There's only thing that should be on the Knicks' mind in this ugly situation
INDIANAPOLIS — In retrospect, these things always seem inevitable, a part of some great narrative, paeans to belief and faith, and a little bit of prescience, too. History is written by the victors, after all, and always has been. If the re-telling can include an elegant yarn about facing, and then overcoming, steep odds? Even better.
But there's really no secret sauce to any of it, other than this: The team that was in the hole, facing steep odds, simply started playing better. Started playing much better. The rest is the stuff of rubber-chicken dinners and '30-for-30s' and Old-Timer's Day reunions.
One of the great tales of the Joe Torre years was how George Steinbrenner declared Game 2 of the 1996 World Series a must-win after getting blasted by the Braves in Game 1, 12-1. Torre responded by telling Steinbrenner the Yankees were probably going to lose Game 2, too, with Greg Maddux on the mound (which they did, 4-0).
'We'll go to Atlanta and take care of business because Atlanta is my town,' Torre famously said, famous because that's exactly what they did, and that silenced Steinbrenner, and it became a permanent part of Torre's legend when the Yankees capped the comeback and won Game 6 back in The Bronx, too.
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an hour ago
- Yahoo
Aaron Judge Projected to Break Yankees Record After Latest Home Run
Aaron Judge Projected to Break Yankees Record After Latest Home Run originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past three months, it's pretty much impossible to miss how great New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge has been during the 2025 MLB season. Advertisement Sure, Judge has already scaled dizzying heights as a hitter for the most storied franchise in baseball history. He holds the Yankees' single-season home run record and has won the American League MVP award twice in the last three seasons. Whether or not he wins a World Series, he will go down as one of the coldest to ever do it in Yankees colors. But what Judge has been up to this 2025 MLB season surpasses any and everything that he has achieved through his ninth full season in the major leagues. The 33-year-old has unlocked a whole new level as a hitter based on his stats and the eye test this season. Judge leads the major leagues in batting average and hits. He notched up his 25th home run of the season through 66 games against Cincinnati on Wednesday. New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge (99)Credit: William Purnell-Imagn Images This brings his numbers to .394/.490/.779, with an OPS of 1.269. This OPS figure is the highest that any hitter has achieved since Barry Bonds' heyday in the early 2000s. Advertisement Judge is on pace to surpass Don Mattingly's 1986 record of 238 hits for the Yankees. If he produces at the same rate, he will end 2025 with 241 hits, which would place him tied-11th on the all-time MLB leaderboard. It goes without saying that Judge is facing possibly the toughest pitchers to ever grace the diamond. He has upped his production by swinging less often and reducing his strikeout tendencies. The Yankees' captain would be hoping to maintain this pace and help his team return to the World Series after their 2024 loss to the Dodgers. Related: Dodgers Land on Wrong Side of MLB History After Cardinals Shutout Related: Chris Rose Makes Major Yankees Prediction After 5-Game Win Streak This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 12, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Men's College World Series preview: Storylines and players to watch as games begin Friday in Omaha
Four months ago, 307 programs across the country took the field for another exciting season of Division I baseball. Now, less than 3% of those programs are still playing, with an intriguing group of eight schools set to battle it out in Omaha for the national championship. Last year's Men's College World Series field featured four teams from the SEC and four teams from the ACC, eliciting concerns that too much of the talent had become concentrated in the power conferences and that parity would be impossible to achieve in this era of college baseball. The 2025 season represented a refreshing rebuke of that notion, with the top-25 rankings enduring dramatic shake-ups on a weekly basis and a highly entertaining postseason culminating in a World Series field with a healthy amount of conference variety. Advertisement Only the SEC has multiple teams in Omaha (Arkansas and LSU). Five other conferences — the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Sun Belt and Missouri Valley — have representation in the field, and the last spot belongs to a perennial powerhouse in Oregon State, which competed as an independent this season following the disbandment of the Pac-12. Here's a look at the eight teams hoping to dogpile in Omaha. Arizona Wildcats First game: vs. Coastal Carolina, 2 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN Player to watch: CF Aaron Walton Among Wildcats bats eligible for this year's MLB Draft, right fielder Brendan Summerhill and shortstop Mason White entered this season with notably more acclaim than Walton, having raised their profiles since arriving on campus in Tucson as freshmen. But Walton — a transfer from Samford — had a huge breakout this spring and is now also well-positioned to hear his name called during the first handful of rounds next month. He's an excellent athlete capable of impacting the game on both sides of the ball, as evidenced by his three-homer game vs. Cal Poly during the regionals and some outstanding glovework in the outfield against North Carolina in the super regional. As Arizona's No. 2 hitter sandwiched between Summerhill and White atop the lineup, Walton could be a difference-maker for the Wildcats in Omaha. Storyline to follow: Head coach Chip Hale stands out among skippers With the exception of Oregon State skipper Mitch Canham, who spent four years coaching in the Seattle Mariners organization before taking the head job in Corvallis in 2019, the six other head coaches in Omaha are college baseball lifers. Then there's Hale, who is in just his fourth season at the helm for Arizona following more than three decades of professional playing and coaching experience, including managing the D-backs for two seasons and serving as the bench coach for the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals. Hale is hardly an outsider to this program, as he starred for the Wildcats as a player, including on the 1986 team that won the national championship. But relative to his peers in Omaha, Hale's extensive run in pro ball prior to becoming a college head coach makes him fairly unique and an intriguing character leading this year's squad in Omaha. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers First game: vs. Arizona, 2 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN Player to watch: C Caden Bodine One of the top catchers in this year's draft, Bodine homered in his first game of the year on Feb. 14 but then hit only two more long balls over the remainder of the regular season, prompting evaluators to question if he's worthy of a first-round selection. Then Bodine hit two homers in Coastal Carolina's dramatic 7-6 victory in Game 1 of the super regional against Auburn, demonstrating his slugging capabilities when the stakes were highest. Power will never be Bodine's calling card — his two elite skills are his receiving behind the dish and his bat-to-ball ability (7.8% career strikeout rate) — but a few more big swings on college baseball's biggest stage could go a long way toward ensuring an early selection in next month's draft. Storyline to follow: Can the hottest team in college baseball stay scorching? Outside of Bodine, the Chanticleers don't boast quite as much star power as some of the other squads in this year's field. But they arrive in Omaha with the best record in Division I, at 53-11, and riding a staggering 23-game winning streak. It has been nearly two months since Coastal Carolina's most recent loss, a midweek defeat at the College of Charleston, ensuring the Chanticleers enter the World Series with as much momentum as a team could hope for at this stage of the season. They cruised through the Sun Belt tournament unscathed, took down a fellow mid-major power in East Carolina in regionals and swiftly dispatched a daunting SEC foe (Auburn) on the road to clinch the trip to Omaha. Head coach Kevin Schnall said it best: This is not a Cinderella story. It's no accident that Coastal Carolina is the most recent mid-major to win the national championship (2016) and one of the most successful programs in the country over the past decade, regardless of conference affiliation. Don't be surprised if the Chanticleers make another deep run this year. Oregon State Beavers First game: vs. Louisville, 7 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN Player to watch: SS Aiva Arquette Collegians who stand 6-foot-5 with plus power and the defensive chops to play shortstop are extremely rare. That's why Arquette — who transferred to Corvallis last summer after spending two years at the University of Washington — is a strong bet to be the first college position player taken next month. And given the murky, plateaued top of this class, there remains a chance that he's the No. 1 pick. Advertisement Arquette is the talisman of this offense, another difference-making player in a long lineage of Oregon State superstars such as Jacoby Ellsbury and Adley Rutschman. The lanky, Hawaiian-born infielder cranked 18 homers this season on his way to an impressive .354/.466/.658 line for the Beavers. He's downright humungous for a shortstop, which makes it easy to spot him on TV. Storyline to follow: No conference, no problem When realignment rocked college athletics in the summer of 2023, Oregon State's baseball team was left in an unenviable spot. Beginning in the mid-2000s under Head Coach Pat Casey, the program had blossomed into one of college baseball's true blue bloods. Since 2005, OSU has made the playoffs in 18 of 20 seasons. They have reached Omaha seven times and won three CWS titles. So when the Pac-12 went belly-up, Beaver Baseball was suddenly one of the most successful programs without a home. Advertisement But in their first year of the post-realignment era, the Beavers thrived this season. Deciding to function as an independent (fellow Pac-12 ejectee Washington State opted to play with the Mountain West), Oregon State was forced to play an overwhelming number of games on the road. Finding weekends off within the conference schedules of opponents, the Beavers played just 19 of their 54 games at home. And now, after eight home games during regionals and super regionals, Oregon State will hit the road one last time in search of the program's fourth national championship. Which team will be this year's college baseball national champion? (James Pawelczyk/Yahoo Sports) Louisville Cardinals First game: vs. Oregon State, 7 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN Player to watch: C Zion Rose As a physical catcher with feel to hit, Rose emerged as a notable high school draft prospect a few years back. But instead of going pro, he matriculated to Louisville. Once there, he was solid as a freshman in 2024 and broke out massively this year as a power-speed monster. Rose smashed 12 homers while stealing 30 bases, the only player in the ACC to go 10/30. He has cooled off a bit from a power perspective during the playoffs, with fellow South Side kid Eddie King Jr. picking up the slack. But Rose is capable of making Omaha's Charles Schwab Field look mighty small in an instant. Storyline to follow: Winning in a new era When Louisville was bounced from the 2019 College World Series, head coach Dan McDonald did what many eliminated skippers do in their post-mortem pressers: He vowed the program would be back soon. And he was right, even if it took longer than expected. In the interim, a new paradigm emerged — conference realignment, NIL, the transfer portal. McDonald has been open about his unease toward trying to compete in this new landscape. A handful of disappointing seasons in the shadow of the pandemic only intensified concerns about Louisville's place in the restructured ACC. But this year, the Cardinals showed they can survive in this new era, knocking off No. 1 overall Vanderbilt in a road regional before dispatching Miami at home in the super. Louisville remains one of the most successful programs of the 21st century that has never won a title, and it would be mighty poetic if they pulled it off this year. UCLA Bruins First game: vs. Murray State, 2 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN Player to watch: SS Roch Cholowsky Still a sophomore, Cholowsky has a legitimate claim as college baseball's best player this season. The dynamic shortstop ripped 23 home runs, the most by a UCLA player since 2000, while winning Big Ten defensive player of the year awards. Cholowsky looks like a surefire top-10 pick for next year's draft, with the potential to go No. 1 overall. He's must-see TV whenever he's up at the dish. As we said with Arquette at Oregon State, smooth-fielding shortstops with power potential don't grow on trees. Storyline to follow: No portal, no problem This is the Bruins' first trip to Omaha since they won it all in 2013. That's because UCLA, like Louisville, experienced something of a dip coming out of the pandemic. As most college baseball programs turned toward the suddenly fruitful transfer portal to fill out rosters, UCLA held tight to its bread and butter: high school recruiting. Because of the prime location, name brand and program pedigree, head coach John Savage has always been able to attract high-end talent to campus. And he appears to have doubled down on that strategy in recent years, as only four players on the UCLA roster, three of whom are fifth-year players, transferred in from other schools. If you're looking for a school doing it the old-fashioned way, the Bruins are for you. Murray State Racers First game: vs. UCLA, 2 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN Player to watch: RP Graham Kelham Center fielder and leadoff man Jonathan Hogart is probably Murray State's most exhilarating player, but Kelham might be the most fascinating character on the Racers. Murray State's closer has surrendered just six runs since the beginning of April. He has worked at least two innings in all five of his postseason outings, including an incredibly impressive three-inning save against Duke in Game 2 of the super regional. In Game 3 of that series, Kelham looked to have recorded the final out, and the bench rushed the field, dogpiling on top of him. Then a replay review kept the game alive, and Kelham had to recompose himself to notch the final out, which he did. Storyline to follow: Cinderella's Cinderella Murray State is just the fourth 4-seed to ever reach the College World Series — the equivalent of a 12- or 13-seed making it to the Final Four in college basketball. This year was only the fourth time in program history that the Racers made it to regionals and the first since 2003. Head coach Dan Skirka is a rising star in the coaching world who leaned on the portal to add older, experienced players. The group has jelled magisterially well at just the right time. First, the Racers poached a regional from Ole Miss by topping the Rebels in a wild winner-take-all final. Then they stormed past Duke in Durham to complete an all-time improbable run to Omaha. Advertisement Arkansas Razorbacks First game: vs. LSU, 7 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN Player to watch: LF Charles Davalan A Montreal, Quebec, native who spent his freshman year at Florida Gulf Coast, Davalan took his talents to Fayetteville for his sophomore season and has been dynamite atop the Arkansas lineup. The Razorbacks are no strangers to the transfer portal, as just two of their regular starting lineup (catcher Ryder Helfrick and first baseman Reese Robinett) have been at Arkansas since they were freshman. But of all the high-level transfer talent on this roster, Davalan has perhaps been the most pleasant surprise. At 5-foot-9, he isn't the most physical presence in the Razorbacks lineup, but he's the most complete hitter, an on-base maven with more pop than you'd expect from someone his size. Davalan is a quintessential leadoff man who sets the tone for the Arkansas offense and is a blast to watch. He deserves to be a top-50 pick in next month's draft. Storyline to follow: Can they finally get it done? This is Arkansas's 12th appearance at the College World Series and eighth under head coach Dave Van Horn, who is in his 23rd year leading the Razorbacks. But Arkansas has never claimed the ultimate prize, making them one of the most successful Division I programs without a national title. What happened in 2018 — a dropped fly ball on what would've been the championship-clinching out against Oregon State — still looms large as a haunting what-if for this program. But in a season of parity across college baseball, this year's Arkansas squad looks to be the most complete on paper, giving them the highest ceiling of any team still standing and a tremendous opportunity to finally claim the school's first national title. The pressure will certainly be on — especially with a terrific LSU team as their first opponent — but the Hogs have the talent to get it done. LSU Tigers First game: vs. Arkansas, 7 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN Player to watch: LHP Kade Anderson Anderson, who turns 21 next month, entered this spring as a fringe first-round talent as a draft-eligible sophomore. The young southpaw was coming off a promising freshman season but had yet to prove himself as a reliable member of an SEC rotation. This spring, not only did Anderson establish himself as LSU's ace, but he also surged into the discussion as maybe the best pitcher in college baseball and is now a near-certain top-five pick next month. With plus command of four above-average pitches, Anderson has racked up a whopping 163 strikeouts across 103 innings, with a chance to add more in Omaha. Storyline to follow: Can this new-look Tigers team win another title? It was just two years ago that LSU claimed the sixth national championship in program history led by a generational duo of college baseball star power in Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews. That wasn't very long ago, but there's virtually no overlap between that title-winning roster and the one currently tasked with chasing down a national championship. From this year's team, only first baseman Jared Jones and outfielder Josh Pearson played significant roles on the 2023 team; nearly every other major contributor on the current roster arrived in the past two years, either as a top-end recruit or as a transfer. If head coach Jay Johnson can lead this new-look group to another title — his second in just his fourth season in Baton Rouge — his status as one of the great skippers of this generation of college baseball would only be amplified.
New York Post
4 hours ago
- New York Post
Demands of catching making hitting prep ‘difficult' for Yankees' Austin Wells
Access the Yankees beat like never before Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees. Try it free KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Most of Austin Wells' teammates were already long gone when he walked back into the visiting clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium late Tuesday night, his shoulder wrapped in ice. The Yankees catcher has a long postgame treatment routine he goes through on most nights, not because he is necessarily dealing with an injury, but because this is what it takes to get through the grind of being behind the plate for nine innings most nights and then trying to add some offense on top of it. Advertisement It is a demanding position, especially for the Yankees, who put a premium on their catchers being able to game plan and frame pitches to help steal strikes. It is consuming, too, to the point where sometimes it throws Wells for a loop when it is his turn to step up to the plate instead of behind it. Yankees catcher Austin Wells. Getty Images 'I think being prepared for each at-bat is a little bit more difficult,' he said. 'Because there's a couple of at-bats not even during the week, but during the game sometimes, where I have to focus a little extra hard before going on deck or even in the middle of the at-bat and be like, 'What am I trying to do here?' Just because I'm thinking about what pitches we're throwing, we've thrown to the guys coming up to the plate the next inning or what reliever's coming in and what I want to do to get ahead. Advertisement 'So definitely trying to find a spot where I can separate that a little bit better and I think that'll help me going forward. But I've been working on it a little bit more the last couple weeks, so I feel like I've been doing a little bit better than that.' The results would indicate that. After going 1-for-4 with an RBI double in the Yankees' 6-3 win over the Royals on Wednesday, Wells is batting .311 (14-for-45) with a .973 OPS over his past 13 games. Yankees catcher Austin Wells hits a two-run double against the Royals on June 10, 2025. Peter Aiken-Imagn Images That included a standout night in Tuesday's 10-2 win over Kansas City, in which two of Wells' at-bats combined for 19 pitches and five RBIs — a three-run homer in a nine-pitch at-bat against lefty Noah Cameron and a two-run double in a 10-pitch at-bat against righty Taylor Clarke. Advertisement 'It's hard, especially [because] he catches a lot of games and he's back there,' Max Fried said. 'I can't imagine how tiring that is game in, game out, but he puts together really good quality at-bats every game. Especially [Tuesday], hitting in the nine hole, that's a big power threat there.' Wells is not entirely sure what to make of his offensive season so far. He entered Thursday batting .228 with a .293 on-base percentage and .769 OPS, but with 11 home runs and 42 RBIs. If he stays healthy all season, it puts him on pace for 27 home runs and 103 RBIs. 'But it doesn't really feel like that with how it's going,' Wells said. 'Yeah, it's interesting. Advertisement 'I mean, I'd like to see some more balls fall and find some grass. I'm not satisfied with where I'm at, but we're winning and that's good. I'd like to contribute more.' The Yankees would certainly take that, especially after seeing what a hot-hitting Wells can do for their lineup like he did for a stretch last summer. He wants to be on base more and be more consistent. But it is hard to take issue with the overall impact he has made so far — ranking fifth in the majors in Catcher Framing Runs and consistently being lauded by his pitchers for his work with them while bolstering the Yankees' run production with a chance to be their first catcher to reach 100 RBIs in a season since Jorge Posada in 2003. 'I think he can really hit,' manager Aaron Boone said. 'If that shows up in average, [if] it shows up in some power and on-base, I think he's going to be a productive major league hitter, especially when you consider it's at the catcher position. He's capable of a lot offensively. I still think he's just tapping into some of his stuff and still gaining experience, but he's a talented offensive player.'
