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In 1974, in Cleveland second baseman Duane Kuiper’s first month in the major leagues, he started for the first time behind veteran star pitcher Gaylord Perry. Seconds before Kuiper ran to his position to begin the game, Perry looked at him and said, “If you make an error behind me today, you’ll never play another day in the big leagues. Do you understand?!”

That was Gaylord Perry, who did so much more than throw a spitball. He had great stuff, he was a big, strong, rough, gruff farmer from North Carolina, he was irascible, wildly competitive and, like most great pitchers, really mean, fearless and hated to lose. He spoke freely even if it meant angering an opponent or teammate. He played for eight teams, during which time he asked to be traded, threatened to retire, nearly fought with teammate Frank Robinson and, in the famous Pine Tar Game in 1983, confiscated George Brett’s bat, was apprehended by umpires, and thrown out of the game. There was never any backing down by Perry, not from his debut at age 22 with the San Francisco Giants in 1962 or, 22 seasons later, at age 44, with the Seattle Mariners — he was the Ancient Mariner — and Kansas City Royals in 1983.

Which is why it seems unfair that Perry, who died Thursday at the age of 84, is often best remembered for throwing a spitball (even if his 1974 autobiography is titled “Me and The Spitter”). To some, that made him an overrated pitcher. More likely, more accurately, he was underrated.

Perry won 314 games with a 3.11 ERA and 3,534 strikeouts. The only pitchers in history who can match all three of those numbers are Walter Johnson and Tom Seaver. Perry was the first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in each league — in 1972 for Cleveland and in 1978 at age 39 for the San Diego Padres. He and his brother, Jim, are the only pair of brothers to each win a Cy Young. Gaylord Perry won more games than any pitcher in the 1960s and ’70s combined. It took three attempts, but Perry was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1991.

“He was tough,” Hall of Fame outfielder Willie Stargell once said. “He was great. And he pitched angry.”

Of course, Perry did indeed throw a spitball, a pitch he allegedly learned in 1964 from teammate Bob Shaw. Opponents occasionally complained about him loading up. In 1973, New York Yankees manager Ralph Houk charged the mound and pulled Perry’s cap off his head. But at least one of his catchers in the 1970s said that Perry threw only two or three spitters per game, when he really needed a big out. Perry went through the same gyrations on the mound, appearing to touch his cap, his hair, his jersey. In retirement, Perry told me, “I wanted the hitters to think I might throw a spitter. If I could mess with their heads and their approach, I’d have a better chance of getting them out. And I loved getting them out.”

Perry was also remarkably durable. He threw 5,350⅓ innings, sixth most of all time, only 36 fewer than Nolan Ryan. For a nine-year stretch, Perry threw at least 300 innings in a season seven times in an eight-year span. For a 10-year period, he averaged over 300 innings pitched per season. He threw 53 shutouts, tied for 16th most with Jim Palmer, two fewer than Steve Carlton. Perry’s 1.181 WHIP also is in the top 20 all time, just ahead of the great Bob Gibson.

“There were so many great pitchers in the National League in the ’60s and ’70s,” former teammate Willie McCovey once said. “We had one of the very best on our team in Juan Marichal. Not everyone appreciated Gaylord. Every time he pitched, I thought we’d win.”

About the only thing Perry — also a basketball and football star in high school in North Carolina — didn’t do well was hit: he finished with a career .131 average with six home runs. But in 1964, a writer told Giants manager Alvin Dark that Perry, then 24, was a good hitting pitcher, and might hit a home run someday. Dark responded, saying, “Mark my words, a man will land on the moon before Gaylord Perry hits a home run.”

Five years later, at 1:17 p.m. Pacific time on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the moon. Thirty minutes later, roughly 238,900 miles away, in the third inning at Candlestick Park, Perry hit his first major league homer, a blast off the Dodgers’ Claude Osteen.

Three years later, Perry was traded by the Giants to Cleveland in a deal for ace Sam McDowell, who would win 19 games the rest of his career. Perry would win 180. Perry is still beloved in San Francisco, where a statue of Perry was unveiled at Oracle Park in 2016, in honor of the 10 years he spent there to start his career.

Kuiper, always playful, now calls games for the Giants and once had someone take a picture of him saluting Perry’s statue. The first salute, as he recalled the veteran pitcher threatening him before that start in 1974, was the middle finger variety. The second was a salute of a respect to a great, great pitcher.

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What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB’s hottest trend

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What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB's hottest trend

The opening weekend of the 2025 MLB season was taken over by a surprise star — torpedo bats.

The bowling pin-shaped bats became the talk of the sport after the Yankees’ home run onslaught on the first Saturday of the season put it in the spotlight and the buzz hasn’t slowed since.

What exactly is a torpedo bat? How does it help hitters? And how is it legal? Let’s dig in.

Read: An MIT-educated professor, the Yankees and the bat that could be changing baseball


What is a torpedo bat and why is it different from a traditional MLB bat?

The idea of the torpedo bat is to take a size format — say, 34 inches and 32 ounces — and distribute the wood in a different geometric shape than the traditional form to ensure the fattest part of the bat is located where the player makes the most contact. Standard bats taper toward an end cap that is as thick diametrically as the sweet spot of the barrel. The torpedo bat moves some of the mass on the end of the bat about 6 to 7 inches lower, giving it a bowling-pin shape, with a much thinner end.


How does it help hitters?

The benefits for those who like swinging with it — and not everyone who has swung it likes it — are two-fold. Both are rooted in logic and physics. The first is that distributing more mass to the area of most frequent contact aligns with players’ swing patterns and provides greater impact when bat strikes ball. Players are perpetually seeking ways to barrel more balls, and while swings that connect on the end of the bat and toward the handle probably will have worse performance than with a traditional bat, that’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make for the additional slug. And as hitters know, slug is what pays.

The second benefit, in theory, is increased bat speed. Imagine a sledgehammer and a broomstick that both weigh 32 ounces. The sledgehammer’s weight is almost all at the end, whereas the broomstick’s is distributed evenly. Which is easier to swing fast? The broomstick, of course, because shape of the sledgehammer takes more strength and effort to move. By shedding some of the weight off the end of the torpedo bat and moving it toward the middle, hitters have found it swings very similarly to a traditional model but with slightly faster bat velocity.


Why did it become such a big story so early in the 2025 MLB season?

Because the New York Yankees hit nine home runs in a game Saturday and Michael Kay, their play-by-play announcer, pointed out that some of them came from hitters using a new bat shape. The fascination was immediate. While baseball, as an industry, has implemented forward-thinking rules in recent seasons, the modification to something so fundamental and known as the shape of a bat registered as bizarre. The initial response from many who saw it: How is this legal?


OK. How is this legal?

Major League Baseball’s bat regulations are relatively permissive. Currently, the rules allow for a maximum barrel diameter of 2.61 inches, a maximum length of 42 inches and a smooth and round shape. The lack of restrictions allows MLB’s authorized bat manufacturers to toy with bat geometry and for the results to still fall within the regulations.


Who came up with the idea of using them?

The notion of a bowling-pin-style bat has kicked around baseball for years. Some bat manufacturers made smaller versions as training tools. But the version that’s now infiltrating baseball goes back two years when a then-Yankees coach named Aaron Leanhardt started asking hitters how they should counteract the giant leaps in recent years made by pitchers.

When Yankees players responded that bigger barrels would help, Leanhardt — an MIT-educated former Michigan physics professor who left academia to work in the sports industry — recognized that as long as bats stayed within MLB parameters, he could change their geometry to make them a reality. Leanhardt, who left the Yankees to serve as major league field coordinator for the Miami Marlins over the winter, worked with bat manufacturers throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons to make that a reality.


When did it first appear in MLB games?

It’s unclear specifically when. But Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton used a torpedo bat last year and went on a home run-hitting rampage in October that helped send the Yankees to the World Series. New York Mets star Francisco Lindor also used a torpedo-style bat last year and went on to finish second in National League MVP voting.


Who are some of the other notable early users of torpedo bats?

In addition to Stanton and Lindor, Yankees hitters Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt have used torpedoes to great success. Others who have used them in games include Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers and Toronto’s Davis Schneider. And that’s just the beginning. Hundreds more players are expected to test out torpedoes — and perhaps use them in games — in the coming weeks.


How is this different from a corked bat?

Corking bats involves drilling a hole at the end of the bat, filling it in and capping it. The use of altered bats allows players to swing faster because the material with which they replace the wood — whether it’s cork, superballs or another material — is lighter. Any sort of bat adulteration is illegal and, if found, results in suspension.


Could a rule be changed to ban them?

Could it happen? Sure. Leagues and governing bodies have put restrictions on equipment they believe fundamentally altered fairness. Stick curvature is limited in hockey. Full-body swimsuits made of polyurethane and neoprene are banned by World Aquatics. But officials at MLB have acknowledged that the game’s pendulum has swung significantly toward pitching in recent years, and if an offensive revolution comes about because of torpedo bats — and that is far from a guarantee — it could bring about more balance to the game. If that pendulum swings too far, MLB could alter its bat regulations, something it has done multiple times already this century.


So the torpedo bat is here to stay?

Absolutely. Bat manufacturers are cranking them out and shipping them to interested players with great urgency. Just how widely the torpedo bat is adopted is the question that will play out over the rest of the season. But it has piqued the curiosity of nearly every hitter in the big leagues, and just as pitchers toy with new pitches to see if they can marginally improve themselves, hitters will do the same with bats.

Comfort is paramount with a bat, so hitters will test them during batting practice and in cage sessions before unleashing them during the game. As time goes on, players will find specific shapes that are most comfortable to them and best suit their swing during bat-fitting sessions — similar to how golfers seek custom clubs. But make no mistake: This is an almost-overnight alteration of the game, and “traditional or torpedo” is a question every big leaguer going forward will ask himself.

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St. Pete to spend $22.5M to fix Tropicana Field

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St. Pete to spend .5M to fix Tropicana Field

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The once and possibly future home of the Tampa Bay Rays will get a new roof to replace the one shredded by Hurricane Milton with the goal of having the ballpark ready for the 2026 season, city officials decided in a vote Thursday.

The St. Petersburg City Council voted 7-1 to approve $22.5 million to begin the repairs at Tropicana Field, which will start with a membrane roof that must be in place before other work can continue. Although the Rays pulled out of a planned $1.3 billion new stadium deal, the city is still contractually obligated to fix the Trop.

“We are legally bound by an agreement. The agreement requires us to fix the stadium,” said council member Lissett Hanewicz, who is an attorney. “We need to go forward with the roof repair so we can do the other repairs.”

The hurricane damage forced the Rays to play home games this season at Steinbrenner Field across the bay in Tampa, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. The Rays went 4-2 on their first homestand ever at an open-air ballpark, which seats around 11,000 fans.

Under the current agreement with the city, the Rays owe three more seasons at the Trop once it’s ready again for baseball, through 2028. It’s unclear if the Rays will maintain a long-term commitment to the city or look to Tampa or someplace else for a new stadium. Major League Baseball has said keeping the team in the Tampa Bay region is a priority. The Rays have played at the Trop since their inception in 1998.

The team said it would have a statement on the vote later Thursday.

The overall cost of Tropicana Field repairs is estimated at $56 million, said city architect Raul Quintana. After the roof, the work includes fixing the playing surface, ensuring audio and visual electronics are working, installing flooring and drywall, getting concession stands running and other issues.

“This is a very complex project. We feel like we’re in a good place,” Quintana said at the council meeting Thursday.

Under the proposed timeline, the roof installation will take about 10 months. The unique membrane system is fabricated in Germany and assembled in China, Quintana said, adding that officials are examining how President Donald Trump’s new tariffs might affect the cost.

The new roof, he added, will be able to withstand hurricane winds as high as 165 mph. Hurricane Milton, one of the strongest hurricanes ever in the Atlantic basin at one point, blasted ashore Oct. 9 south of Tampa Bay with Category 3 winds of about 125 mph.

Citing mounting costs, the Rays last month pulled out of a deal with the city and Pinellas County for a new $1.3 billion ballpark to be built near the Trop site. That was part of a broader $6.5 billion project known as the Historic Gas Plant district to bring housing, retail and restaurants, arts and a Black history museum to a once-thriving Black neighborhood razed for the original stadium.

The city council plans to vote on additional Trop repair costs over the next few months.

“This is our contractual obligation. I don’t like it more than anybody else. I’d much rather be spending that money on hurricane recovery and helping residents in the most affected neighborhoods,” council member Brandi Gabbard said. “These are the cards that we’re dealt.”

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Tulane suspends Finley after transfer QB’s arrest

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Tulane suspends Finley after transfer QB's arrest

Tulane quarterback TJ Finley has been suspended following his arrest Wednesday in New Orleans on a charge of illegal possession of stolen things worth more than $25,000.

Finley, 23, whose name is Tyler Jamal, was booked and released. Tulane said in a statement that the length of the suspension will depend on the outcome of his case. The school cited privacy laws in declining to comment further.

University police responded Wednesday to an address where a truck was blocking a driveway. After looking up the license plate, police saw it registered to a vehicle stolen in Atlanta. Finley arrived to move the car and informed the officer that he had bought the truck recently. He’s scheduled to appear in court June 1.

Finley transferred to Tulane in December after spending the 2024 season with Western Kentucky. He had been competing for the team’s starting quarterback job in spring practice alongside fellow transfers Kadin Semonza and Donovan Leary.

Finley, a native of Ponchatoula, Louisiana, started his college career at LSU before transferring to Auburn for two seasons and then Texas State in 2023. He started five games for both LSU and Auburn but had his most success with Texas State, passing for 3,439 yards and 24 touchdowns.

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