Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com. The scheduled start of spring training is a week away, yet owners continue to lock out the players with the sides unable to settle on a new collective bargaining agreement. The parties are talking, but progress has been slow. Very slow. One of those in the room during […]

Hajducky is a reporter/researcher for ESPN. He has an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University and played on the men’s soccer teams at Fordham and Southern Connecticut State universities. Last August, a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card set the stratospheric record for most-expensive sports card of all-time when it sold for $6.606 million with Robert Edward Auctions. The mythology […]

Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com. The Major League Baseball Players Association on Friday rejected MLB’s request for federal mediation in negotiation between the parties for a new collective bargaining agreement. “Two months after implementing their lockout, and just two days after committing to players that a counterproposal would be made, the owners refused […]

ESPN MLB insider Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Major League Baseball on Thursday requested the immediate assistance of a federal mediator to help resolve the sport’s lockout, sources told ESPN, potentially inserting the presence of a neutral party to end a work stoppage now in its third month. The league […]

Now that our list of the top 100 MLB players of all time has been revealed, it’s time to have some fun. More than 20,000 votes were cast to put together these rankings, from representatives from across ESPN’s MLB platforms. Now, we’re asking our baseball experts to break down what they saw. You probably had some opinions of your own […]

Sports reporter, Kansas City Star, 2002-09 Writer, Baseball, Baseball Prospectus Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus Member, Baseball Writers Association of America Member, Professional Basketball Writers Association Could Oscar Charleston be the best player of all time? The question is a big one, perfectly straightforward and ultimately, not even the real subject of this story. For now, just keep an open mind […]

Sports reporter, Kansas City Star, 2002-09 Writer, Baseball, Baseball Prospectus Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus Member, Baseball Writers Association of America Member, Professional Basketball Writers Association Could Oscar Charleston be the best player of all time? The question is a big one, perfectly straightforward and ultimately, not even the real subject of this story. For now, just keep an open mind […]

Sports reporter, Kansas City Star, 2002-09 Writer, Baseball, Baseball Prospectus Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus Member, Baseball Writers Association of America Member, Professional Basketball Writers Association With the process still tainted by the steroid era, David Ortiz was the lone player to gain induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, while players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were […]

Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com. ESPN MLB insider Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Major League Baseball indicated for the first time that it is open to a pre-arbitration bonus pool during a labor meeting Tuesday with the MLB Players Association, but the sides […]

Some names just jump off the page at you.  Griffey, Rivera, Jeter — they’re the boxes you know you’ll check long before that envelope with the old-school paper ballot arrives in the mail sometime around Thanksgiving.  Most voters don’t spend much time pondering whether no-doubt candidates like that are worthy of enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame, though there […]