Mack's Apple's - Baseball Collection, Speed Up Games, Mia Khalifa, Japanese Mud Bowl, Multi-Sports Athletes

Good morning.

MLB Rallies To Help Boy Whose Baseball Collection Was Destroyed By Fire –

"[M]y house burned down in Santa Rosa and my saddest things was my baseball collection cards, my 17 jerseys and 10 hats and my baseball from the game and also a ball signed by the whole team and Ricky [Henderson] and Bob Melvin," Smith wrote. "I had a major league baseball and it all burned up. So sad. I know you are not all together but hope they get this."

                        Read about how Oakland stepped up.

Does Major League Baseball really want to  speed up games ?

There was a good deal of talk going into this season about speeding up games by enforcing rules about how long there is supposed to be between pitches and eliminating the need to throw four balls to intentionally walk a batter.

The result: Regular season games average three hours, five minutes, an all-time high.

I’m both a baseball fan and a baseball writer, so I have no problem with how long the game goes. I’m usually writing when watching the game at home or, those games I still attend, are minor league ones that I have a press pass to sit behind home plate with a radar gun.

But, take my wife. She HATES baseball, mainly because, as she says, ‘it’s so slow and boring”.

Still, I don’t think fans care about this non-issue, especially the ones attending the games, eating burgers and fries with their friends, and getting some adult to go buy them a beer.

No, they want the game to never end.

Porn star Mia Khalifa was reportedly ejected from a baseball game after an altercation with a fan. The adult film star, 24, attended the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs game on Saturday when a fan tried to take a selfie with her without her permission, The Daily Mail reported. According to reports, Khalifa punched the fan in the jaw before being removed from the game.

“Baseball sucks,” she added.

            Takes one to know one…

Japanese Mud Bowl -

In the first round of the Nippon Professional Baseball playoffs in Japan, the Hanshin Tigers and Yokohama DeNA Baystars battled through absolutely absurd conditions to play an entire baseball game in the mud. The result was unlike any baseball game I’ve ever seen. To watch the highlights with the full swampy effect, here’s “Born On The Bayou.”

I hope you are enjoying all this non-Mets baseball articles that I am highlighting in my new ‘Mack’s Apple’s’ series. Please share me your thoughts on this expansion in other baseball areas.

Multi-Sports Athletes -

          

  To be sure, many multi-sport stars still end up giving baseball the cold shoulder as they get older. Tom Kotchman, a longtime MLB scout, recalls seeing one such player while at a college baseball game about 10 years ago.

By then, the player had already forsaken baseball for the school football team, but when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch that night, Kotchman noticed something. It wasn’t just the arm strength. It was also how visibly irritated he was when the pitch got away from the catcher. “You saw the competitiveness,” he said.

Kotchman, then a scout with the Los Angeles Angels, asked coaches to pass along an information card for him to fill out, eyeing him as a likely late-round draft pick. But he never heard back, and the player continued his foray into football.

His name was Tim Tebow.

            Gotcha Tom!