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Sixty years ago, baseball commissioner Ford Frick received a telegram from a Wisconsin congressman. Rep. Henry Reuss was worried the Milwaukee Braves would defect to Atlanta for the promise of a richer television contract, and proposed a fix: if all the Major League Baseball teams would share their television money, then the Braves might stay.According to the Associated Press, Frick replied in that summer of 1964 that “… a plan to pool all television receipts would not be feasible or acceptable at this time,” but would be “worthy of future consideration.”Now, in 2024, that conversation has arrived. Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and some of the sport’s owners are more seriously talking about nationalizing baseball’s TV rights than ever before. Not because of relocation, but...

Who’s pitching tonight?For 100 years, that wasn’t just a casual question. It was the question that defined baseball.The answer always had a chance to give you goosebumps. Maybe it was Tom Seaver versus Steve Carlton. Maybe it was Sandy Koufax versus Bob Gibson. Maybe it was Pedro Martinez versus Randy Johnson.They weren’t just a reason to watch. They were the reason to watch. They threw the first pitch of the game. They often stuck around to throw the last pitch of the game. When the stars hold the ball in their hands 100 times a game, from the first minute of a game to the last, that’s where so much of the magic comes from. But now, those nights of pitchers’ duel magic are slipping away.Ten active major-league starting pitchers have won a Cy Young Award — and nine of them have spent time ...