ELDEN AUKER INTERVIEW

June 20, 2002

L: Tell me about the first night you got called into a game at Yankee Stadium, with Art Fletcher and Babe Ruth.

A: When I first came up with Detroit, it was my first trip to New York. Bucky Harris was our manager, and the first time I was ever in New York, and certainly to Yankee Stadium, and Bucky put me down in the bullpen. The third inning, we had a pitcher name of Carl Fisher, he got into trouble and got some men on base, and Bucky called me in to relieve. The first hitter up was Babe Ruth. I threw four pitches and struck him out. Of course, I have to preface it with the fact that I was an underhand pitcher, submariner, I threw directly underhand, which was unusual, but not for me. [Read more →]

Baseball fans never get a day off from following and speculating about their favorite teams.

The last two weeks have been something to watch. More is expected, but let’s see what has transpired so far.

The A’s continued their march towards creating a budget that will be one of the lowest in baseball when they dispatched Cory Lidle, one of their few marketable players, to Billy Beane’s best friend and adviser on life affairs, Toronto’s JP Riccardi, for a bucket of balls and two broken bats.

Talk about a one sided deal, this one makes the Ted Lilly deal look like one of the best of the century, any century.

Click “read more” for more views on the game. [Read more →]

Talking about unpredictable stories !

The San Francisco Giants replaced

popular manager Dusty Baker with

(in my opinion) the man they needed

in “life-after-Dusty,” Felipe Alou.

Brian Sabean, again, worked his

magic as General Manager of the

San Francisco Giants.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Miguel Tejada received

his greatest accomplishment

today, November 12,2002.

The American League

Most Valuable Player.

A most deserved MVP trophy

for the Dominican shorstop.

¡Felicidades Miguel!

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Although baseball is accredited
to have been invented by an
American, the one country that followed the United States in baseball and spread the game to the rest of Latin America
was Cuba.

Here is a brief history of Cuba, the largest
island of the Caribbean and the heritage
of baseball in that country.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

I know I wrote the story over one month ago, but it is hard to believe that the Bay Area has lost both Art Howe and Dusty Baker.

Both franchises will soon learn that it isn’t that easy to manage successfully in the big leagues. Baker and Howe both learned through many tough ball games what it takes to be a winner in the dugout.

So, now we have Eric Musselman, Bill Callahan, Ken Macha, Buddy Teevans, and Jeff Tedford as skippers in Northern California.

We lost Baker, Howe, Jon Gruden and Tyrone Willingham for truthfully no valid reason.

Rich club owners are not used to hearing the word “No” from any employee and Dusty Baker made it quite clear to everyone within fifty miles of him that he was not interested in coming back. Peter Magowan never took Baker’s threat of departure seriously.

The Giants now will look for a replacement.

Click Below for more. [Read more →]