Mike Schmidt: "There's a cloud.. ... I think if you posed the question to all the living Hall of Famers right now, I think it would almost be 50-50."

Each implicitly casts the universe of baseball as a magical land that touches, but maybe isn't precisely part of, the “real” world in which we live. “The whole history of baseball,” the writer Bernard Malamud once said,

Pitcher Trevor Bauer will take any opening he can get to lambast Major League Baseball for not giving him another chance.

Hard-throwing Pete Fairbanks is in the final season of a three-year, $12 million deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, though with a $7 million club option for the 2026 season, he also has the potential to be more than just a rental pickup.

Reaction to Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson being reinstated by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, making them eligible for the Hall of Fame.