HOME
*





Devin Mesoraco
Devin Douglas Mesoraco (born June 19, 1988) is an American baseball coach and former professional baseball catcher, who is the current catching coach for the Pittsburgh Panthers. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets. Mesoraco was an MLB All-Star in 2014, but saw his career derailed due to multiple injuries. Early life Mesoraco was born on June 19, 1988, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the son of Laura and Doug Mesoraco. Mesoraco attended Punxsutawney Area High School in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he was a catcher for the Chucks baseball team. He set school records in walks, runs, hits, doubles, home runs and stolen bases. Before his senior year, he committed to play college baseball at the University of Virginia. He was named the 2007 Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year. In that same year, he helped the Chucks win the PIAA Class AAA State Championship played at Peoples Natural Gas Field, home of the Altoona Curve. P ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Catcher
Catcher is a Baseball positions, position in baseball and softball. When a Batter (baseball), batter takes their at bat, turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home plate, home) Umpire (baseball), umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the catcher is also called upon to master many other skills in order to field the position well. The role of the catcher is similar to that of the wicket-keeper in cricket. Positioned behind home plate and facing toward the outfield, the catcher can see the whole field, and is therefore in the best position to direct and lead the other players in a defensive play. The catcher typically calls for pitches using hand signals. The calls are based on the pitcher's mechanics and strengths, as well as the Batting (baseball), batter's tendencies and weaknesses. Essentially, the catcher controls what happens during the game when the ball is not "in play". Foul tips, bouncing balls in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Virginia Cavaliers Baseball
The Virginia Cavaliers baseball team represents the University of Virginia in NCAA Division I college baseball. Established in 1889, the team participates in the Coastal division of the Atlantic Coast Conference and plays its home games at Davenport Field. The team's head coach is Brian O'Connor. The team has played in the College World Series five times, most recently in 2021, and won the national championship in 2015. History Virginia played its first baseball game, a 13–4 win over Richmond College, in 1889. The Cavaliers had limited success in their first 100 years of play, making their NCAA tournament debut in 1972 under Jim West and returning in 1985 and 1996 under Dennis Womack, failing to advance past regional play. They won their first ACC tournament championship in 1996 behind the pitching of All-American righthander Seth Greisinger. One highlight was the performance of left-handed pitcher Eppa Rixey, who won 266 games for the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnat ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sarasota Reds
The Sarasota Reds were a professional minor league baseball team, located in Sarasota, Florida, as a member of the Florida State League. However team originally started play in Sarasota as the Sarasota White Sox in 1989. They remained in the city for the next 21 seasons, going through a series of name changes due to their affiliation changes. They were known as the White Sox from 1989–1993, as the Sarasota Red Sox from 1994–2004, and the Reds from 2004–2009. In Sarasota, the team played in Payne Park (1989) and then Ed Smith Stadium (1990–2009). They won two division championships, in 1989 and 1992, and made playoff appearances in 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994, and 2007. However the roots of the Reds can be traced back, even further, to the Tampa Tarpons. In the 1980s, rumors arose that a major league team would come to Tampa, which would threaten the viability of the Tarpons and other minor league teams in the Tampa Bay Area. In 1988, the Chicago White Sox replaced Cincinnati as ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Spring Training
Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for Schedule (workplace), roster and position spots, and gives established players practice time prior to competitive play. Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warm climates of Arizona and Florida to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many US students. Regardless of regular-season league affiliation, teams generally play their exhibition games against other clubs training in the same state. Teams that train in Arizona form the ''Cactus League'' and Florida-training clubs form the ''Grapefruit League''. Spring training typically starts in mid-February and continues until just before Opening Day of the regular season, which falls in the last week of March. In so ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Grand Slam (baseball)
In baseball, a grand slam is a home run hit with all three bases occupied by baserunners ("bases loaded"), thereby scoring four runs—the most possible in one play. According to ''The Dickson Baseball Dictionary'', the term originated in the card game of contract bridge, in which a ''grand slam'' involves taking all the possible tricks. The word ''slam'', by itself, usually is connected with a loud sound, particularly of a door being closed with excess force; thus, ''slamming the door'' on one's opponent(s), in addition to the bat slamming the ball into a home run. Notable highlights Players Roger Connor is believed to have been the first major league player to hit a grand slam, on September 10, 1881, for the Troy Trojans at Riverfront Park in Rensselaer, New York. Although Charlie Gould hit one for the Boston Red Stockings of the National Association (NA) in 1871, the NA is not recognized by Major League Baseball (MLB) as a major league. Alex Rodriguez has 25 career gra ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dayton Dragons
The Dayton Dragons are a Minor League Baseball team of the Midwest League and the High-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. They are located in Dayton, Ohio, and play their home games at Day Air Ballpark, formerly known as Fifth Third Field. In 2011, they broke the record for most consecutive sellouts by a professional sports team, selling out their 815th consecutive game, breaking the record formerly held by the Portland Trail Blazers. The Dragons came to Dayton in 2000 as the franchise was relocated from Rockford, Illinois. The franchise was previously known as the Rockford Expos (then Royals, Cubbies, and Reds). In 2021, the Dragons and 11 other teams that had previously competed in the Midwest League entered the High-A Central as Major League Baseball completed a large restructuring of the minor leagues. This was a temporary name change, with the historical "Midwest League" moniker returning for the 2022 season. Day Air Ballpark The team's home park is Day Air Ballpark in Da ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Arizona League Reds
The Arizona Complex League Reds are a Rookie-level affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, competing in the Arizona Complex League of Minor League Baseball. The team plays its home games at Goodyear Ballpark in Goodyear, Arizona. The team is composed mainly of players who are in their first year of professional baseball either as draftees or non-drafted free agents from the United States, Canada, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and other countries. History The Cincinnati Reds previously fielded a Rookie-level team in the Gulf Coast League (GCL) during three tenures (1968–1973, 1984–1990, and 1999–2009) known as the Gulf Coast League Reds. During 2004–2009, the team played home games at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, Florida. In 2010, when the major-league Reds moved their spring training headquarters from Florida to Arizona, the Rookie-level team also relocated and became members of the Arizona League (AZL), and were renamed as the Arizona League Reds. The team has competed in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Sports Reference LLC
Sports Reference, LLC, is an American company which operates several sports-related websites, including Sports-Reference.com, Baseball-Reference.com for baseball, Basketball-Reference.com for basketball, Hockey-Reference.com for ice hockey, Pro-Football-Reference.com for American football, and FBref.com for association football (soccer). They also operate a subscription based service for statistics, called Stathead. Between 2008 and 2020, Sports Reference also provided pages for Olympic Games and its competitors. Description The site also includes sections on college football, college basketball and the Olympics. The sites attempt a comprehensive approach to sports data. For example, Baseball-Reference contains more than 100,000 box scores and Pro-Football-Reference contains data on every scoring play in the National Football League since . The company, which is based in the Mount Airy, Philadelphia, Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was founded as Sports Re ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Baseball-Reference
Baseball-Reference is a website providing baseball statistics for every player in Major League Baseball history. The site is often used by major media organizations and baseball broadcasters as a source for statistics. It offers a variety of advanced baseball sabermetrics in addition to traditional baseball "counting stats". Baseball-Reference is part of Sports Reference, LLC; according to an article in Street & Smith's ''Sports Business Journal'', the company's sites have more than one million unique users per month. History Founder Sean Forman began developing the website while working on his Ph.D. dissertation in applied math and computational science at the University of Iowa. While writing his dissertation, he had also been writing articles on and blogging about sabermetrics. Forman's database was originally built from the ''Total Baseball'' series of baseball encyclopedias. The website went online in April 2000, after first being launched in February 2000 as part of the we ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


2007 Major League Baseball Draft
The 2007 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft was Major League Baseball's annual amateur draft of high school and college baseball players and was held on June 7, 2007 and June 8, 2007. The first day session of the draft included the first 25 rounds and was scheduled to be broadcast "live" from Orlando, Florida on television for the first time, on ESPN2 from 2:00pm to 6:00pm Eastern Daylight Time (1800–2200 UTC). Previously the conference call format draft was broadcast live, along with commentary, on both draft days exclusively from the MLB.com website as streaming audio. In total, the draft featured 50 rounds and 1453 selections. First Round Selections Supplemental First Round selections Compensation Picks Other notable players * Jordan Zimmermann, 2nd round, 67th overall by the Washington Nationals * Giancarlo Stanton, 2nd round, 76th overall by the Florida Marlins * Freddie Freeman, 2nd round, 78th overall by the Atlanta Braves * Zack Cozart, 2nd rou ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Altoona Curve
The Altoona Curve are a Minor League Baseball team based in Altoona, Pennsylvania, named after nearby Horseshoe Curve (but also alluding to the curveball, a type of pitch). The team plays in the Eastern League and is the Double-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Curve play in Peoples Natural Gas Field, located in Altoona; it was opened in 1999 and seats 7,210 people. History The Altoona Curve franchise began when Arizona and Tampa Bay were both awarded Major League Baseball franchises beginning in the 1998 season. The addition of these two teams had a domino effect through baseball with the expansion of not only the major leagues, but throughout Minor League Baseball as well. With this expansion, AA baseball received two new teams to begin play in the 1999 season. The Erie SeaWolves were already an established minor-league team with outstanding short-season attendance, and were quickly awarded one of the new franchises. The second spot in the new, larger Eastern League l ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Peoples Natural Gas Field
Peoples Natural Gas Field is a 7,210-seat baseball-only stadium in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that opened in 1999. It is the home ballpark of the Eastern League's Altoona Curve Minor League Baseball team. History The groundbreaking ceremony for the stadium, then known as Blair County Ballpark, was held on March 7, 1998. The addition of Major League Baseball teams in Phoenix, Arizona, and St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1998 also created room for Minor League Baseball to expand. Two additional teams were added to the Eastern League for the 1999 season: the Altoona Curve and the Erie SeaWolves. The city of Altoona won the favor of the Eastern League over a bid from Springfield, Massachusetts. The stadium hosted its first regular season baseball game on April 15, 1999, as the Curve defeated the Bowie Baysox, 6–1. From 1999 to 2002, total seating capacity was listed at 6,176. Prior to the 2003 season, an additional 1,034 seats were created with the construction of the new left-fi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]