This Week in Baseball – Amateur Draft, Yankees ESPN Boycott, Anthony Banda TJS, Red Schoendienst Passes, Royals Fan

Fresh Meat…

The 2018 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft started on June 4th. The draft is a good way for teams to acquire talent to help build a winning team for the future. With the tie for the worst record in the 2017 season, the Detroit Tigers received the first overall pick and selected pitcher Casey Mize. What an odd experience that must have been for him to be designated as the best amateur baseball player in the United States and then be punished by getting shipped to Detroit.

24-Hour Party People…

After ESPN shifted a 1 p.m. game between the Yankees and Blue Jays on July 8 to the Sunday Night Baseball slot (an 8 p.m. start time), Aaron Boone and the rest of the team reportedly threatened to boycott ESPN reporters for the rest of the season because they would have to play three games in 24 hours. ESPN agreed to cancel the game time shift and also provided the Yankees clubhouse with an ample supply of Kleenex.

Ligament Condition…

Pitching prospect Anthony Banda is the most recent player to join the Tampa Bay Rays Tommy John Club. The surgery will keep him out until 2020 and he joins teammates Jose De Leon and Brent Honeywell, who both underwent Tommy John surgery in spring training. Typical millennials: one of their friends does something and then they all have to do it.

Rest in Peace…

Red Schoendienst, one of the Cardinals’ most beloved figures, died on Wednesday at the age of 95. Few players across the history of Major League Baseball were as synonymous with a particular franchise as Schoendienst was with the Cardinals. The Hall of Famer spent nearly three-quarters of a century in baseball and more than six decades with St. Louis. He won a World Series as a player, as a coach and as a manager.

Come on, Baby, Light My Fire…

A woman named has been arrested by Kansas City police and charged with trespassing and open burning after she allegedly set several fires on the Kauffman Stadium grass. A ballpark security guard caught her around 4:30 a.m. after she left trash on the field. In the places where debris had been, singe marks indicated that three small fires had been set on the grass. A good lawyer can just argue that the burn marks were caused by the garbage fire team that plays there.

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