Editor’s Note: John Rocker, the maligned former closer for the Atlanta Braves, has signed a book deal with Regnery Publishing (publisher of such bestsellers as Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry) to chronicle his comeback attempt. Regnery and Mr. Rocker have graciously agreed to post some of the pitcher’s entries […]

Plunked down in a poor neighborhood of Jakarta is a small, neglected baseball stadium — its bases small boulders and its pitcher’s mound a pile of elephant manure. You won’t find it in any guide book — indeed, I only stumbled across it while searching for a cure for the herpes I contracted at a […]

Good evening sports fans, and welcome to a special edition of Rank Index on Yard Work, your online baseball home. The 2005 season is a quarter of the way through, and it’s shaping up to be the best year for baseball since 2004. And oh what a year that was — comebacks, chokes and milestones, […]

Deep inside the Metrodome, far from the Astroturf upon which he regularly makes dazzling catches, Luis Rivas is biting a pillow. Rookie third baseman Terry Tiffee straddles Rivas, pummeling his head with a Twins logo-embossed throw pillow — standard issue to newcomers to the perennial AL Central champions. When people discuss the success of the […]

Very soon, Major League Baseball will hold its annual amateur draft. We asked Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker to answer some questions about this year’s crop of talent, and to discuss how teams prepare for the draft. During his time managing the Giants and Cubs, Baker developed a reputation as a genius at developing young […]

The last eight or nine years are known as the home-run era, and I think justifiably so, if for no other reason than Roger Maris’ home run record was broken three times, by Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. But all three of those players are also suspected of steroid use, so now people […]