On the day after major league owners asked players to take an additional pay cut this season because of baseball's coronavirus-induced economic hardship, Max Scherzer threw this brushback pitch at the owners: put up or shut up.

Scherzer, a member of the executive board of the players' union, posted on social media Wednesday night that the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The Padres will continue to pay their minor leaguers through the end of August, the Union-Tribune has confirmed.

The Athletic first reported the team would extend the $400-a-week pay through that date, which is just a week shy of when the minor league regular season is scheduled to end. All play in the minors has been suspended but...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Sixty-seven pages of safety protocols sat on a desk in Andy Mota's South Florida home a week ago. The document, crafted by Major League Baseball to explain in extreme detail how the league can avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus during a potential abbreviated season, required careful reading.

Yet Mota couldn't help letting ...Read more

Ron Wolforth has written five books on pitching, while his Texas Baseball Ranch has gained notoriety for blending technology with a non-traditional approach to increase pitchers' velocity and performance. Since 2003, 64 Wolforth clients have been drafted.

Dr. Chris Ahmad is an orthopedic surgeon at the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University ...Read more

After major league players made clear they had no interest in participating in a revenue-sharing plan for an abbreviated 2020 season, owners Tuesday proposed that players instead accept a sliding scale of pay cuts.

While all players would be expected to take less than a prorated salary, the players with the highest salaries would lose the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers on Tuesday informed full-time employees that the organization will implement a tiered system of pay cuts starting June 1 to avoid furloughs and layoffs as the organization proceeds without generating its usual revenue during the coronavirus pandemic, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

Every ...Read more

CHICAGO -- How do you follow up "The Last Dance," the 10-part series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls that broke every ESPN documentary record?

One of executive producer Mike Tollin's next projects has him swinging for the fences with a labor of love, a documentary on White Sox great and Hall of Fame hopeful Dick Allen.

"I was a rookie ...Read more

PITTSBURGH -- The path is clear for former Pirates infielder Jung-Ho Kang to return to the Korea Baseball Organization, although it will take some time.

The KBO recently made a decision on Kang's eligibility after he filed for reinstatement from the "voluntarily retired" list last Thursday.

With three DUIs on his record, Kang was potentially ...Read more

As the 30 MLB team owners and the players union bicker over how to divvy up the revenue in a potential 2020 season, at least they are projecting to have some cash hitting the books.

Ticket revenue and concessions accounted for 30-40% of the $10.7 billion MLB made last season, and teams won't have that this season. But revenue of local TV ...Read more

Scott Boras sounded a bit hoarse when he picked up the phone Sunday. He'd been talking with players all weekend, strategizing the next two weeks that could determine whether there is a baseball season in 2020.

Those weren't the only conversations he's had recently. His agency's Twitter account, for eight years used to offer condolences and ...Read more

Chester Farrow, longtime scoreboard operator for the Oakland A's and an East Bay teacher and concert promoter, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer.

He was 77.

The Pittsburg native began keeping score for the A's in 1969, which was the club's second year in Oakland, after the team relocated from Kansas City.

"Nineteen people tried out ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Like every other fan, Chicago Cubs reliever Jeremy Jeffress is crossing his fingers and hoping for an agreement between Major League Baseball and the players union to restart the season in July.

But if baseball strikes out, he knows the ramifications could be far-reaching.

"It's going to impact, the game, the city, a lot of stuff," ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- On May 11, the day major league owners approved a plan to start the season in early July, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to endorse the proposal.

"We'll see where we will be in July," Newsom said that day.

On May 18, Newsom said baseball and other pro sports would be invited to play within California "in that first week ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego County is annually among the nation's biggest hotbeds for amateur baseball talent, with dozens of players selected each year in the MLB draft.

Expect the number of local players to be counted on one hand with MLB's plan to scale back next month's draft from 40 to five rounds.

One result of this development is that both ...Read more

ATLANTA -- Felix Hernandez is aspiring to play a few more seasons, if his recent comments are any indication.

In an interview with "The Bob, Dave and Moore Show" on 710 ESPN Seattle, Hernandez laid out his late-career hopes: 200 wins and 3,000 strikeouts.

"I'm going to go year-by-year," Hernandez said Tuesday. "Because my goal is to get to 200...Read more

Two months into the shutdown of the 2020 season, the Cubs have instituted pay cuts throughout the organization, a source said Wednesday.

Employees in the baseball operations and business operations departments and those with uniform employee contracts (UECs) -- which includes manager David Ross and his coaches, scouts, minor-league managers ...Read more

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Oakland Athletics have refused to pay $1.2 million required under contract to use the Coliseum, the head of the stadium authority confirmed Tuesday.

A's executives told Coliseum Authority Interim Executive Director Henry Gardner they had "no ability to pay" the annual payment, due April 1. An attorney for the A's, however...Read more