Thom Loverro

Updated: Mon, Mar 25, 2013

The spring of 2001 must seem like another life for Alex Rodriguez. He had just signed a stunning 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers -- a deal that rocked baseball -- and a mass of reporters gathered at the Rangers' Port Charlotte, Fla., spring training complex for a news...

Brian McNally

Updated: Mon, Mar 25, 2013

It is probably the easiest division in baseball to pin down entering the 2013 season. The Detroit Tigers, coming off a World Series appearance, are the heavy favorites in the American League Central. The questions are whether two smaller market clubs -- the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland...

Brian McNally

Updated: Sun, Mar 24, 2013

It once was the toughest division in baseball. But that is about to change in 2013. Yes, the Yankees and Red Sox still play in the vaunted American League East. But both are shells of their former selves, and that has changed the tenor of a division in which parity is now the buzzword. Just...

Brian McNally

Updated: Mon, Mar 18, 2013

Not all injuries sustained this spring training are a result of the World Baseball Classic. The majority of big leaguers didn't participate in that event, after all. But the placement of the tournament still has an indirect negative affect, and that is a tension Major League Baseball has yet to...

Thom Loverro

Updated: Mon, Mar 18, 2013

The national pastime took an international blow last weekend when the U.S. entry was bounced from the World Baseball Classic after consecutive losses to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. This is the kind of nationalistic development that might result in calls for a government...

Brian McNally

Updated: Sun, Mar 17, 2013

It is time for one last chance for Nationals reliever Henry Rodriguez. No player on the roster bubble has had more of a roller-coaster ride the last two years. Last season Rodriguez moved his way into a closer's role thanks to injury, performed well for a time and then fell apart spectacularly...

Phil Wood

Updated: Fri, Mar 15, 2013

VIERA, Fla. Spring Training No. 9 for the Washington Nationals has less than two weeks left here on the outskirts of Melbourne, Fla., but make no mistake about it, it's a decidedly different environment in and around Space Coast Stadium. In years past, the chatter in the stands revolved far...

Brian McNally

Updated: Thu, Mar 14, 2013

There will not be a more competitive race in baseball this summer than the American League West. Three of the teams won 89 games or more, and two of them -- the Texas Rangers and Oakland A's -- made the postseason. Given the offseason defection of outfielder Josh Hamilton from the Rangers to...

Thom Loverro

Updated: Mon, Mar 11, 2013

Mariano Rivera has done the impossible. He has made the New York Yankees a sentimental story. That's not easy to do. As the old saying goes, rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel -- at least it was back in the days when both ruled the world. But Rivera is beloved and...

Brian McNally

Updated: Mon, Mar 11, 2013

For almost seven years, the Nationals were not considered a true rival by anyone. The team was bad, its fan base new and its uniforms occasionally misspelled. When the Mets or Phillies or Braves came to the District, they could count on thousands of their own fans to be there supporting them....