ohtani done this year?

Despite his team dropping out of the pennant race by June, Shohei Ohtani continues to sizzle. A true rarity, Ohtani signed with the Angels in late 2017 after playing 5 outstanding seasons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league with the intention of hitting and pitching full time. Most amateur prospects, even those with significant skills as pitchers and hitters, are tracked onto one path or another by team management. In recent years, only Tampa Bay Rays prospect Brendon McKay has made a real go of the effort to compete on both sides of the ball, and he's dealing with a potentially significant elbow injury after years of battling other physical woes.

Somehow, Ohtani is managing to do something that no one else in the sport can do, which is to star as a batter and a pitcher. As a pitcher, Ohtani has made 23 starts, posting an 11-8 win-loss record with a 2.58 Earned Run Average and 181 strikeouts in 136 innings pitched. Advanced metrics like FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) confirm that Ohtani has been good rather than just lucky. As a pitcher, his 4.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), a widely-used measure of player value, is 6th among all hurlers in the sport. Those numbers are particularly impressive given that the Angels rarely let him pitch past the 6th inning. When he's not pitching, Ohtani serves as the team's Designated Hitter, and has smashed 33 home runs and driven in 86 runs while posting a .892 OPS (On-base percentage plus slugging percentage), good for another 3.2 WAR. He is likely to total around 10 WAR between his pitching and hitting, a superstar showing.

How does Ohtani's season compare to past two-way players?

But WAR alone cannot really capture the essence of his incredible 2022. While there have been pitchers who can hit, like Madison Bumgarner, the two-way player almost completely disappeared from Major League Baseball early in the 20th century. While baseball players are sometimes mocked for their athleticism compared to soccer or basketball athletes, the 162-game regular season is an extraordinary grind to begin with, a punishing, daily slog that has deterred almost everyone from trying to pitch and hit full-time. The sport's skills are also so specialized that most executives probably believed that what Ohtani is doing is impossible.

The sport's most famous two-way player, Hall of Fame pitcher/outfielder Babe Ruth, gave up pitching early in his career to focus on his prodigious home run hitting skills, which transformed the way the sport was played altogether. Ruth tossed just 31 innings after 1919, when he registered 9.1 WAR as a batter and 0.8 as a pitcher. While Ohtani may or may not exceed Ruth's composite WAR from that season, there's no question that if he gets to 4 WAR as a hitter, he will be the only player in baseball history to put up all-star value (defined by Fangraphs as at least 4 WAR) as both a pitcher and hitter in the same season. Ruth never did it. The closest anyone has ever come is Bob Caruthers of the 19th-century St. Louis Browns, who fell just short in 1886 and 1887 when he complemented his MVP-level pitching with 3.9 WAR as a batter in both seasons.

What about other sports?

In basketball and hockey, most players play both offense and defense. So while there are players, like the NBA's Michael Jordan, who have excelled at both offensive scoring and defensive play, there's really no comparison since they are expected to at least play on both sides of the court or the rink. The National Hockey League hands out the Frank J. Selke Trophy each year to the best "two-way forward" in the sport, who contributes at elite levels on offense and defense. But the fact that there is a long list of potential winners of that award each year speaks to how common it is for hockey players to do both things well all the time.

The closest comparison to the position of pitcher in baseball is the quarterback in American football. Sammy Baugh, a Hall of Fame quarterback, also served as a defensive back on occasion and logged some interceptions, but returned nearly all of his value on one side of the line. And there is simply no player in the modern, post-merger history of the sport who put up stud numbers as a QB and also played defense. Deion Sanders was primarily a star defensive player at cornerback who also performed simultaneously at a high level as a kick and punt returner and logged time as a wide receiver. New England Patriots' wide receiver Troy Brown also moonlit as a cornerback in 2004, logging 3 interceptions, but he wasn't elite at either position that year. And that's about it in terms of comps among the four major North American pro sports leagues.

What's the bottom line?

Interestingly, Ohtani might not even win the Most Valuable Player award in the American League this year. As of this writing, his 7.9 total WAR is second to New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, who is having a legendary season. Judge is on pace to hit 67 home runs and drive in 145 runs, and has spent most of the year threatening to challenge baseball's single-season home run record of 73, set by Barry Bonds in 2001. But Ohtani is quickly earning himself a hallowed place in sports history, as well as setting himself up for an enormous payday when he becomes a free agent after the 2023 season. And it's worth noting that Ohtani isn't just a bunch of numbers on a stat sheet — he's a joy to watch play the game, someone who should be at the forefront of baseball's global effort to market itself to the next generation of fans and whose magical season should be appreciated by die-hard and casual fans alike.

The Major League Baseball Players Association, or MLBPA, on Sunday night launched a "historic" campaign to unionize the minor leagues, ESPN reports.

More specifically, minor league players were sent authorization cards that would permit them "to vote for an election that could make them MLBPA members," ESPN writes.

"Minor leaguers represent our game's future and deserve wages and working conditions that befit elite athletes who entertain millions of baseball fans nationwide,' MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a Monday statement. "They're an important part of our fraternity and we want to help them achieve their goals both on and off the field." Over 5,000 minor league players are "under contract" with MLB teams during the season, notes CBS Sports.

Should MLBPA be permitted to represent the minors in collective bargaining, thirty percent of players must first sign union authorization cards, ESPN reports. That would subsequently prompt an election where players would vote for or against union representation. If most are in favor, the league would be required to recognize the union, and then collectively bargain with MLBPA for minor league players.

For most minor leaguers, an annual salary can range from just $5,000 to $14,000 annually. The Senate Judiciary Committee has also "suggested it will call a hearing to explore MLB's antitrust exemption and its treatment of minor leaguers," ESPN writes.

Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers for 67 season, first in Brooklyn then Los Angeles, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He was 94, and his death was announced by the Dodgers. "We have lost an icon," Dodgers chief executive Stan Kasten said in a statement. "The Dodgers' Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports."

Scully called his first Dodgers baseball game at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field in 1950 and broadcast his final game in 2016. In between, he earned accolades and the loyal following of generations of baseball fans, especially in Southern California. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame's broadcasting win in 1982, was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame later that year, and earned an Emmy for lifetime achievement in 1995. The American Sportscasters Association voted Scully the top sportscaster of all time in 2009, and President Barack Obama awarded Scully the Presidential Medal of Freedom a month after his retirement.

"The way Vin Scully called a baseball game, it felt like bumping into an old friend," David Wharton writes at the Los Angeles Times. "There were stories to tell and memories to share, his soothing banter as familiar as green grass and warm breezes on a sunny afternoon." Working alone without a color commentator for most of his career, Wharton adds, "Scully could spread an anecdote across several pitches, batters even, without a hitch."

Vincent Edward Scully was born in the Bronx in November 1927, the son of Irish immigrants. His father, a silk salesman, died of pneumonia when Scully was 7. He played baseball at Fordham University for two seasons, but gave it up to announce games for the university radio station WFUV. Scully's career with the Dodgers began when CBS Radio sports chief and Dodgers announcer Red Barber hired him after hearing him call some games. He moved to Los Angeles when the team did in 1958.

Scully's first wife, Joan, died in 1972, and his second wife, Sandi, passed away in early 2021. He had six children — his eldest son, Michael Scully, died in a helicopter accident in 1994 — and numerous grandchildren.

Major League Baseball's annual trade deadline is at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 2; after that, acquiring new players from other teams becomes considerably more complicated. Which teams are likely to be buyers and sellers as the deadline approaches, and which players are expected to change teams? How will baseball's new Collective Bargaining Agreement affect the wheeling and dealing? Here's everything you need to know about what is usually a pretty wild week in the sport:

Will changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement be felt at the deadline?

When owners locked the players out after the expiration of their existing labor agreement in December, one of the main issues was "tanking." Players were livid that teams had been deliberately shedding talent in an effort to be unwatchably terrible, thereby obtaining high draft picks in consecutive seasons. The new CBA adds a lottery element to it, with the worst six teams all having a shot at the #1 pick in the draft. But that didn't stop the Oakland Athletics and Cincinnati Reds from dismantling competitive teams with spring trades after the agreement was signed, and it appears unlikely to do much to freeze the trade market this year.

The Reds, who started out the year with a horrendous 3-22 stretch, hold one of the most coveted trade chips on the market: starting pitcher Luis Castillo. Since his debut in 2017, Castillo has been consistently effective, and in what promises to be a seller's market for pitching, he should fetch a significant haul of prospects if Cincinnati chooses to deal him. Many of the other cellar dwellers across baseball, including the Washington Nationals, Detroit Tigers, Oakland Athletics, and Pittsburgh Pirates, will likely trade or at least seriously consider dealing their best players. The Nationals may even spin away one of the sport's brightest young lights, outfielder Juan Soto, who just rejected a staggering 15-year, $440 million offer that would have been the largest contract in baseball history. The typically competitive Boston Red Sox are having a down season and might dump contracts at the deadline, including those of outfielder J.D. Martinez and starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi.

Will the dominant teams squeeze out the middle of the pack?

The New York Yankees, Houston Astros, and Los Angeles Dodgers are all on pace to win over 100 games, the mark of a dominant team. Yet even the Yankees, who spent much of the season looking like they might threaten the 2001 Seattle Mariners' record of 116 wins, have huge holes that could be filled by trade. Right fielder Joey Gallo, acquired at last year's trade deadline, has been awful, hitting .161 in 230 at-bats, and the bullpen could use help after a season-ending injury to high-leverage reliever Michael King. The Astros' catchers are hitting well under .200, and 38-year-old first baseman Yuli Gurriel doesn't look like he has much left in the tank. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are looking for help in the bullpen, where closer Craig Kimbrel has been shaky, as well as the starting rotation, which has lost ace Walker Buehler until at least late August with an arm injury. Other first-place teams, like the Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, and New York Mets, could be busy too.

Also in the mix are teams who would currently make the postseason with this year's addition of one playoff spot in the National and American Leagues, like the Toronto Blue Jays, St. Louis Cardinals, and San Diego Padres. And then there's a tier of clubs currently trailing in the Wild Card races, particularly the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies, who had big expectations heading into the season and whose general managers still might see as being just one smart acquisition away from a playoff spot. Exactly how that new playoff structure will affect team decision-making is another bit of intrigue from this deadline. Will teams value that extra playoff spot enough to cough up the necessary prospects to make an expensive push for a title?

Which players have already moved and who should start packing their bags?

The 2021 trade deadline was busy, with star players like starting pitchers Max Scherzer and Jose Berrios and coveted position players including shortstop Trea Turner, second baseman Javier Baez, and outfielder Kris Bryant heading to contenders. But sometimes it's the less heralded deals that can be most consequential. Last year, after losing superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. for the season, the Atlanta Braves picked up outfielders Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Soler, and Adam Duvall for peanuts; they helped carry the team to its first World Series championship since 1995.

The Yankees already filled one of their outfield craters by trading for Kansas City's Andrew Benintendi, and the Mets addressed their problems at designated hitter by trading for Pittsburgh's Daniel Vogelbach. While all eyes will be on the pursuit of Soto, the Cubs will almost certainly spin off popular catcher Willson Contreras, one of just three players left from the beloved 2016 championship team, as well as outfielder Ian Happ.

Despite denying that they are fielding offers on Shohei Ohtani, a rare two-way player who is having an incredible season on the mound as a pitcher, the Los Angeles Angels could shock the baseball world by moving him. After all, the team is just 42-56, and news of former MVP Mike Trout's scary spinal condition could convince owner Arte Moreno to rebuild. A's starting pitcher Frankie Montas is almost certain to be dealt, and the Miami Marlins could move starting pitcher Pablo Lopez. And there's always a surprise or two when teams ship out players unexpectedly, which could be the case for someone like Cleveland ace Shane Bieber.

To keep track of what is sure to be a dramatic weekend in the national pastime, check out ESPN's deadline tracker.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer has been suspended by Major League Baseball for two seasons after he was accused of sexual assault.

The league announced Friday that following an investigation, Bauer has been suspended for 324 games, two full seasons, for violating its policy against domestic violence.

In 2021, a woman filed for a restraining order against Bauer, alleging he sexually assaulted her. He was placed on administrative leave, which last month was extended into April.

Bauer has repeatedly denied the allegations. In February, he said he had "consensual sex with this woman on two occasions" and that they mutually agreed to engage "in rough sex." The accuser says she "agreed to have consensual sex" but "did not agree to be sexually assaulted," alleging Bauer punched her in the face and the vagina and strangled her until she lost consciousness.

"The disturbing acts and conduct that she described simply did not occur," Bauer said, and he has filed a lawsuit against her. The Los Angeles County district attorney declined to bring charges. According to The Washington Post, a woman in Ohio also sought a temporary order of protection against Bauer and accused him of assault.

On Friday, Bauer denied violating the MLB's domestic violence policy in the "strongest possible terms" and said he will appeal the decision. According to ESPN, the two-season suspension was the most severe punishment the MLB has ever imposed over a violation of its domestic violence policy.

The owners of the Washington, D.C. baseball team the Washington Nationals revealed to The Washington Post on Monday they'd begun exploring possible changes in the club's ownership structure, "including the possibility of selling the team," the Post reports.

Mark D. Lerner, son of real estate tycoon Ted Lerner and the club's managing principal owner, said the family has brought on a New York investment bank to look into possible investors and buyers for the club. The Lerners bought the Nationals from Major League Baseball 16 years ago.

"This is an exploratory process, so there is no set timetable or expectation of a specific outcome," Mark Lerner said in a statement. "The organization is as committed as ever to their employees, players, fans, sponsors and partners and to putting a competitive product on the field."

"As revenue streams around professional sports continue to evolve and the strength of the Washington Nationals brand continues to grow, the team believes it is prudent to assess all of the options out there," team spokesperson Jennifer Giglio told the Post, noting as well that the Lerners could ultimately just bring on additional partners.

The process is also not expected to impact "the team's ability to make baseball decisions," nor will it "distract the organization from our goal of being a first-class organization and fielding a winning team," Giglio added.

Under Lerner ownership, "the Nationals have claimed four division titles and five postseason appearances," writes CBS Sports. In 2019, the team won its first World Series in franchise history. Prior to the family's purchase, the club had moved from Montreal to D.C., and changed its name from the Expos to the Nationals.

In March, the MLB and the MLB Players Associated finally reached a deal on a collective bargaining agreement, bringing an end to a months-long lockout.

I don't really care about baseball anymore. Before I was old enough to remember, my dad taught me how to love it — which is how these things frequently go — but as I grew up, I drifted away, and going to a football school put the last nail in it. I don't think I've watched a game since 2017.

So I don't care about baseball, but I'm just some guy. But you know who else doesn't care about baseball? The guys who own the baseball teams.

MLB pulls in billions of dollars a year — of course it's about the money. But so is the NFL, and I don't think anyone doubts that NFL owners like football, enjoy watching football, and care about the success of their football teams. The baseball owners? Harder to say.

Rob Manfred, the commissioner they've chosen to represent their interests, claimed that buying an MLB franchise is less profitable than just putting the money in the stock market. In other words, the owners are just in it for the love of the game. But the numbers don't bear this out; David Glass purchased the Kansas City Royals in 2000 for $96 million and sold them in 2019 for $1 billion, doing at least twice as well as he would have by putting the money in the S&P 500.

Manfred, like the owners, doesn't care about baseball. He thought a press conference dedicated to announcing that an inability to resolve the owner lockout had forced him to cancel games was an appropriate time to laugh and yuk it up. He has also referred to the World Series trophy as "a piece of metal." Other people — most notably the players who actually make the game of baseball happen — care a great deal about these things. Manfred does not, and the owners keep him around because he and they are aligned.

The commissioner doesn't understand that people may have emotional attachments to things like "baseball games being played" and "the World Series trophy." The owners don't understand that people may have emotional attachments to superstar players who have played their entire careers with the same franchise. This has always, lamentably, been a problem for small-market teams facing budgetary constraints (although some of them have a great thing going for themselves by taking the revenue-sharing money they receive and then not spending it on player salaries).

But in recent years, even big-market teams have gotten in on the fun of cost-cutting. This offseason, the Braves failed to resign Freddie Freeman, their superstar first baseman who had just led them to a World Series victory after playing all 12 seasons of his career in Atlanta, even though Freeman wanted to stay. Instead, they went out and traded for Matt Olson, another star first baseman, and promptly handed him an extension that was slightly cheaper than the contract the Dodgers ended up giving Freeman. Two offseasons ago, the Boston Red Sox — the Boston Red Sox — traded Mookie Betts, one of the two best players in baseball at the time who, again, had spent his whole career playing for Boston to that point, to the Dodgers, all so that they could dump pitcher David Price's bloated contract and get not much of great value in return. Betts and Freeman should have spent their whole careers being beloved by the fans of Boston and Atlanta.

Instead, they both now play for the Dodgers, one of the few teams that isn't afraid to spend money and go over the luxury tax that almost every team pretends is a hard cap. Even the Yankees are unwilling to trigger the maximum repeater penalty by going over the tax line three years in a row. (George Steinbrenner could not be reached for comment.) The other owners are so scared of Steve Cohen, the new owner of the Mets and the richest non-corporation owner in baseball, that they imposed another tier of luxury tax at $290 million. Cohen, for his part, plans to eventually have to pay it. Good for him.

Even if the owners aren't jettisoning your team's beloved star, you may have trouble watching him play. A Friday night double-header will now be on Apple TV+ instead of the regional sports networks (RSNs) that have traditionally carried most games. And Sinclair, which owns about half the regional sports networks, has kept its RSNs off of streaming options like YouTube TV and Hulu for over a year now. There is also a Bally Sports app (Sinclair sold the naming rights to a casino operator), which you may have to download to your TV if you get your Sinclair-owned RSN through cable. The average MLB fan is 57 years old; there are plenty of even older people who have watched baseball all their lives and who will have little ability to navigate this mess. Making the games difficult and expensive to watch won't help the game grow among younger fans, either.

Is there any hope, or will the owners continue to squeeze every last dollar they can out of the sport while baseball goes the way of boxing? I don't find much reason for optimism. The only potentially exciting thing I could see happening is the current embrace of sports betting and all the money it can bring in by MLB blowing up in their faces. After all, a previous generation of baseball owners was once so invested in making as much money as possible that they turned a blind eye to the influence of gambling on the game — and the Black Sox scandal almost ruined everything. They were very lucky that Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Babe Ruth managed to save the game in the esteem of the public.

I don't think it could realistically happen again. The players make way more money now than they did 100 years ago. And if it did, it would be a disaster for anyone who cares about baseball in any way.

But the owners would deserve it.

Major League Baseball and its players union were unable to come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement before a league-imposed 5 P.M. deadline on Tuesday, ESPN reports, a failure that triggered the postponement of Opening Day and the cancellation of the first two series of the season. This will be the first time that MLB has canceled games due to labor issues since 1994, when the season ended in August and the World Series was not played.

There had been hope that a deal would be reached after a marathon negotiating session on Monday, but ultimately the two sides remained far apart on a number of key issues, including player arbitration, tax thresholds, and minimum player salaries. In November, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred downplayed the dispute between the owners and players, saying that "an offseason lockout that moves the process forward is different than a labor dispute that costs games." On Tuesday, Manfred said, "I had hoped against hope I would not have to have this particular press conference in which I am going to have to cancel some regular season games." And then he did just that.

The votes are in. The Boston Red Sox (and earlier Minnesota Twins) slugger David Ortiz is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. San Francisco Giants (and earlier Pittsburgh Pirates) star Barry Bonds is not.

On paper, that makes little sense. Ortiz was a successful designated hitter who played a leading role in the reversal of fortune the historically second-rate Red Sox enjoyed in the 21st century. But Bonds was the greatest ballplayer of his, and maybe any, generation. A 22-year veteran, he played on 14 All-Star Teams, received seven Most Valuable Player Awards, eight Gold Glove Awards, and holds the MLB records for total home runs and for home runs in a single season.

The outcome wasn't about what Bonds did on the field, though. Along with pitcher Roger Clemens and others that Hall voters denied, Bonds is being punished for his behavior in baseball's steroids era. Other players, including Ortiz, tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs when the league began to impose systematic testing in the early 2000s. But only Bonds faced charges for perjury and obstruction of justice related to a federal investigation.

The question is how much that should matter. There is little dispute that doping was common during the 1990s prime of Bonds' career. Like the players who appeared before a 2005 Congressional committee, Bonds was the focus of attention because he was a star rather than because his behavior was unusual.

To be sure, Bonds was not forthcoming with investigators. Yet the perjury charges against him were dropped and Bonds' conviction for obstruction of justice was overturned on appeal. Bonds' critics might point out that the Hall is entitled to apply a higher standard than avoiding criminal liability. Still, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Bonds has been the scapegoat for conduct that was, at minimum, tolerated by the league until late in his career.

Bonds' personal demeanor has something to do with that, too. While Ortiz was beloved by fans, reporters, and players alike, Bonds kept his distance from the public, the media, and his own teammates. Some observers attributed Bonds' antisocial reputation to shyness, others to competitive pressure, and yet others to unfair expectations that Black players be humble and gregarious. Whatever the cause, plenty of other difficult men (and some who were truly awful) are honored in Cooperstown.

Due to a 10-year time limit for eligibility, this was Bonds' final opportunity to enter the Hall of Fame. Unless the rules are changed, that institution will permanently exclude one of the game's greatest players. Fans won't forget Bonds, though. Lacking a memorial plaque, his achievements will speak for themselves.

Former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was the only player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year.

"I am truly honored and blessed by my selection to the Hall of Fame — the highest honor that any baseball player can reach in their lifetime," Ortiz said in a statement. "I am grateful to the baseball writers who considered my career in its totality, not just on the statistics."

Ortiz, a.k.a. Big Papi, hit 541 career home runs, plus 17 in the postseason, and was a World Series champ three times. "For a young boy from Santo Domingo, I always dreamed of playing professional baseball," Ortiz said. He thanked his parents for supporting him, and called his time with the Red Sox "a sweet and beautiful journey."

Ortiz was the lone player to cross the 75 percent threshold for induction, named on 77.9 percent of ballots in his first year of eligibility. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Curt Schilling were all passed over in their 10th and final year of eligibility.

ESPN's Bradford Doolittle writes that Bonds, Sosa, and Clemons "have gone from posters on fans walls to the poster boys for the performance-enhancing drug era." When looking at their contributions to the sport alone, "they are sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famers," Doolittle said, "but voters prefer that they remain in the PED shadows." Schilling, meanwhile, has a history of making inflammatory remarks and social media posts, and after years of not crossing the threshold for induction, asked to be removed from the ballot, a request that was denied.

Ortiz will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, on July 24. Six players who were chosen in December by era committees — Gil Hodges, Tony Oliva, Minnie Minoso, Jim Kaat, Bud Fowler, and Buck O'Neil — will also be inducted, most of them posthumously.

Major League Baseball has serious problems. The organization is in the midst of its first work stoppage in nearly 30 years, a lockout threatening to shorten the 2022 season. Even worse, some critics say baseball's stubborn reliance on tradition for its own sake signals the sport's inevitable decline.

But don't send baseball to the showers just yet. The sport may no longer be America's favorite pastime — it hasn't been for decades — but it remains the nation's second-most lucrative professional sport. Other sports have problems, too, perhaps more threatening to their long-term success. MLB, meanwhile, still has plenty to offer current and potential fans — after, of course, players and owners settle their squabble over money.

Representatives for both sides met Thursday, seven weeks after the lockout began. Nothing resembling a deal resulted. If camps don't open in a few weeks, the March 31 start of the regular season is in jeopardy, and everyone will start losing money.

MLB's revenues were growing before the pandemic, and they're on track to beat the 2019 record of $10.7 billion this year. The commissioner's office has made the dubious claim that owners and players split the money 50-50, but only two teams opened their books: the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays, both owned by publicly traded corporations. Other estimates put the players' share closer to 40 percent.

Players want and deserve a bigger share of an expanding pie. They want higher MLB salaries for players too young for free agency; they want free agency to start earlier in player careers; and they'd like to reverse current incentives that urge owners to pocket their cash rather than spend it on compensation.

Beyond divvying up the money, baseball also has to repair an image tainted, perhaps unfairly, as being a boring sport with an audience that is slowly dying off. Some critics are right: The games take longer than they should. The embrace of statistics-driven strategies — exaggerated defensive shifts, relying on walks and home runs rather than playing "small ball" — can interrupt the flow of play, reducing the action on the diamond.

But baseball remains a beautiful game, and ending the lockout can be an opportunity to reintroduce Americans to what in fact is a thrilling sport. Some ideas:

Promote the talent

In the 2022 season, MLB may feature the largest collection of generational stars since the 1960s, when the sport first fully integrated racially. Today's greats are young or in their prime, and they encompass a global profile: Japan's Shohei Ohtani, Venezuela's Ronald Acuña Jr., Puerto Rico's Carlos Correa, the "Dominican trio" of Juan Soto, Vlad Guerrero Jr., and Fernando Tatis Jr., and Americans Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Josh Hader, and Walker Buehler. They hit the ball farther, throw it harder, and chase down plays faster than ever before. Most teams have at least one player who's worth the price of admission, or worth changing the channel to see in action.

The players are the game. Fans want to see great competitors perform memorable feats. The sport needs to showcase them early and often. The clubs and their "product" need to bury the hatchet quickly.

Bring fans closer to the action

Video and data technology have made the at-home viewing experience comparable to being at the ballpark. With a premium sports streaming package, you can enjoy a season's worth of action for less than it costs to see one game in person (including travel, tickets, parking, concessions, and the rest). At home, just tune in whenever you like — and you don't have to leave early to beat the traffic.

Broadcasts are innovating, including real-time information from outfits like StatCast, which show how fast pitches rotate, which affects movement, and how hard balls are hit. Fans are getting some of the same granular information executives use to evaluate players and scout opponents. This data also is essential for other transactional followers who help finance the sport: egamers, fantasy league participants, and bettors.

More than 4 million people bought MLB The Show 21, the sport's licensed interactive video game. Baseball pioneered fantasy sports four decades ago, and it's a lucrative business, globally generating an estimated $20 billion in 2021 — and it is expected to grow nearly 15 percent annually over the next four years.

Then there's sports gambling, soon to be legal in most states. The number of MLB games played and the number of opportunities to wager on a specific result — total runs in a game, a player's boxscore, the outcome of a specific plate appearance — make baseball ideal for friendly wagers or serious bets. Last April, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred jokingly told his NBA counterpart Adam Silver that baseball's leisurely pace of play made it a natural for in-game betting.

Sports betting is becoming a perk for ticket holders too — there's a sportsbook inside Nationals Ballpark in Washington, D.C., for instance. Deals with FanDuel and other online gambling sites are expected to produce more than $1 billion a year for MLB alone. Legal gambling can generate interest from casual fans and increase baseball's appeal.

Another way to bring fans closer to the game is to virtually put them on the field. The past couple of seasons, in a few games, players wore microphones and interacted with announcers during play. Doing so more routinely would be another fun way to make the sport relatable, and offer insight into how players process information during the game.

And while we're on the subject of getting closer to the game: Baseball has embraced the metaverse. Virtual reality developers have created VR apps that let gamers "hit" against all-time great pitchers. An entire industry is developing around VR technology to train athletes of all ages to measure their performance and improve their mechanics.

Welcome channel surfers

Admit it: Few of us will sit through a televised nine-inning game. MLB should acknowledge and embrace opportunities to capture even a few extra minutes of fans' time. One way would be an MLB version of the NFL's RedZone channel. RedZone switches from game to game when any team is in scoring position. MLB Network should offer a livelier version of its MLB Tonight program, moving quickly between games and capturing more live highlights and dramatic situations.

Ending local blackouts so fans who buy MLB's "Extra Innings" streaming package can watch every game, not just those outside the local market, would also help teams build better local fanbases.

Other sports may face more existential threats. Concussions and other long-term head injuries resulting from routine play have football-, soccer-, and hockey-backers flummoxed. Minimizing the serious health threats may require fundamentally changing the sports in ways that make them less watchable. Basketball, like baseball, may be enjoying the greatest array of talent in a generation, but it also has a "hero ball" problem: The NBA grabs aspiring stars in their teens, often before they develop a full range of skills and learn the fundamentals of team play. You see stunning individual highlights within sloppy games.

Baseball has (often self-servingly) bragged of its commitment to tradition. But the sport has routinely evolved, including recent changes to speed up games. Baseball offers old-school fans and newcomers alike plenty of chances to watch the game on their own terms. Improving technologies can take any fan inside the action.

The Grand Old Game still has a lot of life, if the leagues decide to let the kids play.

Major League Baseball's 30 controlling owners voted unanimously Wednesday night to lock out players as collective bargaining talks with the players' union stalled before a midnight deadline. This is MLB's ninth work stoppage and the first since an infamous strike that spanned the 1994 and 1995 seasons.

The MLB owners and Major League Baseball Players Association met in Texas this week to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement, and the negotiations — ongoing since the spring — had not been going well. Wednesday's meeting lasted less than 10 minutes. The union demanded change following anger over a declining average salary, middle-class players forced out by teams concentrating payroll on the wealthy, and veterans jettisoned in favor of lower-paid youth, especially among clubs tearing down their rosters to rebuild," The Associated Press reports.

The immediate impact of the lockout — management's version of a strike — is that players will be barred from team workout facilities and weight rooms, and there will likely be a freeze on trading and hiring players. MLB had intentionally scheduled the lockout during the off-season to avoid the public relations debacle from the long 1994-95 stoppage. The two sides have 11 weeks until pitchers and catchers are schedule to show up for spring training on Feb. 16; spring training games are supposed to start Feb. 26, and opening day of the regular season is set for March 41.

"No player remains active from the 232-day strike that cut short the 1994 season, led to the first cancellation of the World Series in 90 years, and caused the 1995 season to start late," AP reports. "That stoppage ended only when a federal judge — future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — issued an injunction forcing owners to restore the work rules of the expired labor contract."

The 2021 World Series isn't over yet.

On Sunday night, the Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves 9-5, in Game 5 of the series. This now forces a Game 6, to be held Tuesday night in Houston.

The Braves had an early lead on Sunday, with center fielder Adam Duvall hitting a first-inning grand slam — the ninth in postseason history, CBS Sports reports. The Astros tied the game 4-4 in the third inning, and then continued the momentum, bringing in five more runs by the end of the game.

The Braves lead the series 3 games to 2, and CBS Sports says that historically, a team entering Game 6 with this margin has won the championship 69 percent of the time. The Braves last won the World Series in 1995.

To cap off his spectacular season, Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani received the Commissioner's Historic Achievement Award on Tuesday night, making him only the 16th MLB player to earn the honor.

The 27-year-old phenom accepted the award before Game 1 of the World Series. It's given out at the MLB commissioner's discretion to those who have made "a major impact on the sport," and was first awarded to Mark McGwire and Bud Selig in 1998. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told Ohtani that over the next few years, "I know that there are going to be many, many awards and accolades that come your way. But I felt that 2021 was so special that it was important to recognize the historic achievement."

Ohtani had a stellar year with the Angels — he hit 46 home runs, drove in 100 runs, and as a pitcher had 156 strikeouts and 23 starts, the Los Angeles Times reports. He was also the first player to be selected to the MLB All-Star Game as the American League's pitcher and designated hitter.

Through his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani said the award "is not given out every year, so I know how special it is. I'm not fully sure if I really deserve it, but since Mr. Manfred's going to give it to me, I'm going to accept it."