Fan News

There is no doubt in the minds of many baseball followers that although some teams lose in style, none can quite do it like the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have set a sports record for most consecutive losing seasons. Though I am an avid Pirates fan, I must admit I know when to say we stink.

It isn't all the players fault though. The management here was awful for a really long time. We've had awful players stroll through here such as Pokey Reese and Josh Fogg. The losses are blamed on our General Managers and anyone who was involved in signing and scouting our so called "players".

Owner : David Glass

Team : Kansas City Royals

Education : BA, General Business, Missouri State (Springfield, MO)

In 1937, someone who wasn't very intelligent invented the product pictured above. If it isn't evident from the image or from this article's title, the Baby Cage was meant to give an infant some fresh air by suspending them outside of a window in a wire cage.

Putting a child in a cage is inhumane enough, but hanging that cage dozens of feet above a busy street with nothing holding it up but thin metal rods borders on sadism. 

A big deal has been made about the length of Matt Holliday's contract.  There's certainly a risk that his production could decline after age 35 or that a big injury will hit him.   But this is something the current Cardinals ownership and management have done when they want to lock down a player to be part of their core. 

They've done it with Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, Albert Pujols, and technically, Chris Carpenter.  The Cards added five years with an option to the one year with an option remaining on his previous deal.

Congratulations to Andre Dawson for getting into the Hall of Fame, and as always after the Hall of Fame voting a few short sided characters (who seem to know nothing about baseball) start griping that Mark McGwire isn't in the Hall of Fame.

First of all, I want to give a disclaimer that I DO think that he should be in the Hall of Fame...eventually. I think he is deserving of the Hall of Fame simply because even if he used steroids, allegedly, when he hit all of those home runs, the reality is that the pitchers throwing to him were 'roided up too.

People often forget how rare it is to find a truly great switch hitter.

In general, the switch hitter himself is not all that rare of a commodity, you see them in nearly every game. But once in a great while you will find one that is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to utilizing this special skill.

I have compiled a list of, who I consider to be, the top ten switch hitters of all time.

Enjoy. I look forward to your feedback.

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What impact does the A's resigning Jack Cust, their main source of power for the past three seasons, have on players like Jake Fox, Eric Chavez, Chris Carter and other DH-eligible players?

What if (and I know it's a huge if) Chavez does comes back next season and is able to at least swing the bat? Or what about the one-in-a-million possibility that Chavez returns to the hot-corner next season? What happens to the newly acquired Fox?

Casey Kotchman, his hands in his lap, waits patiently as his plane lands in Seattle. The Emerald City is particularly resonant today, the horizon shimmering blue in the Pacific Northwest as the chill of winter bites at the coastline. But there's still that sparkle, that tiny gleam that you can only see if you're looking for it.

It's the hope embodied by the entire city of Seattle.

It's the hope of a World Series team.

Getting Adrian Beltre for a guarantee of just one year and $10 million has to be viewed as a steal for the Red Sox. It's a huge come-down from Scott Boras's early demands of four years and $40 million, or more.

It seems hard to believe, but we are already in the year 2010. As with any new decade, it only seems fair to look back at the best players, teams, etc. of the previous 10 years.

So with that, I present my top 10 picks from each position between the years 2000-2009. This installment will be the outfielders. (For this list, I decided to do the top 30 given the large number of outfielders in the league.)

As with any rankings, there will always be snubs.