It was a couple of days before Thanksgiving when a young woman with red hair named Shanna Sabet arranged for me to speak with Shane Victorino, before he signed with the Red Sox, about his charity work in Las Vegas.
Aviators
Brigham Young’s radio play-by-play announcer lamented on air how he wished the Cougars played UNLV in baseball more often.
The first pitcher Zach Walters faced in college was the otherworldly Washington Nationals sensation Stephen Strasburg.
Aside from Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan, Rangers catcher A.J. Pierzynski got the loudest reception at Cashman Field during Big League Weekend.
Mark Shannon’s two-run homer capped a five-run eighth inning surge that powerd the UNLV baseball team past New Mexico 8-7 on Saturday at Wilson Stadium.
Baseball was back at Cashman Field on Saturday, and even though it wasn’t the Dominicans vs. Team USA, or 51s vs. River Cats, it was Big League Weekend, Cubs vs. Rangers, and it was 84 degrees, and the beer was cold. And because fireworks weren’t scheduled, you didn’t have to stand in line that long.
Last season, Jeff Samardzija simply wanted to prove he could be a starting pitcher for the Cubs.
It’s not easy being green for the grass at Cashman Field in Las Vegas. With the big leaguers of the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers slated to play preseason games at Cashman Field today and Sunday, the ball yard’s grounds crew toiled at transforming the dormant yellow winter grass into that emerald-green surface that is synonymous with baseball.
When Bishop Gorman High School played its home games at Cashman Field in 2009, then-freshman Joey Gallo belted one of his state-record 65 career home runs there.
Individual game tickets for the Las Vegas 51s baseball team go on sale Friday.
The last save will be the toughest of them all for Mariano Rivera.
I’ll admit that watching baseball late at night from Taiwan interested me, if only for an inning or so. Not so much for the product on the field, which was minor league at best, but for the fans banging their thundersticks together in synchronized precision.
It was the wee hours of the morning when I woke, on the couch, to the sound of trumpets and a somewhat familiar voice, which sounded like Rich Waltz, the former Las Vegas Stars broadcaster. A half-empty box of Chicken in a Biskit crackers and a nozzled can totally devoid of aerosol cheese were on the coffee table. Bacon-flavored.
When Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss died last week, it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to his place among the best owners in the history of sports.