Our World Series win is now almost old enough to rent a car.
Team news
[Dbacks.com] Walker wins third Gold Glove, ties Goldy in D-backs history – Whether the D-backs can compete with other offers for Walker has yet to be determined, but they certainly would love to have him back. “We have a long history with Christian Walker, way back in the day,” Hazen said. “All the way back to when he was an up-down guy in Triple-A for us. And the amount of pride that I think we have in what he has accomplished and made himself into as a player is something that I’m extremely proud from an organizational standpoint.”
[PHNX Sports] Pros and cons: The case for and against re-signing each Diamondbacks free agent – Free article. The Diamondbacks [have] seven free agents this winter: Walker, Grichuk, Pederson, McGough, RHP Paul Sewald, UTIL Kevin Newman and 1B Josh Bell. The club is expected to give Walker a one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer. He will almost certainly reject it and look for a multi-year deal in free agency. Surely, not all of the Diamondbacks’ free agents will return next year. But as the bidding wars commence, here’s a look at why they should — and shouldn’t — retain each of the seven.
[SI] Arizona Diamondbacks 2024 Player Review: Merrill Kelly – The best news is that Kelly finished the season healthy so he will have a normal off-season with plenty of rest and the chance to start fresh in 2025 without needing to rehab or have a specific return-to-play schedule. Kelly will be entering his age-36 in 2025. He will need a productive and healthy season to entice the Diamondbacks to give him another contract for 2026 and beyond. Kelly is plenty motivated to make it work in 2025, and achieve his goal of 10 years service time, all with the Diamondbacks.
Oh, yeah: 24 years ago today, this happened. I think I might just watch it again!
And, elsewhere…
[MLB] Miss baseball? Here’s what we’re looking forward to in ’25 – Ever wonder what it would be like to have a baseball diamond right in the middle of a NASCAR speedway? Well, you won’t have to wonder much longer — that’s exactly what we’ll see during the MLB Speedway Classic on Aug. 2, when the Braves and Reds play at the Bristol Motor Speedway. It will be the first regular-season game in AL/NL history played in Tennessee, and continues a recent push by MLB to play games in unconventional, memorable settings.
[ESPN] MLB finds prospect linked to Padres falsified age – The teenager, who assumed the name Cesar Altagracia, verbally agreed to sign with the Padres for about $4 million, a substantial bonus that signified he was considered one of the top international prospects in his class… But MLB discovered he is 19 years old, not 14, as his documents stated. The teenager represented the Dominican Republic at the 2022 U-12 Baseball World Cup and at the U-15 Pan American Championships this summer under the false identity, sources said.
[NBC Sports] Women’s professional baseball is ready for its moment. But first it needs to find players – By summer of 2026, the organizers of the newly announced Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) hope to have six teams of women in caps and cleats, competing on diamonds that have been used almost exclusively by men for nearly a century and half… There were 1,372 high school girls who played on boys baseball teams across America last academic year, according to NFHS data. That surprisingly large number still pales in comparison to the 471,761 boys who played baseball and the 345,607 girls who whipped softballs around the diamond this past spring.
[Kyodo News] DeNA BayStars win 1st Japan Series title in 26 years – Masayuki Kuwahara led the DeNA BayStars to their first Japan Series baseball title since 1998 and third in franchise history with a 11-2 rout of the SoftBank Hawks in Game 6 on Sunday. Kuwahara, the series MVP, and Yoshitomo Tsutsugo drove in seven runs between them in the clincher as the pre-series underdog BayStars took a 3-0 lead in the second inning and put the game away with a seven-run fifth at Yokohama Stadium. DeNA became only the second team to win the Japan Series after finishing third in the regular season, and first since the 2010 Lotte Marines.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Rating: C-
Dir: Tim Burton
Star: Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara
I supposed credit is due for not rushing into a quick cash-in. Thirty-six years have elapsed since the original movie, with every character in it now older and wiser. Well, the women are. Beetlejuice (Keaton) is still somewhat the same unrepentant jackass he was, and Charles Deetz got his head bitten off by a shark, presumably due to actor Jeffrey Jones engaging in behaviour even Beetlejuice couldn’t condone. There’s also a bunch of other stuff, and to be honest, that’s more a problem than a bonus.
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