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On April 11th, Mike Leake of the Cincinnati Reds made his professional debut.  Unlike most professional baseball careers, his started wearing a Major League Baseball uniform.  Since the inaugural 1965 Draft, only 21 players (12 pitchers) had skipped the minors and went straight to the show.  Of these pitchers, 1 has had a winning record.   The last player to make the jump from College ball to the MLB was Darren Dreifort in the 1994 season for Los Angeles Dodgers.  He ended his career with six more losses than wins.  This decision by an organization is a rather risky and proven unsuccessful one.  Rushing players into competing against MLB players is an immense task at hand. Easing them in by preparing them in the minors has been an effective method of polishing up skills that are lacking.  Although, the former Arizona State product has had some recent success right out of the gate.  Statistics have shown that this will be short lived or even nonexistent in the future.  Who knows, maybe his career will extraordinary or unordinary in relation to the players whom share a spot with his exclusive company.













The 22-year-old right-hander became just the 21st player since the draft began in 1965 to get a major league start without playing in the minors.  He's the third from ASU to make that claim, while no other college has sent more than one directly to the Bigs...Read More

"I definitely was not unaware that some people have already judged that we can't win because he's going to be a distraction. We take that challenge like other challenges. As far as I'm concerned, the question is, is he a good enough hitting coach to help us? And that's part of, are we a good enough team to win? [That is] to be answered. But we're not going to be distracted. We're either going to be good enough or we're not. There will be no excuses."

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StratBridge Inc. has just developed ground breaking software that should undoubtedly help professional teams in every sport to make better managerial decisions. StratBridge Inc. is a company that has developed software for both ticket sales (StratTix), and player analysis (StratEdge). The company was founded in 1999 by Mr. Matthew Marolda and made a name for themselves in 2005 with their ticket selling software. StratTix can be used in a number of ways to help teams gain valuable information about their ticket sales, as well as the people buying them. This software can help the team view up-to-the-minute seating charts to see which seats are selling, and which ones are not. It will provide the teams with information about the people purchasing the tickets such as their geographical area, what source they used to purchase them (Ticket Master, Stubhub etc.), and helping to predict attendance. This will help lead to teams to finding the best time to market, when the best time is to promote, and will help their yield management strategies to become more effective. The company's newest software breakthrough, StratEdge, will ultimately give an "edge" to teams that are scouting and looking to draft, or sign specific players. It provides teams with detailed information about trades, contract extensions, and how they match up to other athletes at their position. This company is in a niche of its own, and one of the best at what they do. These new tools that are now readily available for any team will help them make smarter business decisions that everyone knows will ultimately affect their franchise for years to come. StratBridge Inc. already has more then 100 deals with professional teams in the NHL, MLB, NFL, MLS, AFL, and minor league baseball. They hope to continue to build bridges with and for various sport franchises around the world.

     Topps, one of the baseball card industries largest companies, has teamed up with Total Immersion to create an interactive 3D Baseball Card.  The surge of popularity of trading cards seen in the 1990's and early 2000's has slowed down significantly of late.  These new Topp's 3D Live Trading Cards are the answer to this drop in sales, by repositioning their product to include these features they are hoping to revolutionize the trading card industry.  

This past season in partnership with FoxSports and TBS, Major League Baseball released it's Postseason.TV application as an extension of its MLB.TV online application.  This application features the newly released "Quad Mode" which allows users for online and mobile viewing of every MLB playoff game with up to 4 different camera angles.
This application is free for iPhone and iPod users who have the MLB "At Bat" application for their devices, and is available for subscription for entire season and postseason usage.  The post season version of "At Bat" would cost the subscriber $4.99 and the full season version would cost $9.99.  For personal computer users, the application of Postseason.TV costs $9.95 for entire coverage of the postseason.
With Postseason.TV it allows viewers to experience a second screen viewing companion in conjunction with the FOX and TBS broadcasts of this year's baseball playoffs.  Users can view the games live, on their phone or computer with the ability to select from multiple camera angles for up to 4 viewable cameras at a time. This is combining with TBS HotCorner and FOX Feeds to integrate live statistics, twitter updates from TBS analysts and interaction with other fans across the country.  There are no blackouts due to the region of the country that you live in and users have complete coverage of all the games from the Divisional Series up through the World Series.
The "Quad Mode" feature allows viewers to choose from multiple camera angles, including but not limited to cameras in centerfield, on the first and third base paths, from the foul poles and many more.  The viewer can choose four of these different camera angles to view at once, and it allows for a new and exciting viewing experience for fans. Major League Baseball is excited to debut this application for it's fans and hopes they enjoy this new and exciting opportunity in technology.

The world of sports has become the site of the newest and most innovative technologies created.  Every new stadium that is constructed is filled with state of the art equipment that is a step above all other stadiums.  Technology giant Cisco Systems has teamed up with the New York Yankees to assure that the new Yankee Stadium, is the most fan friendly technologically advanced stadium in all of sports.  The main focus point of the partnership is the creation and implementation of "Cisco StadiumVision". 

New stadiums and new technologies have been the trend in Major League Baseball in the recent years. The San Francisco Giants and AT&T Park in San Francisco are no exception to this.

Major upgrades will greet the loyal fans of the Cincinnati Reds when they set foot inside the revamped Great American Ballpark.  The $9 million dollar deal includes video display upgrades, a new scoreboard and also the introduction of an in-house network that is displayed on the brand new televisions that were part of the deal with Sony.  The deal was struck with the team of Sony and Daktronics, two giants in their respective fields.  The work done at the Great American Ballpark is the first project that the two have completed since their joint marketing and sales partnership which they agreed to in December of last year.

Upon completion of the project each luxury suite will be linked to the StadiumView network being shown on top of the line Sony monitors.  While in the suite fans can control eight different camera angles with a mouse or a touch screen and also watch replays of their choosing.  This is an awesome concept and is actually quite simplistic for the user.  How many times have you been at a game and wanted to see a different angle or watch a replay that the broadcasters might have overlooked.

Also in the deal was an agreement to replace the existing scoreboard at the ballpark.  The new scoreboard will be 5,206 square feet, or around double the size the square footage of an average home located in the area.  This new scoreboard will be equipped with a state of the art high-definition display 

During these tough economic times Major League teams are looking for any way possible to get fans to the stadium and also generate revenue.  They accomplished the revenue generation by selling ad slots on something they did not have last season.  By putting new video displays around the ballpark they also let the fans know that while they are still looking to make a few bucks, they are keeping the best interest of the fans at heart.

Well if you have not realized money can't buy happiness then think again.

Brian Cashman received major credit from all baseball fans last night. After weeks of careful negotations, Cashman looked as if he had the lower hand in signing a big (no pun intended) superstar on the Free Agent market.

All hope looked lost with signing free agent pitcher CC Sabathia this past week and seemed as if the Yankees were about to lead the chasing in the "B" level pitching.

At which point after days trying to get a deal done, "The Cashman" flew to San Fransico and lured Carston Charles Sabathia to the evil empire.

Sabathia, who has stated that he would prefer to play on the West coast being that his family resides on that side of the contract signed the 4th largest contract in baseball history.
 
The offer of 7 years at 160 million was accepted 3:30am EST and shook the sporting world for at least one day, perhaps the month and by far the largest story going into the 2009 baseball season.  

After several days of speculation it was reported earlier today that the Saint Louis Cardinals have agreed to trade to player to the San Diego Padres for Khalil Greene, though the deal has yet to be confirmed by the Cardinals. The San Diego Tribune reported that it is likely that the Padres will receive pitching in return for Greene and they will shed his $6.5 million salary. Greene, who has been the starting shortstop for the Padres since 2004, had a terrible 2008 season in which he batted .213 with a whopping 100 strikeouts in only 389 at bats. Greene is eligible to become a free agent next year and i would assume the cardinals will sign him to a multi-year deal. This trade doesn't really benefit the Cardinals unless he regains his power and RBI toal from 2007 in which he had 27 home runs and 97 RBI's. This will be the Cardinals fourth starting shortstop in the past six seasons.

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