Baseball

NEW YORK – If the final pitch of the 2020 baseball season comes closer to Christmas than Halloween, that’s fine with the players. Major League Baseball owners ratified a 17-page agreement with the union on Friday in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, with players willing to extend the season […]

Bill Bartholomay, the former baseball owner who moved the Braves from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966 to become Major League Baseball’s first team in the South, has died. He was 91. Bartholomay died Wednesday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, according to his daughter, Jamie. Braves Hall of Famer Hank Aaron said […]

NEW YORK – Jimmy Wynn, the diminutive Houston Astros slugger whose monster shots in the 1960s and ’70s earned him the popular nickname “The Toy Cannon,” has died. He was 78. The Astros said the three-time All-Star outfielder died Thursday in Houston, but did not provide further details. Just 175 […]

The coronavirus crisis has reached Japanese baseball, with the Hanshin Tigers announcing Friday three players had tested positive for the virus. Pitchers Shintaro Fujinami, outfielder Hayata Ito and catcher Kenya Nagasaka were each given PCR tests for the virus on Thursday and all came back positive. The team is currently […]

NISHINOMIYA, HYOGO PREFECTURE – Hanshin Tigers pitcher Shintaro Fujinami became the first professional baseball player in Japan to test positive for the new coronavirus, a source with knowledge of the matter said Thursday. The 25-year-old right-hander, considered one of the top prizes of Nippon Professional Baseball’s 2012 amateur draft, had […]

One of the common threads in the comments from many of Japan’s top players before spring training was about how much each was motivated by the prospect of trying to win gold on home soil during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They can still do that, they’ll just be doing it […]

Hanshin Tigers pitcher Shintaro Fujinami will undergo a PCR test for the coronavirus, the team announced on Thursday. Fujinami, 25, had been having trouble with his sense of smell and had been consulting with a doctor in Hyogo Prefecture. The club said it will report the results of Fujinami’s test […]

TORONTO – With no sign of when training camps can resume, Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro says he thinks Major League Baseball would need at least a month of workouts and exhibition games before regular season play can begin. Opening day has been postponed until at least mid-May because […]

One of the biggest adjustments Yokohama BayStars rookie pitcher Yuya Sakamoto made on Saturday was wearing a hat one size smaller than usual. When the left-hander pitched for Ritsumeikan University, his cap had a tendency to come flying off, and he was under orders from the BayStars to keep the […]

PEORIA, ARIZONA – Former major league star Ichiro Suzuki said Friday that by putting pro baseball in the United States and Japan on hold, the current coronavirus pandemic has made him realize ballplayers cannot take their game for granted. Speaking to Kyodo News on the anniversary of his retirement, Suzuki, […]