Mike McCann's Field of Fotos

...you share it with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts . The first-year skipper is best known for his momentum-turning stolen base against the Yankees in game four of the 2004 ALCS. His daring sprint set up the Red Sox comeback as they erased the Yankees' three games to none series lead, something never before done in baseball... as Boston went on to capture its first World Series title since 1918. Specializing in speed and defense, Roberts built a 10-year career in majors, before spending a season as a Red Sox TV analyst and then working his way up through the Padres organization to become their bench coach. That experience helped him land the chance to succeed Don Mattingly as LA's skipper. (This image of Roberts came from last Friday night at Citi Field.) Another of the names on today's list,  Andrew Bailey , has gone through a rollercoaster baseball life. The Southern New Jersey native was once the A's top reliever. The 2009 American League Rookie of the Year an...

Comedian Jim Brewer threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Friday night's Mets/Dodgers game. And he wasn't the only big "non-baseball" celeb in the house. Knicks basketball star Carmelo Anthony was on the field during batting practice. Above, he catches up with Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard. And below, note the politcal correctness of his cap -- the logo perfectly split between Yankees and Mets. But is that really the way a true New Yorker shows his loyalty?

The Dodgers took the wraps off their top pitching prospect on Friday night. Julio Urias became the first under-20-year old hurler in the majors since Felix Hernandez 11 years ago. The native of Mexico showed poise, but also had trouble finding the strike zone. Deep counts were his problem; after reading that the Dodgers hadn't let him throw more than 82 pitches anytime this season, it was clear he was going to have a short night... But this was far shorter than imagined. He walked four and struck out three while recording just eight outs from his 81 pitches. The Mets touched him up for three runs in the 1st inning. And they were threatening again when manager Dave Roberts pulled Urias after 2-2/3 innings. But there were plenty of signals that the young man is a quality pitcher -- he was poised and focused. Seeing him paint the corner to strike out Curtis Granderson looking in the 1st inning was notable (photo on right). Urias is just a little too raw to make the jump to the...

Jon Bon Jovi was spotted by a Yankee Stadium camera during Tuesday night's game with the Blue Jays. Clearly, the fans behind him figured out they were sitting behind someone famous. Has that ever happened to you -- sitting next to or near someone so famous that you never expected to be in their presence? And how did you react? Did you go low key or head the other way and become silly?

A couple of days after being pulled a the Phillies game for lack of hustle, Odubel Herrera was not just back in the lineup, but contributed a crucial three-run homer. The second year player's 4th inning blast was the biggest hit in an 8 - 5 win in Detroit. What a quick, sweet swing by the former Rangers prospect who the Phils stole in the 2015 Rule 5 draft. Crucial, because it salvaged the final game of a series in which the Tigers won the first two. Meaningful, because the talented Herrera has established himself, along with Maikel Franco, as one of the players Philadelphia will rebuild around. It takes more than talent to maintain the trust of manager Pete Mackannon, who expects full effort from his mostly young and inexperienced club. (These images of Herrera are from the Mets/Phillies game on April 10th.)

One of the charms of baseball is that no matter how long you've been a fan, you might witness something you've never seen before at any game you attend. That held true for me Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, when Pat Venditte came into pitch for Toronto. A onetime Yankee farmhand, Venditte is the first hurler in modern times to throw from both sides of the plate. Yes, he's the guy who pitches both right- and left-handed. In the bottom of the 8th inning, he faced switch hitter Chase Headley throwing lefty, forcing Headley to work from his weaker right side. He stayed in lefthander mode against lefty-handed hitting Didi Gregorius. Then he switched throwing arms -- and moved his specially made glove to the opposite hand -- to work righthanded against righty hitting Austin Romine. One guy, two different pitching positions in the same inning! Venditte faced three Yankee batters: Headley hit a sacrifice fly, Gregorius singled and Romine struck out. Are you curious ...

Matt Harvey takes the mound again for the Mets tonight in Washington with so much at stake. Trailing the Nats by 1/2 game in the NL East, Terry Collins' crew can take over first place with a victory in the rematch with Stephen Strasburg, who bested Harvey five nights ago. But there's a lot more to it. Not long ago the hero to the Flushing Faithful, Harvey has endured a mystifying slump this season. While apparently healthy, he's been ineffective. So off his game that Saturday, two days after being shelled by Washington, he threw a simulated game for the Mets brass. And there's still no explanation as to what's gone wrong. Just a pile of questions: Will Harvey ever pitch like "The Dark Knight" again? Will he ever approach the dominance he showed as recently as the first eight innings of game five of last year's World Series? Is his problem psychological rather than physical? We'll know a lot more 24 hours from now.

On this date in 2001 : Derek Jeter had five hits in five at bats - three singles, a double and home run - in a 7-3 win over the arch-rival Red Sox in the Bronx. Vintage Jeter. The man had a way with magical moments. Do you remember the day he reached the 3000-hit milestone, he did by smacking five hits -- the last of which was the game winner? Career-wise, the Captain had five 5-hit games. That's just one of many reasons he fits easily on the "Mount Rushmore" of shortstops. If you like to see more on the topic, click on this online page ranking the five top shortstops in baseball history. (Spoiler, number-2 in Yankee pinstripes ranks number-2.)

Rob Refsnyder 's major league career has gotten off to a halting start. First called up to the Yankees before last summer's all star break, he played a few games at 2nd base but soon headed back to Scranton. He returned in the late summer, and on a club struggling for offense, provided a bit of a spark. He even started the Wild Card game against the Astros. But the California product and Arizona college standout has had trouble finding a position. Change that, he was a good enough outfielder in college, but the Yankees hoped he could be re-cast as an infielder. We saw him as a 2nd baseman last season, with mixed results. The trade for Starlin Castro closed that off as his ticket to the Bronx, so in camp, he was forced-fed a course in 3rd base. Too much, too quickly; the images of him being hit by balls in the face two straight days are hard to erase. This year, at Triple A, he hit well -- as he always has done -- while being shuttled between 2nd, 3rd and the outfield. ...

In what's been a turn-around season for the Red Sox, Jackie Bradley Jr has been a big factor. After disappointing in parts of three previous seasons -- though he did close out 2015 strongly -- Bradley has put it all together this year. After never hitting more than 10 homers in a season, he's belted eight in the first quarter of 2016, including one in Friday night's loss to the Indians. That home run extended his consecutive game batting streak to 25 games. He's also leading the American League in triples, and batting an impressive .340. A 1st round draft pick five years ago, Bradley is one of several young, homegrown players fueling the Red Sox resurgence. He joins Brock Holt, Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts and Travis Shaw, who balance things with greybeards David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez and Dustin Pedroia in the Boston lineup. Has your favorite team drafted as well -- and infused its lineup with enough youth, energy and talent to keep them competitive and appeal...

After the Mets won Tuesday night and the Nationals on Wednesday, the teams squared off Thursday in the rubber game of their first series of the 2016. New York went with Matt Harvey; Washington, Stephen Strasburg. Yes, the guy who just inked that seven-year, $175-million extension. And, for this one night, Strasburg was worth every penny. In six innings of work, he struck out 10 and gave up just a run and six hits. On the other hand, Harvey staggered through the worst game of his career. The Nats rocked him for nine runs in less than three innings, taking all the suspense out of the night and the buzz from the crowd. So, round one in the 19-game brawl between the beasts of the east goes to Washington. But round two between these heavyweights isn't far off. If rotations stay on schedule, it'll be another Strasburg/Harvey matchup when the teams meet for three more at Nationals Park starting on Tuesday.

A day after the first three-home run game of his career -- capped by a walk-off grand slam -- Khris Davis homered again on Wednesday! That gives him four in two games. His 6th inning blast gave him nine homers for the month -- the most in the majors. Already on the radar as one of baseball's rising young sluggers, the left fielder/DH belted 22 and 26 home runs the last two seasons for the Brewers before being traded to the A's last February. He's Khris with a K -- or, if you prefer, the righthanded slugging Davis, as opposed to his lefty-swining rival who plays in Baltimore. The other major difference is in the paystub: Khris fits the Oakland budget with a $525,000 salary. Chris is in the first year of a Scott Boras-brokered deal that averages $23-million a year. These images are from the A's/Yankees game in New York on April 20th.

Tuesday night, the Mets and Nationals met for the first time in 2016. While they'd play each other 19 times this season, both teams wanted to make a statement. They sent their hottest starting pitchers to the mound, Noah Syndergaard for New York, Max Scherzer -- coming off a record-tying 20 strikeout performance -- for Washington. Keep in mind, the last time Scherzer pitched at Citi Field, he threw a no-hitter. Even though the Nats came into the night a game and a half up on the Mets, this night belonged to the boys from Flushing and the pitcher nicknamed Thor. In what manager Terry Collins called a "fearless" performance, Syndergaard worked seven shutout innings, striking out 10 and allowing just five hits. He kept Washington's big bats, Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman and ex-Met Daniel Murphy in check. And thanks to home runs from Curtis Granderson -- who sent Scherzer's first pitch of the game over the right field fence -- and Michael Conforto, Noah had t...

Carlos Beltran moved into an exclusive neighborhood on Sunday. His home run against the White Sox made him just the fourth switch hitter in baseball history to reach 400 home runs. The others are Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, who leads this category with 536 and Eddie Murray (504). There's future Cooperstown honoree Chipper Jones... and then Beltran.  1999's American League Rookie of the Year, the seven-time all star is also one of the most feared post-season hitters of all time. His October numbers, especially with the Astros and Cardinals have been headline-grabbers. Winding down his career in the Bronx, Beltran expects to play again in 2017, to give him parts of 20 seasons in the majors.  You know that old line, "I know a Hall of Famer" when I see one... Is Beltran one? Don't ask a Mets fan -- his taking a called third strike to end the 2006 NLCS sears in the memory. On the other hand, he's often be called a five-tool player, excelling in all aspe...

Phillies pitching prospect Ben Lively caught my attention on Sunday. How could he not? He threw seven shutout innings and struck out a career-high 12 as Reading defeated Trenton 7 - 2 at Arm & Hammer Pal. The young righthander -- obtained in the Marlon Byrd deal in the winter of 2015 -- gave up four hits and walked four to lower his ERA for the season to 1.53. Though he's still two steps from the majors, the University of Central Florida product might go down as one of Ruben Amaro's better moves in re-stocking the Phils farm system in the final months of his tenure as GM.

...you share it with likely future Hall of Famer Roy Halladay . With 203 career victories, he's just above what appears to the cutoff point for Cooperstown consideration. While he never approached 250 or 300 wins, he certainly had enough "dominant" seasons (8), two Cy Young Awards -- and two no-hitters in the same year. And keep in mind, Roy did it in the steroids era, when who knows how many of the batters he faced were "juicing." Remember his greatest year 2010, his first with the Phillies? First, a Memorial Day Weekend perfect game against the Marlins; then, in the first playoff game he ever worked, he fired a no-hitter against the Reds. That clears the bar in my book. If Don Drysdale, another dominating righty whose career was shortened by injury, is Hall of Fame-worthy, then so is the guy nicknamed "Doc." Another measure of how good he was is that a pair of rising young pitchers -- Toronto's Marcus Stroman and the Phillies' Vince V...

Ruben Amaro Junior spent almost six years as the Phillies general manager, overseeing a pennant winning club as it slowly but surely began to unravel. Each successive year, the club dropped back a notch from pennant winner to losing in the League Championship Series, losing the Division Series, finishing out of the playoffs with a .500 record and then a losing record far from contention.  The Philadelphia native -- and onetime backup outfielder for his hometown team, as well as the club his father played for -- lost his job last summer. Led by new top management, the Phils decided to complete a tear down and begin to rebuild around a new core of young talent. And even though Amaro made some of the first deals to aim the Phillies in the new direction, he was let go. Ironically, some of the moves Amaro made -- such as grabbing Odubel Herrera in the Rule 5 draft and swapping Marlon Byrd for pitching prospect Ben Lively -- are showing promise. Executives losing jobs or moving to ...

Wednesday night's big stories surround pitchers: The Nationals' Max Scherzer (above), tied the major league record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game with 20. He joins Roger Clemens (Red Sox, 1986 and Red Sox, 1996), Kerry Wood (Cubs, 1998) and Randy Johnson (Diamondbacks, 2001) in this ultra-select circle. How good was his command against the Tigers? Out of his 119 pitches, 96 were strikes! And of the four who've struck out 20, only Max and Johnson have also thrown no-hitters. And Scherzer's 119 pitches gave him the lowest total of those to whiff 20. Trivia buffs, circle the name of Justin Upton -- he was strikeout victim number-20 in Max's gem. Now on to our silver medalist: Mets fireballer Noah Syndergaard (below) became the just the second pitcher in club history to belt two home runs in a game. He accounted for all the scoring in New York's 4-3 win over the Dodgers. Ironically, yesterday (May 11th) was the birthday of the only other Met pitcher do ...

OK, this is clearly not the typical photo I post here. But it has a very strong connection to the theme I maintain. Let's start with the date, it's May 12th. 50 years ago tonight, the Cardinals moved into the second Busch Stadium. They hosted the Atlanta Braves, and won the game 4 - 3. The first Cardinal to hit safely was the gentleman at the microphone, right fielder -- and since 1972, broadcaster -- Mike Shannon. That makes sense; now on to the story behind this photo. It was taken in the summer of 1989 at a charity breakfast co-sponsored by KMOX, the Cardinals flagship radio station. Mike Shannon, was, of course, the featured speaker. Also on the dais, local TV news anchor Tom O'Neal, restaurateur J. Kim Tucci of the popular St. Louis chain The Pasta House Company, and, in the middle, the evening DJ on KMOX's FM station, KLOU. That event also helped land me my first steady radio sports gig. KMOX and KLOU's legendary general manager Robert Hyland asked me to ...

...when you have the biggest offensive night of your career but your team still loses? Try and put yourself inside the head of Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain. He belted three home runs in KC's 10 - 7 Tuesday night loss to the Yankees. The first two of the blasts came off Masahiro Tanaka -- who up until then had cut his rate of surrendering home runs compared to a year ago. The last was served up by now-setup man Andrew Miller. It was an odd night, and hardly Cain's fault. Place your blame on the Royals' bullpen; Joakim Soria and Kelvin Herrera gave up four runs that turned a KC lead into a three-run deficit. That drained much of the joy out of Cain's night -- instead of the joyous locker room interview and perhaps a featured spot on MLB Network, he gets to think about his effort that in the end didn't make a difference. These images are from Monday night's Royals/Yankees game in New York.

The wait was over -- Aroldis Chapman had completed his 30 game suspension. And Monday night, he made his long-anticipated Yankees debut. It wasn't a save situation (since they were up by 4 runs), but the crowd of more than 41,000 was as excited as if it were a 1-run lead. The build-up began in the bottom of the 8th inning as Chapman warmed up. And when it was time to enter, we didn't see a leisurely stroll -- fans saw the new Yankee closer sprint toward the mound with no time to spare. A very intense Chapman gets ready to uncork another 100 mph fastball. It wasn't a perfect outing -- after striking out the first two batters, Chapman gave up two hits and a KC run before coaxing Lorenzo Cain to ground into the final out. Accompanied by catcher Brian McCann, it's happy walk back to greet his new teammates. After a few minutes for a TV interview, time for some final cheers from the fans -- many sporting the night's giveaway item, green Yankee caps -- ...

 ...might be Manny Machado . The Orioles infielder -- who recently moved from 3rd base to shortstop following the injury to JJ Hardy -- belted a pair of home runs, including a grand slam and drove in a career-best six, in Baltimore's 11-3 Sunday victory over the A's. There's an ongoing debate about who is the best young player in baseball. While we expect Mike Trout and Bryce Harper to be in that conversation, it's time to also consider Machado in that select circle. Not just because he's hitting .350 this season, or that he plays a more challenging position that outfielders Trout or Harper. The Miami product -- who won't turn 24 until July -- possesses the same "five tools" as his rivals. Watching him play the Yankees 19 times a year, seeing is believing. He just radiates talent; the ability to change a game at any moment. And isn't that what also make Trout and Harper so impressive. These images of Machado are from an June 2014 Orioles-Yank...

Bartolo Colon has become a bit of a cult hero and novelty act since joining the Mets in 2014. The oldest starting pitcher in baseball sports a physique more suited to someone watching at home or in the grandstand. Though he resembles the trim image of the modern pro athlete, more often than not he outsmarts his competition on the field. Saturday night against the Padres, he pulled off something you had to see to believe. Colon didn't just confound the Padres (save for Jon Jay's three run homer), with 6-2/3 effective innings, but in the second inning, claimed a piece of baseball history. Stunningly, the pitcher who often makes a strong argument in favor of the DH, crushed a James Shields pitch for his first major league home run. Just watching him jog around the bases -- in 30 lesurely seconds -- was something you had to see to believe. 16 days shy of turning 43, it also made Colon the pitcher who was the oldest when he hit that first big league homer. It was the big guy...

Aaron Hicks ( seen here April 20th against the Rays ) had his first big Yankee moment a couple of weeks ago, when his laser throw from left field nailed Danny Valencia. But the Yanks lost that game. Friday night, he came through with the game-changing blast: a home run off Rick Porecello leading off the bottom of the 7th. On a night that when Jacoby Ellsbury left early with a sore hip -- and with the Yanks already missing Alex Rodriguez -- Hicks provided the winning margin in a 3 - 2 victory over the Red Sox. Not surprisingly, in a Yankee/Red Sox game, the tension continued to build. In the top of the 9th inning, Boston loaded the bases against Andrew Miller. With one out, David Ortiz had the chance to put the Sox back on top -- but was called out on strikes. Some very borderline calls led to Big Papi and manager John Farrell being ejected. The tension that fueld the Yanks/Sox rivalry was finally back! So the rest of this weekend's games will likely be grudge matches. Better for...

You share it with the greatest player in Giants history -- the radiant star beloved by fans in both San Francisco and New York, Willie Mays . 660 lifetime home runs, a .302 batting average -- and 12 Gold Gloves. 50 home run seasons 10 years apart, in 1955 and '65 -- the only player with a pair of such bookends. And let's not forgot one of the most memorable World Series catches ever, that over-the-shoulder grab of Vic Wertz' soaring fly ball in the deepest reaches of center field at the Polo Grounds in the opening game of the 1954 fall classic. You still marvel at it every time you see the replay. Mays' Gold Glove awards are in a special display as you enter AT&T Park. How's this for being a "difference maker": on July 2, 1963, when future Hall of Fame members Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal each threw 15 scoreless innings, Mays settled things in the bottom of the 16th inning, homering off Spahn for a 1–0 Giants victory. More than the stats and t...