Andrew Kerth 
Nine innings, nine players. It is one of baseball’s most familiar numbers, so woven into the game that most fans never stop to ask where it came from. But baseball was not always played this way. In its earliest days there were no innings at all, just a race to a target score. So why … Read more
Every July, the NBA reappears two weeks after the Finals in a form that confuses casual fans: Summer League, where the box scores feature one famous rookie, a dozen names you’ve never heard, and none of the stars. What is it, who’s actually playing, and do the games mean anything? Here’s the full explainer — … Read more
The cutter is baseball’s great optical illusion: a pitch that looks exactly like a fastball for 55 feet and then, in the final blink, veers a few inches toward the pitcher’s glove side, off the barrel, onto the hands, and, in the case of its greatest practitioner, through more bats than any pitch in history. … Read more
Every September 1, MLB rosters grow — but not the way older fans remember. The modern rule: teams expand from 26 to 28 players (with a cap of 14 pitchers), a tightly rationed version of the old September free-for-all, when clubs could summon their entire 40-man roster and playoff races were decided against opponents fielding … Read more
The reigning Super Bowl champions are opening their doors. The Seattle Seahawks are the featured team for Hard Knocks 2026, HBO and NFL Films’ all-access training camp series. The five-episode season premieres Tuesday, August 11, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max, with new episodes on the following Tuesdays through the finale … Read more
Has anyone ever won the Home Run Derby back-to-back? Yes — exactly twice in the event’s four-decade history: Ken Griffey Jr. in 1998-99, and Yoenis Céspedes in 2013-14. That’s the entire list, which tells you how hard repeating is in an event where eight of the world’s best power hitters swing under identical conditions. Pete … Read more
Every Home Run Derby, the same mid-broadcast question sweeps living rooms: wait, who’s that pitching? The answer is one of the event’s best quirks — there is no assigned pitcher. Every hitter brings his own: a batting-practice coach he’s seen ten thousand pitches from, a bench coach, a personal hitting guru, a brother, and in … Read more
Every July, the same argument: does the Home Run Derby ruin swings? The “Derby curse” is baseball’s most durable folk belief — born the summer Bobby Abreu hit 41 Derby homers and then nearly stopped homering entirely, fed by a generation of second-half slumps, and stubbornly resistant to the statisticians who keep explaining it away. … Read more
Every Home Run Derby, the same mid-broadcast question sweeps living rooms: wait, who’s that pitching? The answer is one of the event’s best quirks — there is no assigned pitcher. Every hitter brings his own: a batting-practice coach he’s seen ten thousand pitches from, a bench coach, a personal hitting guru, a brother, and in … Read more
