Mack’s Apples – Kevin Towers, HOF Cheaters, Pitch Clocks, The Homestead Homies, Joey Bart

Remembering  Kevin Towers , baseball's 'man of the people' –

For almost a year, Towers’ cancer had been the worst-kept secret in baseball, and also the best-kept. During the winter meetings of 2016, word spread among his peers that he had received a terminal diagnosis. Six months to live, he was told. But Kevin made it known he did not want to discuss his illness publicly, and so no one had talked about his cancer on the record -- while at the same time freely exchanging the latest do-not-publish updates about how he was feeling, his evolving weight, how he was breathing, how it was progressing, when he might have a beer again.

How The  Baseball Hall Of Fame  Is Protecting Its Integrity From Cheaters –

It’s not the fact that that they just cheated, though.  It’s the reality that opponents lost due to their cheating.  Yeah, Barry Bonds hit a lot of home runs.  But those home runs also show up on the baseball cards of every single MLB pitcher that gave them up… Just pause and think for a moment about all of the times that one homer hit by Bonds or strikeout thrown by Clemens was the difference in a game.  Their usage of these steroids changed the course of sports history.  Imagine for a moment what it may have looked like otherwise.  Did your own team historically suffer at the hands of these players?

 Pitch Clocks  , pace of play and robo-umps: Who should decide what's best for baseball? –

Major League Baseball has three primary stakeholder groups: the players, who create the product; the owners, who finance and distribute it; and the fans, who consume it. The sport wouldn't exist as we know it without all three. This is technically true also of advertisers and guys hawking peanuts and turf companies, but those are secondary actors with only minor claims. The owners, the players and the fans are the core. All could plausibly claim to be the reason the league exists, and could plausibly claim to be whom the league exists for. Complicating matters, these three stakeholder groups often want different things.

Baseball’s Rumored  Spring Training  for Free Agents Has Happened Before –

The prospect of MLB’s unsigned players forming their own team this spring amid a historically slow offseason might seem unprecedented, but in 1995, a collection of major league hopefuls left unsigned after the strike did just that. Meet the Homestead Homies, a 23-year-old blip no one wants to see repeat.

Joey Bart , Georgia Tech

Bart was ranked No. 183 on the BA 500 in 2015 and was the first player ever drafted out of Buford (Ga.) High when the Rays selected him in the 27th round thanks his easy bat speed and above-average power potential. He made it to campus at Georgia Tech though, looking to show that he could make improvements defensively and stick behind the dish rather than move to first base-which many evaluators thought was a possibility at the time back in 2015.

Three years later, Bart is the highest-ranked catcher for the 2018 draft and has seemingly answered the questions about his defensive ability. He’s started 68 games behind the plate for the Yellow Jackets and has hit .296 or better in both his freshman and sophomore seasons in the ACC, with his power showing up in full force during 2017 with 13 home runs and a .575 slugging percentage.

His summer left a lot to be desired for scouts who saw him, but most attribute that to the fact that he was dealing with an oblique injury, and his impressive fall was one of the most talked about of any draft-eligible player in the country. If Bart continues to refine his defensive ability and cuts down on his strikeouts he will hear his name called very quickly this June.