Kuzul

This essay won the Society for American Baseball Research Negro Leagues Committee Scholarship contest in April 2010. On April 14, 1947, Major League Baseball was a whites-only sport. Not since the expulsion of black players in 1888 had a non-Caucasian man swung a bat or thrown a pitch in the Big Show. That changed on April 15, 1947—64 years ago today—when Jackie Robinson suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Today it is our duty, both as baseball fans and as Americans, to appreciate Robinson as not just a courageous man and a skilled ballplayer, but as the hero who forged a path for racial integration in all aspects of American society. An African-American boards a segregated bus in the heart of the segregated South and takes a seat in the “whites-only” section. “Hey, you,” the driver yells, “Get to the back of the bus.” The passenger refuses and is arrested a few minutes later. At ...

A year ago, fantasy owners and Texas fans alike felt burned when the Rangers announced that then 21-year-old phenom Neftali Feliz would start the season in the bullpen. He wasn’t even supposed to be Texas’ closer—he was slated to play second fiddle to Ugueth Urbina. We know how that story ended. By the second week of the 2010 season, Feliz, now 22, had wrested the ninth-inning job from Urbina. In 70 appearances, he threw 69.1 innings with a 2.73 ERA, striking out more than a batter per inning (9.2 K/9) and notching 40 saves (good for third in the American League) en route to upsetting Austin Jackson for the AL Rookie of the Year Award. Now that ace Cliff Lee has returned to Philadelphia, questions have abounded about the 2010 AL pennant winners’ ability to defend their title with a weakened rotation. It was only logical that the idea of moving Feliz, who ...

In 2006, a flame-throwing rookie took the baseball world by storm. Ranked the sixth-best prospect in the game on Baseball America's preseason list, he surpassed even the wildest expectations people had for him, going 12-3 with a 2.16 ERA (2.55 FIP, 2.35 xFIP) and earned 4.1 WAR in 121 innings.His name was Francisco Liriano, and he quickly emerged as the Twins' best starter—no easy feat considering his teammate, Johan Santana, went on to win the AL Cy Young.Then disaster struck. Elbow pain limited Liriano to just two starts after July 28, and he underwent Tommy John surgery in November.He missed the entire 2007 season, and wasn't quite himself for two years afterwards. He went 11-17 with a 5.12 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP in 212 2/3 innings from 2008-9. His breakout rookie season seemed like a fluke, and Liriano had gained a reputation as inconsistent and injury-prone.Butast winter, something changed, and ...

Most baseball predictions are relatively straightforward. Sure, you can argue over whether Joey Votto will be better than Albert Pujols or who will win the AL East, but as long as the focus is on just one outcome, it's at least easy to understand the train of thought.That's why, when one person decides to power rank all 30 MLB teams, things inevitably go awry.There's a general consensus about how the top and the bottom should look, but in between the two extremes, things can get pretty screwy. One man's top-three team is in another man's bottom five.Luckily, Bleacher Report's Featured Columnists have found a solution. Twenty-six of the site's most knowledgeable writers, representing 18 teams, all wrote in with their lists, which we combined into this—our composite power rankings, in which the group consensus outweighs our individual biases.For each team, you can see our average ranking, as well as the ...

There once was a time when players spent their entire careers with the same team.In most cases, the team a player was on was the one that originally scouted and drafted him. Unless a guy was traded or he wore out his welcome with his employers, he wasn't likely to ever don another uniform.Now, that's all changed.Teams have played the service clock game with their young players, manipulating the timing of their arbitration seasons to delay their walk years as long as possible. Once they hit the open market, all that matters is cash.In honor of the way things used to be, here is my list of the best homegrown starting pitcher in the history of each MLB team. Black-and-white headshots are public domain images, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.Begin Slideshow

Last week, John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, stopped by Bleacher Report to post three eloquent essays in which he aptly demonstrated his knowledge of and passion for our national pastime. Unfortunately, much of what he wrote was based on a false premise that permeates much of the discussion about baseball today. In “Farewell to Stats,” Mr. Thorn wrote: "Amid today's...sabermetric analysis, I miss the fun."  This is not a malevolent attack or an angry outburst, but it is emblematic of a misguided opinion popular among analysts across the country, most of whom are far less thoughtful and diplomatic than Mr. Thorn. The prejudice we number-lovers face comes from all directions, from Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman calling us “VORPies” (apparently that was supposed to be an insult) to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Patrick Reusse’s politically incorrect comparison of statistically inclined bloggers to homeless people. Even here at Bleacher Report, any article involving BABIP or xFIP ...

Opening Day is less than two weeks away, which means everyone and his mother is spouting predictions for the coming MLB season.With so many talking heads out there, where can you go to find a variety of opinions together in one place? Yesterday, 25 of Bleacher Report's MLB Featured Columnists—representing 17 teams—pooled our collective wisdom (or ignorance, if you disagree with us) with our picks for who will win the major American League awards in 2011: Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, and Rookie, Manager and Comeback Player of the Year.Today, we tackle the National League.For each award, I've included the full vote totals so you can see how we were divided. In addition, writers who voted for the winner and an "interesting pick" for each honor wrote in to explain their choices.Thank you to everyone who voted and submitted commentary!Begin Slideshow

The lead-up to Opening Day is a time for excitement. It's a time for optimism and hope. And it's a time for predictions.Yes indeed, there are predictions.Everyone and his mother has an opinion about which teams will make the playoffs and which will collapse, which players will rise to stardom and which will fade into obscurity. With so many people putting in their two cents, how can we keep it all straight?Luckily, Bleacher Report's Featured Columnists are here to help with the first installment in our season-long series of FC Polls.Twenty-five of B/R's top MLB writers, representing 17 teams, offered their predictions for the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie, Manager and Comeback Player of the Year awards for each league.Today, we look at the American League awards (NL to come tomorrow). For each honor, I've included our vote totals, as well as explanations by the writers who named the winners ...

Ah, spring training—a time for managers to see what they've got to work with; for players to show their employers that they deserve chances to play in the Big Show and for teams do some experimenting in games that don't count.Some of the most interesting situations involve clubs trying to convert relief pitchers into starters. Sometimes it works, like with C.J. Wilson last year. Sometimes it doesn't, like with Kyle Farnsworth.In this slideshow are 10 young arms who have been at least rumored to be in the hunt for rotation spots this year, but might be better off spending the season in the bullpen.Begin Slideshow

For the last few years, the Philadelphia Phillies have made their name as an offense-heavy team that occasionally pitched well. That’s not to say they had no good pitching—they just didn’t have very much of it. Cole Hamels carried the team in both 2007 and 2008, and Cliff Lee was lights-out down the stretch in 2009, but beyond that, Philadelphia’s rotation didn’t scare anyone. Even in 2010, manager Charlie Manuel sent Roy Halladay to the mound every fifth day (not “every fifth game”) because he didn’t trust anyone else to take the ball. But by the end of last season, something had changed. The Phillies were the near-unanimous favorites to win the National League pennant not for their bats, but for their arms. While assertions that the Phillies’ tremendous trio would be unbeatable in a playoff series were quickly proven false, this was a clear shift in the composition of their roster. Philadelphia still had ...