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The story of how L.A. Dodgers star Yasiel Puig defected from Cuba to come to the U.S. to play baseball: Given the riches that await in el exterior, it is remarkable not that so many Cuban athletes leave but that so many more stay. Nobody needs to remind them that the decision to flee is […]

How a squad of self-appointed experts quietly took over the billion-dollar autograph industry: Today, few autographs are bought or sold without the blessing of either Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) or its competitor, James Spence Authentication (JSA). The two companies have come to dominate the market, verifying hundreds of thousands of signatures each year. Business is […]

Akers revisits his hometown ballpark, Herschel Greer Stadium, where the Triple-A Nashville Sounds have played since the 1970s. The team is lobbying for a new park, just like other cities around the country: This leaves Tammen, who will give a speech at this year’s winter meetings about “how to make the best of an old […]

Steve Salerno writing for the Missouri Review on baseball, manhood and, most of all, a life lived in America’s batting cages: It is the mark of my absorption that I know the pitching machines in American cities large and small, their habits and quirks, as well as I know their physical locations and the best […]

A brief history of how reporters first covered performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball, starting with the time Baseball Weekly writer Pete Williams hit the gym with Ken Caminiti: His post-workout high set him off to report on creatine, the supplement Baseball Weekly would dub the game’s “new gunpowder.” Baseball Weekly had a decent travel […]