Latest news with #HallOfFame
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Cubs legend Sammy Sosa returns to Wrigley Field after 20-plus year hiatus
Legendary Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa returned to Wrigley Field for the first time in more than 20 years on Friday before Chicago's afternoon game with the Seattle Mariners. Sosa, who is set to be inducted into the Cubs' team Hall of Fame this year, arrived at the iconic North Side ballpark in a black SUV. He was greeted by owner Tom Ricketts, who embraced him in a hug as he exited the vehicle. Sosa became the face of the Cubs franchise where he played 13 seasons after coming in a trade from the crosstown White Sox in March 1992. A seven-time All-Star, Sosa hit 545 homers in 1,811 games with the Cubs and hit a franchise-record 66 in 1998 when he was named the NL's MVP. Sammy's home. Sosa, now 56, played his final game with the Cubs at Wrigley on 2 October 2004, when he homered and had two hits in an 8-6 loss to Atlanta. During his years with the Cubs, Sosa appeared to bulk up drastically and was a headliner in a generation of baseball's biggest names linked to performance-enhancing drugs. The Cubs traded him to Baltimore with cash in February 2005 for three players. Sosa appeared to acknowledge using performance-enhancing drugs in December when he released a statement saying he was sorry for mistakes, without specifying them. 'There were times I did whatever I could to recover from injuries in an effort to keep my strength up to perform over 162 games,' he said in the statement. 'I never broke any laws. But in hindsight, I made mistakes and I apologize.' On Friday morning, Sosa posed for photos with rising Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong outside the team's clubhouse and a video showed Sosa embracing manager Craig Counsell in his office before the game. The Cubs remained mum, however, on any ceremony or event before or during Friday's game. In Thursday's 8-7 loss to Milwaukee, Crow-Armstrong went deep to set a new team record for reaching 20 homers and 20-plus stolen stolen bases the fastest, doing it in 73 games. Sosa had the old mark of 96, set in 1994.
New York Times
7 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Rafael Devers is walking more than ever, which is a good sign for his future
Pull up a list of major leaguers who have played 1,000 games before turning 29. Sort them by adjusted OPS (OPS+), which accounts for league-wide scoring levels and ballparks. Focus on the first 200 names. Now you have a list of All-Stars, with a lot of Hall of Famers mixed in. That's the elevator pitch for Rafael Devers. Among players who played a lot of games before turning 30, Devers was among the best hitters. He's keeping company with Al Kaline and Dave Winfield, if you're looking to compare him with Hall of Famers. He's keeping company with Jack Clark and Reggie Smith, if you're looking to compare him to Hall of Very Gooders with a Giants connection. It's a list of players who can provide supporting evidence for whatever narrative you want to tell. If you're worried about Devers' limited defensive ability preventing him from aging gracefully, Kent Hrbek and Greg Luzinski are on the list. If you're projecting a Hall of Fame career, you can tally up the inductees with a lower OPS+ through their age-28 season. There are 35 who hit better than Devers, and there are 44 who hit worse. Advertisement None of this tells us how Devers will age, or how much of a bargain or albatross he'll be toward the end of his contract. It's just another way to say, 'so far, so good.' What he's already done is impressive, and while he's not quite as young as his cherubic face might suggest, he's still in the prime of his career. Let's update the description, then: So far, so great. Devers got on this list by being consistent. Check his slash line since 2019 (excluding the 60-game 2020 season): 2019: .311/.361/.555 (132 OPS+) 2021: .279/.352/.538 (134 OPS+) 2022: .295/.358/.521 (141 OPS+) 2023: .271/.351/.500 (126 OPS+) 2024: .272/.354/.516 (142 OPS+) The batting average fluctuated a little bit because that's what they do, but the overall production was remarkably steady. Even more impressive, Devers had at least 600 plate appearances in all five of those seasons. With continued health, he'll be the best hitter on the Giants for the next several years if he keeps hitting like this. A simple story that doesn't have to get more complicated. A 28-year-old has had a very good career to this point, and if nothing changes, he'll continue having one. That 'if nothing changes' is doing a lot of work, of course. He'll need to stay healthy for the back end of his contract to not be a huge problem. He'll need to follow expected aging curves and keep hitting into his early 30s. He'll need to keep hitting for power. There's another reason why 'if nothing changes' is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Something might have already changed. Devers is staying in the strike zone more than he ever has, and he's walking a lot more as a result. He has the fourth-highest walk rate in baseball, and he's walking more than Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber or Aaron Judge. He literally walked the very second I typed the period at the end of the previous sentence. He's a walking machine these days, and both chase rate and walk rate are statistics that stabilize quickly, so it doesn't have to be small-sample shenanigans. This isn't just important because it appeals to walk fetishists and scratches that 'Moneyball' itch. It's important because over Devers' career, this has been the missing piece. It's been the only missing piece, other than speed. He's been a great hitter over his career, but he hasn't been a generational talent. He's giving himself a chance at the Hall of Fame, but it's hard to say he's on a Hall of Fame pace. He's a three-time All-Star, but he's never had a top-10 MVP finish, and he certainly isn't a superstar outside of New England. Advertisement The one thing preventing him from all of the above: patience. The players who make fewer outs while also clobbering extra-base hits are the generational talents, the MVPs who are on Hall of Fame paces. Devers is an outstanding hitter when he sports a .350-ish OBP. If he can get that into the .400s consistently, though, he could be a top-five hitter in baseball. Maybe he's already there. This is, of course, the part of the article where I hedge my bets and present a counterpoint to all of those fun ideas. Devers is walking more, but he's also making less contact when he swings. A lot less contact, with the lowest contact percentage and highest swinging-strike rate of his career. The biggest change is with his swings and misses at pitches in the strike zone. He's swinging through a lot more strikes. There are a lot of possible reasons for this, and not all of them are bad. It could be a conscious decision to make even better contact, even if it comes with less contact. But the likelier scenario is that Devers doesn't like all this swinging and missing, and he'll continue working to fix it. If he gets back to his career averages, that will mean more balls in play and, presumably, fewer walks. Is that a pretty weak counterpoint? Feels like a pretty weak counterpoint, but it's all I got. The idea of Devers maintaining a top-five walk rate should absolutely thrill Giants fans. There are very justified concerns about the money that's now committed to a 1B/DH-type throughout his early and mid-30s, but a lot of that has to do with the good-not-great OBPs that Devers has had in the past. He's a fantastic hitter with a .350 OBP, but it's easy to imagine that kind of OBP dipping closer to the league average without warning, then settling comfortably below in subsequent seasons. With a high-OBP batter, the aging curve looks a lot friendlier. If he can maintain a .400-ish OBP throughout his peak, then it wouldn't be unthinkable for a 35-year-old Devers to have numbers similar to the ones he put up when he was 25. We're still in the first half of the season, which means this is something to watch, not something to expect. A couple months with a few more walks isn't enough to guarantee that Devers has leveled up. But if he's really found something with how he tracks pitches, if he's showing off a new and sustainable skill, it's hard to overstate how encouraging of a sign that would be. Advertisement And if he goes back to the hitter he's always been, that's pretty cool, too. That's the best part of this. We're not talking about something that's turning a mediocre player into a solid regular; we're talking about something that could turn an All-Star into an MVP. If it doesn't stick, he's just a 28-year-old All-Star again. If you think walks are unexciting — and you should — maybe this will change your mind a little. Now you can pump your fist with every good take and checked swing. You can howl with delight when an umpire flinches but doesn't make the call. Rafael Devers currently has one of the best walk rates in baseball. If he keeps that up for a few seasons, he won't just be one of the best hitters in baseball: He'll be a bargain.
Reuters
7 hours ago
- Sport
- Reuters
Hall of Famer Vlade Divac breaks hip in motorcycle crash
June 20 - Hall of Fame center Vlade Divac is recovering after emergency surgery to repair a fractured hip sustained in a motorcycle crash. Doctors told The Associated Press that Divac, 57, was in stable condition following Thursday's accident near the Adriatic coast in Risan, Montenegro. Divac played eight seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, six with the Sacramento Kings and two with the Charlotte Hornets during a career that spanned from 1989-2005. One of the first European players to successfully transition to the NBA, Divac averaged 11.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.4 blocked shots in 1,134 career games (979 starts). Divac also served as the general manager of the Kings for six seasons from 2015-20. The 7-foot-1 Serbia native was a first-round pick by the Lakers in 1989, made the All-Star team with the Kings in 2000-01 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019. He helped the Yugoslavian national team win silver medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and 1996 Atlanta Olympics and gold at the 1990 FIBA World Cup. --Field Level Media
CBS News
7 hours ago
- Sport
- CBS News
Former Kings, Lakers center Vlade Divac breaks hip in motorcycle crash in Montenegro
Former Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers center Vlade Divac underwent emergency surgery after breaking a hip in a fall from his motorcycle in Montenegro, doctors said Friday. The crash happened Thursday on a road near the Montenegrin Adriatic Sea coast. Hospital officials said the 57-year-old Divac sustained a fracture and that an artificial hip was implanted. "During the day, a surgical procedure was performed," said Ljubica Mitrovic, a spokeswoman of the hospital in the town of Risan. "He is in a stable general and physical condition and is under a careful supervision of the medical staff." The 7-foot-1 (2.16m) Serbian center started and ended his 16-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers. He also played for the Charlotte Hornets and Sacramento Kings. He was an All-Star in 2001 with the Kings. Divac was the Kings' general manager from 2015 to 2020, notably trading DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans. When he joined the Lakers in 1989, he was among the first group of European players to transfer to the NBA. Divac was also the first player born and trained outside the United States to play in over 1,000 games in the NBA. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019. Divac served two terms as head of Serbia's Olympic Committee.
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS NBA legend Vlade Divac, 57, has emergency surgery after motorcycle accident
Former NBA center Vlade Divac underwent emergency surgery after breaking a hip in a fall from his motorcycle in Montenegro, doctors said Friday. The accident happened Thursday on a road near the Montenegrin Adriatic Sea coast. Hospital officials said the 57-year-old Divac, who enjoyed two stints with the Los Angeles Lakers, sustained a fracture and that an artificial hip was implanted. 'During the day, a surgical procedure was performed,' said Ljubica Mitrovic, a spokeswoman of the hospital in the town of Risan. 'He is in a stable general and physical condition and is under a careful supervision of the medical staff.' Divac spent 16 years in the NBA after being selected by the Lakers with the 26th pick in the first round of the 1989 draft. The 7-foot-1 player started and ended his NBA career in LA. He also played for the Charlotte Hornets and Sacramento Kings. While playing for Sacramento, Divac was named an All-Star for the first and only time in 2001. He later served as general manager of the Kings, who retired his No. 21 jersey. When he joined the Lakers in 1989, he was among the first group of European players to transfer to the NBA. Divac was also the first player born and trained outside the United States to play in over 1,000 games in the NBA. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019. Divac served two terms as head of Serbia's Olympic Committee and also spent time as an adviser to his country's deputy prime minister.
