MLBbro legend Barry Larkin is helping to expand the game all over the world and create opportunities for Black players. Baseball United, an upstart pro baseball league, will be the first league focused on the Middle East and Indian subcontinent.
Larkin has wanted to create opportunities for players of color and have them showcase their abilities.
“One of the frustrating things has been the lack of opportunity because of the existing structure that exists in [Major League] Baseball,” Larkin said in an article from andscape.com. “My hope is that all people are encouraged to be involved [in Baseball United]. To be able to pursue a dream is the goal of anyone. And we at Baseball United will be able to provide that opportunity for people from all walks of life.”
Larkin had a memorable career with the Cincinnati Reds and now the Hall of Famer wants to help create memories for professional players.
There are other opportunities in this league as well, that are different from other leagues.
“There’s opportunities to buy into the league,” Larkin said. “There’s opportunities to play and opportunities to coach. There’s a lot of different opportunities for everyone throughout this league and that’s very exciting.”
For Larkin, this all started about 10 years ago when he visited India as a baseball ambassador.
“When I traveled to India for camps, I saw there was a lot of support for baseball in a cricket country,” he said. “There was great participation in some of those camps. There’s so many life skills developed by participating in baseball. This will give us a chance to pass that on.”
Larkin has a wealth of knowledge, and the fact that he continues to stay involved in the game and create meaningful opportunities for others, just speaks to who he is as a person.
There are four teams currently in the league (Mumbai Cobras, Karachi Monarchs, Abu Dhabi Falcons and Dubai Wolves).
The league will begin with a showcase from Nov. 10-12 at Dubai International Stadium.
One of the teams, the Karachi Monarchs, was named after the Kansas City Monarchs, a team from the Negro Leagues.
“One of the most inspiring parts about the name is that we get to honor one of baseball’s historic franchises,” said Kash Shaikh, lead investor and majority owner of Baseball United. “It gave us the opportunity to talk about the importance of the name and the history and lineage of baseball.”
The Bros Will Be Represented In Baseball United League
A draft will occur, and 64 players will be selected. There will be a good number of Black players on the teams once the draft is completed.
“We’ve got a good group of African American ballplayers that are going to be in our league and that’s exciting to us because the representation of Black players in Major League Baseball is at one of its lowest points in history,” Shaikh said. “And that’s concerning for anybody that loves the game.”
Barry Lakin and fellow Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera will serve on Baseball United’s board of directors and Larkin will also serve as the honorary general manager of the Mumbai team.
And fellow MLBbro legend Ryan Howard will also promote the league in an ambassador role.
This will be an exciting league to follow once they start up next year.
Tim Anderson has had a pretty good week at the plate for the Chicago White Sox. From September 13 to 18, the two-time All-Star carried a five-game hitting streak, hitting .476 during that stretch. He had a three-hit performance on the 16 against the Minnesota Twins and then followed that up with a four-hit performance on the 18 against the Washington Nationals.
Anderson has been the talk of the league ever since his scuffle with Cleveland Guardian’s Jose Ramirez. But let’s not forget, this brother is still an elite shortstop.
While Chicago struggled this season, Anderson has made the most of his opportunities on the field this season, but his numbers have taken a drop on the offensive side since 2019.
Now granted, the past four seasons, Anderson has hit over .300, which is very impressive. It looks like this season he will not reach that .300 average.
The 30 has spent his entire career with the White Sox. And outside of the two All-Star selections, he has a Silver Slugger award winner, and was named the American League Batting Champion.
It looks like Anderson’s future with the White Sox is up in the air, especially after the team tried shopping him around at the trade deadline but there weren’t any takers.
Throughout the past few years, the White Sox have gone into the season having a strong chance of winning the division and making a run in the postseason.
But that has not happened, and Anderson has not played his best ball this season which doesn’t make things better. And not to mention the suspensions that he’s faced as well.
Despite the challenges that Anderson has faced, he’s still going to go out there and leave it all out there on the field.
We have seen how passionate he is about the game. One of the best moments during the 2021 season was his walk-off home-run against the New York Yankees in the Field of Dreams game.
The emotion that he displayed after hitting that homer showed you how much baseball meant to him and that this game can be very entertaining. Anderson was a player that brought excitement to the game, and he can still do just that. The White Sox will have a big decision to make once the season ends on what they want to do with Anderson.
Chicago has been a great fit for Anderson during his career. He’s been heavily involved in the community and for kids to see a Black baseball player like Anderson have the success he’s had in the past is a wonderful sight to see.
While it will be unusual seeing Anderson in another uniform, we can’t rule that out. Come 2024, Anderson could potentially have a new one. Whether he stays in Chicago or is on a different team, he will continue to bring that high-level intensity and that swag that we have seen from him the past few years.
Byron Buxton could make a return before the season ends.
The Minnesota Twins star player last appeared in a game on August 1. He went 1-for-4 with a double that game. He was placed on the 10-day injured list a few days after that game due to a right hamstring strain.
The veteran was riding a five-game hitting streak before heading to the IL.
Buxton has been sidelined for over a month, but Twins head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta, has a strong feeling the all-star can make a return. He received a cortisone injection to address inflammation and irritation to the medial plica in his right knee. After receiving that injection, his rehab assignment with Triple-A St. Paul was paused.
“We will make it happen,” Paparesta said in an article from mlb.com regarding Buxton’s return.“We’re going to make it happen in the context of us being able to get him at-bats and get him prepared to play, yes.”
“My impression is for him to be able to play wherever he needs to be able to play for this team.”
Buxton has been dealing with knee injuries the past few seasons and it’s unsure where the inflammation in his right knee came from.
“We do know what happened; we do know what it is,” Paparesta said. “We’ve addressed it with a cortisone injection. Conservative treatment, as you know, for that week or so wasn’t really getting the job done, so we needed to kind of take it to that next level.”
The Twins are in a good position, sitting atop of the American League Central Division. If Buxton can make a return, he can provide value on the offensive end as a designated hitter.
Last season, Buxton was named an all-star for the first time in his career, and he finished the season with a .224 batting average with a career-high 28 home runs. He displayed a lot of power at the plate last season and when he’s healthy, he can be a problem for opposing pitchers.
Through 85 games this season, he’s hitting .207 with 17 home runs and 42 RBI. Injuries have been a common theme for Buxton throughout his career, but he still has made an impact during his time on the field. The latest worry for Minnesota, a franchise that invested over $100M in Big Bux, is the knee and how it will impact him in the future.
“I’d love to tell you I have a crystal ball and can give you that answer, but my impression will be that he’s going to play again this year and he’ll be healthy and play next year, yes,” Paparesta said.
If the Twins do make the postseason, it would be a plus to have Buxton as an option, even if he’s coming off the bench. Buxton has appeared in the postseason twice during his tenure in Minnesota. The last appearance he made was back in 2020.
Rookie pitcher Taj Bradley won his first three starts of the season and it looked like he would be a candidate for the American League Rookie of the Year award.
Well, Bradley is no longer in that conversation and he currently has more losses than wins. He will have a chance to win his first game since June 21 on Wednesday as Tampa Bay takes on the Minnesota Twins.
Tampa Bay is looking to make a run at winning the AL East and it certainly won’t be an easy task with Baltimore leading the way.
But Bradley will get a chance to experience meaningful baseball in his rookie year as the season nears an end.
Taj Bradley Learning The Ropes
Through 18 starts, he has a 5-7 record with a 5.44 ERA and 111 strikeouts. After struggling during the month of July, he was sent down to Triple-A and made five starts going 1-2 with a 2.91 ERA.
He returned to the big leagues and started against the Cleveland Guardians on September 3 and went five innings giving up two runs, one unearned, while walking five and striking out seven.
Bradley got the no decision during that contest and he spoke about his mindset for the rest of the season after that game.
“I mean, it kind of hasn’t hit me yet,” Bradley said in an article from the Tampa Bay Times. “I’m just up here trying to hit on everything I learned in Triple-A. And just take it one day at a time. I haven’t really looked too far ahead into September, October, anything like that.”
We have to remember that this is Bradley’s first year and there’s work that needs to be done. But this young pitcher has star talent written all over him.
“Just find that consistency,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said after Bradley’s performance against Cleveland. “He had some three-batter stints where it looked really, really in sync. And then he had a couple batters where it got a little out of whack. Something that maybe you would expect from a young guy.”
“But it’s all in there. I mean, for him to get the strikeouts that he did against a lineup that does not strike out (much), that speaks to how good stuff is.”
The 22-year-old will look to bounce back from his last start against Seattle where he gave up four earned runs on six hits, three of those home runs, through six and one third innings of work.
These starts will definitely prepare Bradley for the postseason and Tampa Bay will look to see how the rookie performs in his next start and throughout the remainder of the season.
One thing that Bradley has got in his first year is experience. You better believe he is going to look back at his rookie season and make the necessary adjustments so he can come back better and more effective in his sophomore season.
Five MLBbros were recently nominated for one of the most prestigious honors in baseball, the Roberto Clemente Award.
This award annually recognizes “the player who best represents the game through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field,” according to MLB.com.
5 Bros Nominated For Roberto Clemente Award
The nominees are Aaron Judge, Tony Kemp, Josiah Gray, Marcus Stroman, and Hunter Greene.
While these players have had success on the field, the work they have done off the field has not gone unnoticed.To even be mentioned as a nominee for this award just let’s you know that the MLB has a lot of respect for these players for the work they do off the field and in the community.
The last MLBbro to win this award was Curtis Granderson in 2016 when he was a member of the New York Mets. Fellow MLBbro Andrew McCutchen won the award a year prior with Pittsburgh.
Let’s take a look at each of these five MLBbros who were nominated and the work they’ve done throughout their career.
Aaron Judge
Judge has certainly evolved into one of the league’s top players and one of the best power hitters in the game.
Aside from his performance on the field, he is active in Brooklyn and his hometown of Linden, California.
His ALL RISE Foundation was created in 2018 and has helped more than 2,000 children in those communities. The organization has a mini-grant program that helps pay for registration and helps with transportation to leadership conferences.
He also holds baseball camps as well.
Tony Kemp
Kemp has played for multiple teams throughout his career, and he has still been able to find time to give back and support the community. He is on the Player’s Committee of the Player’s Alliance, and he also has supported numerous initiatives.
One in particular is the +1 Effect campaign, which aims to combat social injustice through individual campaigns.
Josiah Gray
Gray has wasted no time making an impact after joining the Washington Nationals in 2021. The all-star is the player ambassador to the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy.
In that role he helps with fundraising efforts and serves as a mentor to the participants in the program. Gray has quickly become a fan favorite in the nation’s capital, and he’ll look to keep making an impact on and off the field.
Marcus Stroman
Stroman has been a workhouse ever since he entered the league.
He’s a player who leaves it all out on the field when he plays and he makes sure to give that same energy off the field.
His Height Doesn’t Measure Heart foundation speaks volumes to who he is as a player and person.
Stroman’s foundation provides opportunities for young people facing adversity. No matter what team he’s playing for, he’s going to find a way to help make an impact in the community.
Hunter Greene
In his young MLB career, Greene has wasted no time being a face in the community. He holds an annual camp called the Hunter Greene Baseball Camp, and he also does cleat giveaways and has discussions with the youth.
When he has the time, Greene makes sure that he is giving back to the community any way he possibly can.
We want to congratulate our five MLBbros for the nomination and come October, we may have another one of our bro’s be honored with this significant award.
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