San Rafael resident Bill Wakefield knows a lot about the toy business. That’s because he worked as an off-shore buyer for Mattel for many years. But the 78-year-old Wakefield was also a Major League Baseball pitcher for the New York Mets during the 1964 season, a fact that most baseball fans have probably forgotten. Wakefield […]
Hopefully, free-agent pitcher Gerrit Cole will soon reveal to the world where he’s going to play baseball next season. When agent Scott Boras and the team that eventually does ink Cole to his mega multi-million dollar deal — $300 million has been reportedly tossed around — or whatever absurd amount he gets, do announce a deal, […]
Randy McGilberry knows a wrong when he sees one. So he knows that Tony Clark, who is the head of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), is committing a blatant one. He hasn’t vowed to smack Clark upside the head, or anything that dramatic. At least not literally. The popular expression is used as a […]
Prince Albert Sports Hall of Famer Dave Pagan knows a thing or two about living in the cold. Growing up in Nipawin, where he still resides, that’s to be expected. But cold and heartless is another matter entirely. The head of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), Tony Clark is that cold and heartless […]
Ozzie Osborn doesn’t receive a Major League Baseball (MLB) pension. Not the former reality television star and singer with the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. That Ozzie hails from Birmingham, England, and spells his last name, Osbourne. No, I am referring to the 73-year-old former ballplayer who lives in Westminster, Colorado, just a scant 26 […]
There are 626 retired men and their families who played Major League Baseball who are being denied pensions by both the league and the union representing the current players, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), because of an error the union committed 39 years ago. In order to avert a threatened 1980 walkout by […]
For a guy who is supposed to be as progressive on race relations as Tony Clark, the executive director of the union representing current big leaguers, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), he sure doesn’t practice what he preaches. Clark in 2016 was awarded the Jackie Robinson Award by the Negro Leagues Museum for […]
The following is a guest column by Douglas J. Gladstone, author of A Bitter Cup of Coffee, about one-time Philadelphia Athletics/Chicago White Sox reserve catcher George Yankowski, also a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. He, too, is one of over 600 short-career former major leaguers frozen out of the 1980 pension realignment that […]
Unless you’ve been holed up in a cave somewhere, you know that former MLB Houston Astros Assistant General Manager Brandon Taubman was fired on October 24 for making deplorable comments directed at three female sportswriters following the club’s victory in the American League Championship Series. One of the reporters, who was wearing a purple domestic […]
Joe Maddon deserves all the recognition and praise he gets, says Jimmy Driscoll, who served as Maddon’s best man, photographer and limo driver at his wedding. But ever since he became a successful big league manager, starting when he took Tampa Bay to the World Series in 2008, Driscoll says Maddon, who guided the Chicago Cubs to victory […]