This is going to happen. There's going to be a baseball season. At least until I refresh Twitter. Truth be told, I'm so certain of it that I'm already deciding whether to eat dinner at home before heading to the ballpark or packing a sandwich. We'll always wonder why commissioner Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, didn't meet face-to-face a long time ago and hammer out an agreement. A couple of weeks ago would have sufficed. We...

The Orioles keep finding creative ways to offer their support for outfielder Trey Mancini since his diagnosis of Stage 3 colon cancer in March. More than just the phone calls and video messages that were arranged after baseball shut down and teammates returned home. The latest gesture also will benefit the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. The Orioles announced today that they're selling #F16HT T-shirts, with the proceeds going toward the Alliance's Patient and Family Support Services. They're...

The Nationals have reportedly agreed to a deal with undrafted free agent outfielder/first baseman Jackson Coutts out of the University of Rhode Island this week. The 6-foot-3, 235-lb. left-handed power hitter played three seasons in Kingston, R.I. for head coach Raphael Cerrato. "He's a good player," Cerrato said. "My guess is he would've been like 10th to 15th round on a normal year and would've honestly got a bigger bonus than what he received. I am happy for him. It's an opportunity...

It's June 17, and we still don't know when (or if) the Major League Baseball season is going to begin. But at this point, it's pretty safe to say that however long the potential season is, it won't be long. It won't equate to one-half of a normal season. It might not even equate to one-third of a 162-game slate. And that could have some significant ramifications for the Nationals, not necessarily positive ones. I've been thinking about what 2020 is going to mean for the Nats as a whole...

Here are a few - but certainly nearly not all - of the reasons that baseball has gotten to the point where there is a chance there will not be a 2020 season. * The Major League Baseball owners and players negotiated an agreement on March 26. But now they can't even agree on what they negotiated or agree on the language in said agreement. * The agreement failed to address the economics of how the sport would return if there were going to be MLB games played with no fans, which was a real...

The innocence and feelings of invincibility that are common in high school sophomores were lost for Orioles fourth-round draft pick Coby Mayo a little over two years ago. He can recite the exact date and time. They're etched so deeply as to leave permanent marks. Mayo was attending classes at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., when a gunman, later identified as former student Nikolas Cruz, entered the building with a semi-automatic rifle and, for reasons that still aren't...

To kick start the beginning of summer, the Washington Nationals are proud to announce the return of the Nationals Summer Reading Program! The Nationals have expanded the partnership to now include seven local library systems. The program encourages children and teens to read throughout the summer by joining their local library's summer reading challenges. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, all participating libraries will run their reading challenges virtually for the 2020 summer season. For the...

One of the great things about baseball is that the game offers something for everyone, an aspect on full display in this week's collection of "Orioles Classics" on MASN. If you prefer pitchers' duels over slugfests, we've got a good one for you from 2017, a night when the Orioles and Blue Jays matched zeros into extra innings before someone broke through. Of course, some people prefer lots of offense, and few players produced it like 2016 American League home run champ Mark Trumbo, whose...

I sat down with St. Mary's College baseball coach Greg Moore to talk about the Nationals' reported signing of the Gaels' second baseman and leadoff hitter, Gio Diaz, as an undrafted free agent. Diaz played in 13 games this past abbreviated season, hitting .396 for the Gaels, who surged to finish the year at 8-8. "He loves to play the game," said Moore. "I know that's easy to say, but he thinks about the game all the time. He's one of those guys that studies the best in baseball. The...

When baseball owners approached Kenesaw "Mountain" Landis in 1920 and asked him to become the first commissioner in professional sports, the then-U.S. District Court judge insisted he be given a very specific power. Landis insisted he be allowed to make major decisions on his own, without approval of owners or players, for matters he believed were "in the best interests of baseball." Exactly one century later, that phrase remains written into Major League Baseball's constitution, and every...