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Last night was the World Series for movies, the biggest night in Hollywood, with the Oscars being presented in Los Angeles. While I must admit I thought this year’s crop of nominees was a bit underwhelming, there’s something very enticing about the spectacle of a big event like that. Lights, cameras, fancy dresses, and speeches that take themselves a bit too seriously. Of course, the event itself made headlines for non-movie reasons, but we won’t be getting into that here.
Even with the Oscars on, sportswriters never sleep, so here’s a rundown of some of the best baseball content from over the weekend, including at least one Oscar-themed baseball story (even though there were sadly no baseball stories nominated for Oscars this year).
- Michael Chavis has time for an entire detailed story while patrolling first base with a mic on.
Michael Chavis cracks me tf up his mic’d up when he was on the Sox we’re always the best#RedSox #DirtyWater
— Jake “Iggy” Ignaszewski (@JakeIggy) March 26, 2022
pic.twitter.com/JcjUf31xdZ
- Ben Clemens looks at a minor CBA change that might be a real pain for contract renewals.
- It looks like the Yankees are planning a contract extension offer for Aaron Judge. Story by Mike McDaniel.
- Adam Berry gives us a look at Tyler Zombro’s first spring training outing with the Rays after recovering from a near-death experience with a comebacker.
- Kiley McDaniel provides us a team-by-time prospect ranking.
- Zach Kram tries to determine which MLB team had the best offseason and which had the worst.
- Brandon Lowe honored his former teammate Jean Ramirez who committed suicide using it as an opportunity to talk about mental health awareness.
- One MLB exec likes to use math to predict the Oscar winners, and Zach Buchanan shows us how good he is at it. (The Athletic subscription required.)
- The Jays and Rockies have swapped outfielders and Jake Mailhot tries to determine how that’s going to work out for both sides.
- Looks like we haven’t heard the last about Stickygate, according to Tom Verducci.
- Hopefully this means fewer players taking their pants off in-game.
MLB’s memo on the renewed sticky-stuff crackdown states that in effort to be “less invasive,” the umpire’s focus will be more on pitchers' hands and fingers.
— David Lennon (@DPLennon) March 26, 2022
If they’re caught wiping their hands before inspection, they could be subject to ejection.
- Nick Aguilera introduces us to the best new duos in baseball for the 2022 season.
- Buster Olney looks at four contenders who made massive under-the-radar moves.
- On the note of contention, Mike Petriello offers us the eight tiers of MLB contenders.
- The Reds have bolstered their outfield with the addition of Tommy Pham. (AP)
- Eno Sarris has a fun prediction about another Reds’ player, and a few more wacky guesses about what we’ll see this year. (The Athletic subscription required.)
- David Laurila chats with Rhys Hoskins.
- After learning he’d been named the Angels’ Opening Day started, Shohei Ohtani opted not to pitch and only DH in a spring training game, then proceeded to hit a home run. Story by Scott Bordow.
- Jays’ pitching coach Pete Walker was arrested on DUI charges in Florida. (AP)
- Ben Lindbergh wonders if Shohei Ohtani can actually get better in 2022.
- The Astros think they might have a new superstar in the making with Jeremy Peña, according to Ken Rosenthal. (The Athletic subscription required.)
- And on the note of movies, and of Pete Walker’s arrest, no one has more cinematic timing than Nick Castellanos.
Devastated we are no longer in the sort of movie-making environment where this could inspire a dark comedy about a front office who discovers a player gets a hit whenever unfortunate news is read on air and has to go to great lengths to find new material for him https://t.co/QWRzW58WTR
— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) March 27, 2022
And tomorrow will be a better day, Buster. Make it so.