The last time the Giants won the World Series, they weren't the San Francisco Giants, because they were still playing on the Polo Grounds in Harlem. Now, a new city can celebrate their victory. Sports writer Jeff Beresford-Howe reports from California.

The San Fransisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers last night 4 to 0, giving them a 3-1 series lead. Takeaway sports contributor Jeff Beresford-Howe wraps up last night's game.

The San Francisco Giants are one game away from the Bay Area’s first ever world championship.

Well, wait, yeah, not the first. The 49ers have won five, the A’s have won four, the Raiders a couple and even the Warriors won once. (If you’re under 40, I know that last one seems a little insane, but you could look it up, as they say.)

It just seems like the Giants are first because no one who lives in the Bay Area has ever seen anything like this. The coolest, most progressive city in the United States has gone crazy for the Giants.

Tonight will see the beginning of a World Series matchup no one predicted. The San Francisco Giants will face the Texas Rangers. At the center of the game will be an epic face-off between pitchers Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum. They have established themselves as two of the best pitchers in the game, and both men have a tremendous amount of respect for the other's pitching style.

Sportswriter Jeff Beresford-Howe takes you through five erroneous assumptions you may have heading into this year's World Series.

Watching the selection show for baseball's All-Star Game on TBS Sunday, I thought of Billy Martin. Talking about Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner in 1978, the irascible and perhaps drunken Yankees manager said, "One's a born liar and the other's convicted."

Martin was spot-on about Yankees owner Steinbrenner, who was convicted for his part in the sleazier side of Richard Nixon's '72 campaign operations. Jackson, the story goes, pissed Martin off in a public disagreement over whether Mr. October was bunting on his own in a game. ... (continue reading)

Bad news for all of you singing Ole Ole. Soccer – hell, that isn’t even the real name of the sport – is never going to be a big deal in the United States.

Why? Let me dive to the turf screaming and clutching my leg while I explain why.

“Major League Soccer” (MLS) isn’t major league. It isn’t even much of a minor league. Figure the English Premier League as the majors, along with La Liga in Spain. Italy and Germany would be the equivalent of Triple-A baseball. Holland, France, Brazil, Mexico, they’d be Double-A. The Central American leagues, Japan, they’d be Single-A. Then maybe put “major league soccer” in there at low Single-A. Do you think baseball would be successful in the USA if the best thing you could see was the Charleston Bats vs. the Asheville Tourists? Or hockey would work here if all we had to look forward to was the Fresno Falcons vs. the Long Beach Ice Dogs? A league whose champion couldn’t win a single game in the English Premier League is not going to excite the American imagination. The league is so bad that the best American players would rather sit on the bench for Hertha Berlin or Manchester City than play regularly for the San Jose Earthquakes or the Chicago Fire. (What? There’s no team called the New Orleans Katrinas?) ... (continue reading)

Major League Baseball is losing an icon. Don Fehr is retiring after 26 years. He's not a second baseman or even a coach. He's the executive director of the Major League Baseball Player's Association and on his watch a lot has happened in the world of baseball. Will he be remembered for helping players gets rich or allowing steroid use to proliferate? The Takeaway's Sports Contributor Jeff Beresford-Howe talks with John Hockenberry about the legacy of Don Fehr.

To see some statistics on changes in baseball during Fehr's career, watch the video below.

Leadership in baseball changes about as often as it used to in the Kremlin and still does in Zhongnanhai. The last time there was turnover on the player’s union side was 1983, when a callow, aggressive lawyer named Donald Fehr took over during a virtual state of war between the men who own the teams and the men who played ball for them.

Fehr announced his retirement on Sunday after twenty-six years running the union. From a competitive point of view, there’s only one way to judge his tenure: a thorough success probably unequalled in the history of labor and certainly in the history of sports labor. The war that Fehr inherited is over. The owners, led by Bud Selig, have surrendered after Fehr spent two decades performing a work stoppage and salary structure whoop-ass on them. The man retires undefeated. Selig may hold the formal title of commissioner of baseball, but he is now widely considered secondary in power and authority to Fehr. Mike Weiner, a lawyer and Fehr protégé, the George H.W. Bush to Fehr’s Ronald Reagan, will be the new head of the union. Weiner is a kinder, gentler kind of guy. He wasn’t a principal in the union during the years in which the union struggled to become established as a serious player in the sport and doesn’t seem to carry the scars that Fehr does.

Weiner, however, has some serious cleaning up to do from parts of Fehr’s legacy, which goes a lot deeper than the issue of collective bargaining wins and losses.

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However it turns out – and these things have a way of getting weird when the Washington Nationals are involved – Stephen Strasburg is in for one hell of a ride. He became the number one pick in the major league draft, the first Must Pick guy in its 43-year history. He’s the Lew Alcindor and LeBron James, the O.J. Simpson and Payton Manning, the Guy Lafleur and Sidney Crosby of his sport, the guy a GM has to draft unless he’s interested in explaining to his team’s owner why the fans are burning him in effigy.

What those guys have in common is that these theoretical no-brainer picks by the Bucks, Cavs, Bills, Colts, Canadiens and Penguins turned out to be no-brainers in practice, too: they all became superstars.

Everyone’s excited about Strasburg. (See a detailed description of why in my earlier blog post.) He throws in the 100s, with a breaking ball in the high 80s. He’s whipsmart, tall and athletic and he’s still filling out. There’s never been a complete package quite like him, but does that mean the Nationals are going to make the World Series in five years? That Strasburg can start dusting his shelves right now so he has a nice, tidy place for his multiple Cy Youngs? ...(continue reading)

It had to be somebody, but I bet Virginia didn’t think it would be them.

The Cavaliers finished the season with the best record in the ACC (43-12-1) and had every right to expect a cushy, first-round NCAA baseball tournament berth somewhere in the fragrant South against, you know, Coastal Carolina or Elon. Instead, the Cavs got on a plane and flew 3,000 miles via John Wayne Airport to Irvine, California, on their way to a first round match-up this afternoon with the San Diego State Aztecs. The ‘tecs haven’t made the tournament since 1991, so it sounds like no big deal, right? But the Cavs know better, because they’re probably going to have to face Stephen Strasburg.

Never heard of him? You will. Soon. Strasburg, who will start Friday for San Diego State — No. 1 pitchers in college ball are “Friday pitchers” because teams play conference games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday — is the best collegiate player in the country. By far. He may be the best pitcher in the world.
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Bud Selig woke up at 4 a.m. again last night, screaming and bathed in sweat. “What’s bothering you, Bud?” his wife says, distracted as she tries to remember if she signed a pre-nup.

“Frankly,” he tells Sue, “It’s not that Selena Roberts is reporting that Alex Rodriguez is a liar who’s been using steroids most of his life. And I’m not worried that Darren Oliver or Francisco Cordero will take ARod’s head off with a fastball after they heard he was tipping their pitches when they were all in Texas. He’d tell opposition hitters what to expect from Rangers pitchers and expect the same ‘courtesy’ as a way of padding his stats.”

“So why were you screaming?” Sue says. “Is it that Manny Ramirez thing?”

“Frankly, no. It’s not that we’re going to have to bust Manny for steroid use, and that a lot of people are beginning to wonder why 15 of the 24 major leaguers who’ve been suspended since 2005 are Latinos, and most of the minor leaguers, too. Or that Manny in LA has been one of the best stories in major league baseball and he just defecated all over it.”

“Is it the Yankees, Bud? How bad they’ve been? I know how important it is to you that they dominate baseball.”

“You raise a good point, Sue. I’ve been watching and wondering why the Yankees didn’t bother to get someone to help out after ARod went down. The three guys they used at third base were a combined 22 for 102 with no home runs and six errors through Wednesday’s games. That and Chien-Ming Wang are why they’re under .500. If I have to sit through another World Series without the Yankees, Sue, I swear I may slit my wrists. If Fox doesn’t do it for me.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Bud, what is it?”

“You’re not wearing a wire, are you, Sue?” ...(continue reading)

Take a look ahead at the '09 season, with a list of predictions for the finish of each team, a quick summary of the team's prospects, and a round-up of what they're doing to entice cash-strapped fans to spend at the ballpark.

Opening Day is the best day of the baseball seasons. It’s like picking up a good novel, reading the first paragraph and knowing it’s going to be great. Seven months of a lively, unpredictable narrative that changes every day lie ahead. There's nothing like it in sports.

Despite this, 2009 may finally be the year the doomsayers have it right: the the division between the Haves and Have Nots in baseball is verging on the definitive. The New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels, high revenue teams all, are consensus picks to make the playoffs. Four other big spenders, the New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies, are strong possibilities too. For the other twenty-one teams, maybe one of them catches lighting in a bottle, like Colorado in 2007 or Tampa Bay last year, but it’s going to be tough.

Speaking of dim prospects and money trouble, most teams — except the ones in the AL East — have gotten the message about the economy and are offering some creative and much cheaper ways for fans to get the ballpark this year. And that’s just for the start of the season; if baseball follows the path trod by the NBA and NHL this winter, look for deeper discounts ahead.

View Jeff's predictions for the 2009 baseball season and the recession specials at your nearest ballpark.

Today is Major League Baseball's opening day and the players are ready. Whether it be the Rays or the Diamondbacks the game is on and the fans are excited. But in this economy, the competition isn't just on the field. Baseball teams are competing for your buck and it's way past peanuts and cracker jack as they angle for those precious season ticket sales. Takeaway Tailgater Jeff Beresford-Howe joins us to talk about the wacky ways ($4 beer?!) some teams are trying to bring fans back to the park.

And, take a look ahead at the '09 season, with a list of predictions for the finish of each team, a quick summary of the team's prospects, and a round-up of what they're doing to entice cash-strapped fans to spend at the ballpark.

Take a look ahead at the '09 season, with a list of predictions for the finish of each team, a quick summary of the team's prospects, and a round-up of what they're doing to entice cash-strapped fans to spend at the ballpark.

Japanese and Korean fans packed Dodgers stadium in Los Angeles last night for the championship game of the World Baseball Classic. Japan clinched the game in the tenth inning beating long time rival South Korea by two runs. Jeff Beresford-Howe, The Takeaway’s sports contributor, was at the game last night. He joins us now for a report.

Contributor’s Notes: Jeff Beresford Howe

Japan Wins the WBC Again

Getting Ichiro out with a championship on the line turns out to be a hard way to make a living. Korea couldn’t do it last night and because they couldn’t, Japan is baseball’s world champion again. Ichiro spoiled a bunch of wicked sliders and mid-90s fastballs from Chang Yong Lim and then whacked a tenth inning, two run single to give Japan a 5-3 victory in the World Baseball Classic at Dodger Stadium last night. Ichiro’s hit and a scoreless bottom of the tenth from Iranian-Japanese phenom Yu Darvish finished a magnificently dramatic game that featured a Japanese team that couldn’t quite land a knockout punch (they left 14 on base), brilliant fielding by Korea to get out of jam after jam, a two-out ninth inning rally by Korea to temporarily stave off defeat and a crowd that started banging and screaming from the first pitch and didn’t let up once for the four hours it took get to Ichiro and Dervish.

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A baseball tournament with so few games is vulnerable to upsets that leave behind the best teams, but not in this World Baseball Classic: Korea and Japan will play tonight for the championship after clearly establishing themselves as the best teams in the tournament.

Korea’s got it all: pitching, defense, speed and power, and they’re playing at the top of their game. They whacked a stacked Venezuelan team 10-2 on Saturday to get to the final. It’s inconceivable to me that some sad-sack organization like the Pirates or the Royals doesn’t turn over $50 million to the Korean Baseball Organization and buy themselves an all-Korean, instant contender.

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If the 2006 World Baseball Classic was baseball commissioner Bud Selig’s newborn baby, with everybody cooing, talking up the novelty of it and predicting a bright future as Japan beat Cuba in front of a packed house at Petco Park in San Diego, then the 2009 WBC was a pimply, unlovable teenager in serious need of an attitude adjustment.

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The Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic in a huge upset over the weekend and made the World Baseball Classic a hit around the world. Jeff Beresford-Howe, The Takeaway’s sports contributor brings us World Baseball Classic highlights including details on this legendary play.

Click through to read Jeff's notes on this segment.

When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier at second base with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, it was one of the defining moments in professional sports. But in the past decade, pro and college baseball have been losing black players at an astonishing rate. Sports contributor Jeff Beresford-Howe has been doing some investigating into why baseball can't seem to attract black players.

Contributor's notes: Jeff Beresford-Howe

With the resounding "Ping!" of the aluminum bat, the North American baseball season commenced on Friday at colleges and universities all across the United States... Click through for the rest!