Granderson earns Marvin Miller Man of the Year award
New York, NY (Sports Network) - Detroit Tigers outfielder Curtis Granderson was named the recipient of the 2009 Marvin Miller Man of the Year award.
The award is named for the founding executive director of the MLB Players Association and is bestowed upon the player "whose on-field and off-field performance most inspires others to higher levels of achievement by displaying as much passion to give back to others as he shows between the lines on the baseball diamond."
Granderson created the Grand Kids Foundation in 2008 to give more education and youth baseball opportunities to inner-city kids. The 28-year-old has also developed a children's book and is a member of the Action Team national youth volunteer program.
In addition to his off-field work, Granderson continues to put up stellar numbers each season. In 2009 -- his fourth full season in the majors -- he was named to his first All-Star team, playing in 160 games and setting career- highs with 30 home runs and 71 runs batted in.
The Major League Baseball Players Trust will donate $50,000 to the charity of Granderson's choice in his honor. The Players Choice Awards, which have been awarded annually since 1992, are unique because the electorate consists of the players themselves.
(c) 1996-2009 Hearst Seattle Media, LLC.
Former MLB pitcher Tsao Chin-hui denies baseball game fixing
Prosecutors questioned suspects yesterday about game-fixing allegedly involving top baseball players including former Major League Baseball pitcher Tsao Chin-hui.
The new scandal broke less than a day after the Uni-President Lions defeated the Brother Elephants 5-2 to win Taiwan's professional baseball championships title for the third year in a row.
Tsao, now a member of the Elephants, played for the Colorado Rockies as the first-ever Taiwanese pitcher to play an MLB game and the first Taiwanese player to get a hit. After serving with the Rockies from 2003 to 2005, he pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007.
Investigators visited his house early yesterday and he had been listed with five other Elephants players for questioning tomorrow, team chief Hung Juei-ho said.
Tsao pleaded his innocence, Hung said, who said he believed the star. The pitcher later issued a statement expressing his "anger and disappointment" in being accused of game fixing less than a year after returning from the U.S. to play for a Taiwanese team.
Hung said prosecutors should not search players' homes without any evidence of wrongdoing. In addition to star pitcher Tsao, investigators would also question Elephants players Liu Yu-chan, Wu Pao-chien, Wang Ching-li, Wang Chun-tai and Lee Hau-jen, Hung said.
Last year, he said that if any of his players were involved in game fixing, he would disband the team, leaving Taiwan with only three major teams, the Lions, the Sinon Bulls and the La New Bears.
Early reports yesterday said the Banciao Prosecutors Office questioned 11 people involved in running the gambling scam and three witnesses, including current players, reports said. The brain behind the scheme, a man surnamed Tsai, was reportedly arrested at his home in Kaohsiung at 6:00a.m. yesterday. A former Elephants trainer allegedly played the part of general coordinator for the gambling syndicate.
Prosecutors said they searched 29 locations across the whole country, including baseball players' dormitories, but they would not reveal the identities of the suspected players as most of them had not been questioned yet.
One former member of the Elephants played the role of general supervisor in the whole scam, media reports said. Speculation in the media indicated the scandal might involve Taiwanese and foreign players, as well as local players recently returned from the United States.
Prosecutors reportedly first found evidence of the new game-fixing plot last year during their investigations into the scandal involving the dmedia T-Rex team, the Chinese-language United Evening News said yesterday.
The new group was the largest of five groups involved in game-fixing and had close ties to a major organized crime gang, the paper said.
(c) 2009 Taiwan News All Rights Reserved.
Politi: Latest Yankee controversy is not worth a bucket of spit
ANAHEIM, Calif. --- Major League Baseball officials spent Tuesday morning studying the trajectory of a loogie.
No, really. This actually happened. I picture them standing in the lab from CSI, using laser pointers to follow its path. I see them calling in Gaylord Perry as an expert consultant.
I imagine commissioner Bud Selig, after studying the video, pounding his fist against a table and declaring, ''This is exculpatory evidence for the expectorator! I will acquit the spitter!''
The ALCS took a turn toward the ridiculous Tuesday afternoon, becoming a bad knockoff of a Seinfeld episode, and the end result was a fascinating case study of the power of fan blogs and the perils of the 24-hour news cycle.
So what will go down in Yankees history as ''Spitgate'' started when a site named HalosHeaven.com put up a post under the headline, ''Mariano Rivera Spitball: Video Evidence.''
The post included an 11-second clip -- the equivalent of the Zapruder Film in this case -- in which Rivera spits in the general direction of the baseball before throwing a pitch in Game 3 (The video has since been removed by the user). It circulated on YouTube and Twitter, and eventually, made its way into the mainstream media.
This is where it got silly. MLB decided to investigate, looking at the video and still pictures. ESPN picked up on the story. The New York Times was using the word ''oogie'' on a blog.
The story just kept growing. More than 3,000 miles away in Philadelphia at a news conference for the NLCS, Rivera's old manager Joe Torre was called in as a character witness.
''Well, it's disappointing to have people make something of something that,'' Torre said. ''I've been around him for 12 years. He's top-notch for me. I didn't see any of it, I just heard some people talk about it.''
Somehow, in a matter of four hours, the accomplishments of the greatest closer in baseball history were being called into question. Was the great Rivera just another Yankees cheater?
Say it ain't so, Mo!
''I laugh because I don't do these things,'' Rivera said. A friend called him as he rode on the team bus to Angel Stadium and explained the situation. ''I mean, I care about what the fans think about me, but if somebody has followed my career, I'd have to have a lot of spit for a lot of years!''
Then he issued a challenge.
''I give you guys permission to look at video, and if I'm wrong, I will charter a plane and take all of you guys where you want to go (for dinner),'' Rivera told a dozen reporters in the dugout before Game 4. ''Anywhere you want to go.''
It was a bet that nobody would win.
Forget that, in 999 career playoff and regular-season games, nobody had ever presented any evidence of him doctoring a baseball. Forget that Rivera has been a dominant closer because of his control, and the spitball is a notoriously unpredictable pitch.
And come on. Would he really just hock a loogie on the ball, in full view of six umpires, 45,000 fans and a few million TV viewers? It would be like Jose Canseco juicing in the on deck circle.
''I kind of laughed,'' Joe Girardi said. ''Mo's been throwing one pitch for a long time. ... MLB has investigated and they have nothing about it. To me, it's a dead issue. I caught Mo for four years and I know for sure he never did anything.''
In some ways, the Yankees manager had to be tickled to discuss anything but his own bullpen decisions. Come to think of it, maybe that explains everything. Girardi flipped through his thick scouting-report binder and discovered that Howie Kendrick crushes the spitter!
''This is the first I'm hearing of this,'' manager Mike Scioscia said. ''I didn't even know that there was any indication that it's been looked out. There are certainly some guys that might be suspect, (but) never Mariano with anything that I've heard or been part of. And I'd be shocked if there was anything to that.''
Of course, there wasn't anything to it. This is the postseason's version of ''Balloon Boy,'' and instead of adding credence to the nonsense and investigating, MLB would have been wise to issue a terse statement that it wouldn't be bothered with such stupidity.
At least the central figure was laughing. In the middle of his impromptu press conference with reporters, Rivera had to excuse himself to -- what else? -- spit. At least MLB officials did not gather a DNA sample.
(c) 2009 New Jersey On-Line LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Jeter not fazed by new role in 2009
NEW YORK -- As he has done with so many media firestorms over his time in the Yankees fishbowl, Derek Jeter had a cold splash of reality waiting at his locker when the news broke that he -- and not Johnny Damon -- would be hitting leadoff in 2009.
The only difference, Jeter said this spring, was that there would be no chance of him having anybody but himself to drive in the first time he came to bat. Nothing else had to change, and as he promised with a grin, everything else would fall into place.
Was he right. Now, the Yankees look at their lineup and don't want to construct it any other way. Manager Joe Girardi's switch, a perfect storm that hit while batting Damon second during the World Baseball Classic, paid major dividends as Jeter just happened to have one of the best seasons of his career.
"I try to get better every year," Jeter said. "I try to contribute and I try to be consistent."
That's Jeter, in his typical style, understating the obvious. But there's nothing mundane about the type of season he assembled in 2009, hitting .334 with 18 home runs and 66 RBIs in 153 games while displaying improved range defensively and stealing more bases (30) than in 2007 and '08 combined.
Owing a big part of this season to his hard winter work, Jeter will certainly figure into the discussion for the American League Most Valuable Player Award once this postseason race is all said and done, but for now, that march is well under way.
"In Derek's case, he's constantly interested in doing nothing but improving," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. "That's why he's one of the greatest players who ever played for the Yankees."
Setting the table for a club that hopes to vault past the Angels and enter its first World Series since 2003, Jeter hit .400 (4-for-10) in the Bombers' three-game whitewash of the Twins in the AL Division Series, including a game-tying home run in Game 1.
Nick Swisher, always good for a way to wrap things up in a snappy way, said it best: "Once the lights hit the postseason, it's Jeter time."
The World Series heads into next month, and the man who already lists Mr. November among his nicknames is counting on the fact that he will be there.
Everything else -- passing Lou Gehrig's all-time Yankees hits mark, turning in nifty defensive plays to save runs and crush the Twins' hopes in the ALDS, the seventh 200-hit season of his career -- doesn't really matter if there isn't a fifth World Series ring on Jeter's finger.
George Steinbrenner doesn't show up much in the Bronx anymore, preferring to keep tabs on his players from a cushy pad in Tampa, Fla. But his words spill out of Jeter's mouth at almost every turn. The captain learned a little something from The Boss in those closed-door meetings across the street at the old place, you see.
"Our goal when we come into the season is to win a championship," Jeter said. "That's how it is every year. You don't go home and celebrate regular-season championships. You don't go home and celebrate getting to the World Series. Our goal is to win it. That's been my mind-set since I've come up, and it never changes."
It's the only way for Jeter, having spent his first 12 big league Octobers playing baseball and usually winning, taking home four titles in his first five seasons. Then came last year, the lost one for Jeter and the Yankees. The Phillies won that World Series, but Jeter never reached for the remote.
"It's like when you're a little kid and your parents don't let you go outside and play," he said. "You're not going to sit in the window and watch."
In a clubhouse stocked with players who don't boast the postseason credentials of the so-called "Old Guard" Yankees teams, Jeter is a calming influence, the franchise's face and spokesman over the past 14 seasons.
"We have four or five guys in our clubhouse that have been there and done that, and have played extremely well in October," Alex Rodriguez said. "I think all of us can follow those guys. Those guys, especially Derek -- he is our captain and our leader. I think we can learn from all of them."
Behind closed doors, teammates say that Jeter is a different person, never completely letting his true persona out of the bag. That's calculated -- Jeter's public presence sets the tone for the Yankees, a dapper Wall Street suit in a room full of blue jeans.
Most players have pictures of family members or Yankees logos on the computer screens installed at their lockers. Jeter keeps an AccuWeather forecast, always watching, monitoring. It is that work ethic that has allowed him to bounce back.
Jeter's resurgence was no better exhibited than the fountain of youth he found in Florida over the winter, having something to prove to all those who flooded the message boards and said Jeter couldn't do it anymore.
"You have to make adjustments throughout the years, and if things don't go the way you want them to go or you don't feel the way you want to feel, you make adjustments in order to compensate for it," Jeter said. "I just wanted to be healthy, that's it."
So here we are, deeper into the postseason, and once again things feel right for Jeter. He is the leadoff hitter for baseball's winningest team, and the player most trusted to come through in the moments when the Yankees need it most.
Like a certain famous cola, the formula is time-tested and true. All Jeter wants to do is prove it still tastes as sweet.
(c) 2001-2009 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
A-Rod back in the October crosshairs
It's baseball's postseason, which means it's time for ordinary Americans to ramp up their hatred of Alex Rodriguez to radical and utterly irrational proportions. It's time to take small samples of statistics and mold them into the most vile and disparaging arguments against a man's heart, soul and moral fiber. It's time to bash A-Rod as gutless, spineless, heartless and soulless.
And he took steroids.
Yes, it's October, when hatred of Rodriguez becomes an enterprise that is equal parts scientific, visceral and psychological.
I heard a guy on the radio Monday morning make the contention that A-Rod's presence on the Yankees is "bad karma" for the franchise. His voice rising, he said some guys have good karma, some guys have bad karma. They won't win a World Series while he's wearing pinstripes, the soothsayer said.
His partner's response? "That's a great point."
An admission: I've made some observations about Rodriguez that, in retrospect, strayed close to the mystical. I don't particularly care for the way he's conducted his business over the years, and there have been times when I have allowed those feelings to creep into my assessment of him as a ballplayer. I have always felt his self-consciousness hurts him when the games are biggest. Some people live in the moment, and some live outside it. He seems to live outside it.
But the idea that he is a carrier of bad juju, and that forces beyond baseball are conspiring against the Yankees or dictating how games will be played? Wow.
Not surprisingly, it is the scientific aspect of the argument that is the least persuasive.
It's understood that A-Rod has underperformed in the postseason during his time with the Yankees. Understood, and correct. But just for comparison's sake, let's put Rodriguez's postseason numbers up against the man who is considered the best and most clutch (clutchest?) postseason performer of the wild-card era.
Derek Jeter: postseason OPS of .845 in 495 at-bats.
Alex Rodriguez: postseason OPS of .856 in 147 at-bats.
But because A-Rod's career OPS is .956 over 16 years, there is reason to believe that more postseason at-bats will serve to bring his numbers closer to the norm. In addition, his combined 3-for-29 performance in '05 and '06 provides the bulk of this underperformance, although there were six walks.
Jeter's career OPS is .847, almost exactly the same as his postseason numbers, which suggests two things: (1) his postseason reputation as a "clutch" player is somewhat overblown, and; (2) given enough at-bats, an excellent regular-season player is likely to be an excellent postseason player.
This isn't meant to diminish Jeter, either as a regular-season or postseason performer. It's just meant to bring a little sanity to the discussion -- because insanity will erupt at the mere thought of A-Rod's first 0-for-4.
(c) 2009 ESPN Internet Ventures.
Wainwright Pitches Cards to Clinching Win
In a gutsy performance in front of a national television audience on Saturday night, Adam Wainwright pitched the St. Louis Cardinals to their 2009 National League Central Division-clinching victory, as they defeated the Colorado Rockies by a 6-3 score at Coors Field.
The 2009 major league leader in pitches thrown increased his total by 130 in going eight innings. Wainwright fanned 11 and scattered ten hits, but walked just one. One of the right-hander's three runs allowed was unearned as his season ERA dropped to 2.58.
The 28-year-old picked up his 19th win of the season and perhaps iced his 2009 Cy Young Award candidacy with a crucial called strikeout of slugger Jason Giambi to end the eighth inning. Two runners were on base with the Cardinals clinging to a one-run lead.
Wainwright had just punched out Clint Barmes looking for the second out. As left-handed pinch hitter Giambi stepped in, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa had a tough decision to make. Lefty relief specialist Trever Miller was ready in the pen and La Russa's famed blue cards in his back pocket surely told him Giambi was just 2-for-10 in his career against Miller.
Instead of changing horses, La Russa rode his steed for just one more batter and it worked to perfection as Giambi took a patented Wainwright curveball low in the zone for strike three. The Cardinals clearly entered the playoffs through the front door, their MLB-leading seventh post-season visit this decade.
Wainwright's clincher was the highest-ever strikeout performance by a Cardinals pitcher against the home club in their 17-year history. Friday's Colorado club might be called the Blake Street Flailers as Wainwright sat them down via strikeout 11 times.
The previous team record for strikeouts against the Rockies was nine, shared by Chris Carpenter (July 1, 2005) and Andy Benes (April 23, 2000).
During the 2,259-game and counting La Russa era in St. Louis, Wainwright's strikeout-fest was the 31st 11-or-more strikeout performance. His career-best was achieved on July 1st, when he fanned a dozen San Francisco Giants.
Wainwright may be given one more regular season start in his bid to win 20 games for the first time in his career. His following outing is expected to be as the game two starter in the National League Division Series. His likely opponent will be the Dodgers in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 8.
(c) 2009 stlcardinals.scout.com. All rights reserved.
Cubs expect Bradley resolution shortly
MILWAUKEE -- Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said Tuesday he expects to resolve all issues regarding Milton Bradley's suspension in the next few days.
Hendry suspended Bradley on Sunday for the remainder of the season following comments by the outfielder in which he criticized the Cubs, the fans and the media. The Major League Baseball Players Union said it was considering filing a grievance on Bradley's behalf. The outfielder is expected to be paid for the final 15 games that he will miss.
"We don't anticipate any problems," Hendry said. "We'll have it all worked out in the next few days."
Bradley, who batted .257 with 12 homers and 40 RBIs, still has two years remaining on his contract with the Cubs and is owed about $21 million over that time period. The team will try to move him this offseason. Perhaps he would consider returning to Texas, where he hit .321 last season?
"He was awesome," Rangers manager Ron Washington said of the 2008 season with the mercurial outfielder. "He did a great job for me. It wasn't my first rodeo with Milton. I never had a problem with Milton. If I didn't like something, I just let him know. All Milton wants is someone to be honest with him. He's no dummy. He knows when he screws up.
"I know things didn't go well in Chicago. I'm sorry to hear that. I felt he could be a good force for them."
Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly, who is the team's player rep, said he doesn't expect to be contacted by the players' union regarding Bradley's possible grievance.
"They wouldn't come to me and ask me questions on something like this," Lilly said. "I don't think it's anything I would have any say in, nor do I know what goes into circumstances like this. I don't know the process or the rules. Fortunately, I've never been through it."
Lilly has other things on his mind.
"I'm trying to work on a backdoor slider right now," Lilly said.
(c) 2001-2009 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
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