MLB

9:30 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Training camps around Major League Baseball officially open Friday, marking another step toward the game’s return. As momentous as that might sound, as positive as that might seem, Friday is a vital

7:00 AM ET The past three months, baseball has given us 1,000 reasons to hate it. In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the players and owners have acted like petulant children bickering over money, settling scores and improving bargaining position for future negotiations instead of understanding that all that mattered this year was agreeing

7:00 AM ET A 60-game baseball season is without precedent — almost. If every team plays its full schedule in 2020, it would tie the 1877 season for the shortest in MLB history. In 1877, the league consisted of six teams, and its home run champion, Lip Pike, finished with a total of four round-trippers.

7:00 AM ET The 2020 MLB season, which will be limited to 60 games because of the coronavirus pandemic, is likely to produce wildly different results than we would see over the course of a full 162-game season. Last year, the Phillies and Cubs led their divisions after 60 games, but neither made the playoffs.

7:00 AM ET Major League Baseball is aiming for a 60-game 2020 MLB season as training camps begin in ballparks across the country this week. If they do play, that means we’ll have pennant races and a postseason and MVP awards to hand out. I thought it would be fun to go over the past

Jun 29, 2020 Kiley McDanielESPN MLB Insider Close ESPN MLB Insider Kiley McDaniel covers MLB prospects, the MLB Draft and more, including trades and free agency. Has worked for four MLB teams. Follow on Twitter Facebook Twitter Facebook Messenger Pinterest Email The coming major league season will be unlike any other for obvious reasons, but

6:34 AM ET You love baseball. Tim Kurkjian loves baseball. So while we await its return, every day we’ll provide you with a story or two tied to this date in baseball history. ON THIS DATE IN 2016, Toronto’s Darwin Barney gave up a game-winning home run in the 19th inning. Barney, of course, is

7:00 AM ET David Schoenfield Close ESPN Senior Writer Senior writer of SweetSpot baseball blog Former deputy editor of Page 2 Been with ESPN.com since 1995 Jesse Rogers Close ESPN Staff Writer Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com. It’s here. Finally. Spring training 2.0. Or make that summer camp.

5:31 PM ET Marly RiveraESPN Writer Close Marly Rivera is a writer for ESPNdeportes.com and ESPN.com. There are no protocols that can completely eliminate the risk of contracting the coronavirus. Therefore, despite Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association having developed an extensive manual to aid in the task of resuming play in 2020,

7:00 AM ET In around three weeks, if fate smiles upon us all in a way that it hasn’t for most of 2020, we will have regular-season baseball. We will have a little more than a three-month sprint to crown a World Series champion, one whose validity will be debated forever after. A 60-game season

8:00 AM ET AT A TIME when industries across America are facing a racial reckoning following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the rising support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations, Theo Epstein, spoke out recently about the homogeneity of today’s Major League Baseball front offices.

11:37 PM ET Ian Desmond will opt out of playing this season, the Colorado Rockies‘ outfielder announced Monday. “The COVID-19 pandemic has made this baseball season one that is a risk I am not comfortable taking,” he wrote at the end of a lengthy post on Instagram that touched on race and opportunities for youth

8:00 AM ET High school baseball in Japan is a noisy, communal, hyperkinetic affair. It starts right away, as coaches hit pregame infield practice with three baseballs going at once, one after another after another, and the constant collision of chatter resembles an aviary. It’s difficult to square this raucous spectacle with the perception of

7:00 AM ET Despite a global pandemic and contentious labor fight, Major League Baseball is, in fact, on track to return this year, in one form or another. But baseball’s reach is far greater than its highest level. Countless other people — in high schools and throughout college campuses, from youth teams and travel ball

9:40 PM ET ESPN.com staff With Major League Baseball scheduled to open camps for “spring training 2.0” in the coming days, teams had to submit their initial 60-man player pools Sunday. Players still can be added with many teams listing fewer than 60 names, but this at least gives us a glimpse of whom we’ll

4:47 PM ET Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Edgar Santana was suspended 80 games without pay by Major League Baseball on Sunday after testing positive for a banned substance. MLB said in a statement that Santana was positive for Boldenone, a performance-enhancer. Santana, a 28-year-old right-handed reliever, missed the 2019 season because of Tommy John surgery. In

7:00 AM ET Watching Major League Baseball start a second “spring” training now, amid surging coronavirus infections in the states where many hundreds of ballplayers reside, is like climbing into a sailboat just as the outer bands of a hurricane swirl closer on the horizon. But this is where baseball is in this moment, and

11:23 AM ET ESPN News Services KEY WEST, Fla. — Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Andrew Toles was in jail earlier this week, charged with trespassing property. Toles, 28, was detained this week at the airport in Key West, Florida, by a Monroe County sheriff deputy. The Miami Herald reported Toles was found sleeping behind a