MLB News and Rumors

Of course…

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Game over…

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Josh Beckett has made it clear that he’s thankful to the Red Sox and their fans for his time in Boston.

But that doesn’t mean he’s letting all the fans off the hook — especially those he thinks had it out for him this year.

Beckett ripped the local media and the larger Boston sports culture in a column by WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford on Wednesday, criticizing those who weren’t satisfied with what he brought to the team and those who he says were rooting for him to fail.

“It’s just a matter of time before they get you, basically,” he said. “And that’s unfortunate. I think [Jon] Lester knows that. I think Clay Buchholz knows that. Your time will come.”

Beckett talked with Bradford about a variety of topics, from how the trade went down to what he felt he accomplished during his time in Boston. But he wasn’t shy about what he calls unfair criticism. He said several times that he felt he was unfairly portrayed throughout his Red Sox career, although he did take the blame for his poor pitching performances this year.

Beckett said he wouldn’t have a problem recommending the Red Sox to other players — they just have to know, as he did, what they’re getting into.

“It’s a special place to play,” he told Bradford. “As much as I’m looking forward to the next chapter, I enjoyed the last one. Even during the tough times I met so many people were just awesome. They were real fans.

“I think there’s the real fans and there’s the guys who go there to watch somebody fail. I get that sense. I don’t know what the percentage of each one is, but there are certain people who don’t want to see anybody succeed.”

Beckett railed against the expectations he said fans have of the Red Sox not only getting to but also winning the World Series every year.

“I know they want to win a World Series every year,” he said, “but it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen anywhere. I don’t care how much money you spend. … I don’t think that winning one World Series gets enough credit. It just doesn’t.”

Beckett, of course, won a World Series with Boston in 2007. He also had a stellar run overall with the Red Sox, going 89-58 with a 4.17 ERA over seven seasons, with his strong seasons ranging as high as 20 wins (2007) or a 2.89 ERA (2011).

But Beckett’s lasting sentiment in leaving town appears to be that his accomplishments were overlooked in the ways he was presented to fans, especially when he started to tank this season. When he took accountability for his bad performances, he said, it was portrayed as though he didn’t care. He said he just wanted to be honest about how bad he was, but that was painted as him condoning or giving up on a bad season.

“You want to pitch good,” he said. “It wasn’t working out. There’s times I wish I could have been more consistent.”

Despite a season with many lows on and off the field, Beckett maintained that he doesn’t have any regrets. He said it was time for him to go, and when the trade came up, he approved his part of it — after checking in with teammates Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto, who were also part of the deal — and decided to look ahead.

No matter what Beckett thinks of failure-loving fans or the media, though, the now-departed ace and his critics can agree on one thing: Beckett just didn’t have it this season.

And in Boston, as Beckett appears to agree, that’s pretty important.

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FOX Sports North and the Minnesota Twins announced today a 150-game telecast schedule for the 2012 season. FOX Sports North will serve as the exclusive television home for the Minnesota Twins, televising nearly every game not scheduled for national network TV. 2012 marks the 24th season of Twins Baseball on the network.FOX Sports Norths regular season coverage begins Friday, April 6 on the road against the Baltimore Orioles. The network will celebrate opening day at Target Field on Monday, April 9 for the match-up against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.Other highlights on the 2012 schedule include 17 games against the Chicago White Sox, 15 games against the Detroit Tigers, six games against the Milwaukee Brewers, seven games against the New York Yankees and three games against the Chicago Cubs.Veteran announcer Dick Bremer will continue to call the play-by-play in the broadcast booth. He will be joined by primary analyst Baseball Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven and other analysts throughout the season, including former Twins skipper Tom Kelly as well as former Twins players Roy Smalley and Ron Coomer. Twins Live presented by CenturyLink will air before and after Twins telecasts with Anthony LaPanta, Robby Incmikoski, Kevin Gorg and Marney Gellner reporting. FOX Sports North broadcasts also feature analysis from former Twins catcher Tim Laudner. FOX Sports North will televise a total of five Minnesota Twins Spring Training games in 2012, beginning with a 6:00 p.m. telecast on FOX Sports North PLUS on Monday, March 5 against the Boston Red Sox.All games are broadcast in high definition.

CLICK HEREfor complete broadcast schedule.FOX Sports North reaches more than 2 million homes throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and North and South Dakota and telecasts nearly 2,600 hours of locally produced programming per year. For more information on the Emmy Award-winning regional sports network, visit www.foxsportsnorth.com

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ANAHEIM, CA The Angels unveiled their most extensive Spring Training television schedule ever Wednesday, announcing a slate of 20 games that will be televised by Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket.

The Angels, who will train in Tempe, AZ for their 20th consecutive season, will open their Cactus League home schedule on March 6 at 12:05 PM when they welcome the Chicago White Sox to Tempe Diablo Stadium. Other highlights in the Angels’ spring broadcast schedule include matchups with the cross-town rival Dodgers on March 12, one against the defending National League Central champion Milwaukee Brewers on March 17, two against the two-time defending American League champion Texas Rangers on March 24 and 25, one against the National League West champion Arizona Diamondbacks on March 30 while concluding with back-to-back contests March 31 and April 1 against the Chicago Cubs.

In addition, the Angels’ contests vs. the Dodgers April 2nd (at Angel Stadium) and April 4th (at Dodger Stadium) will also be televised.

The complete lineup of Spring Training TV games follows (all times are Pacific): DATE OPPONENT LIVE TIME (PST) TV March 5 @ Athletics 12:05 PM FSWMarch 6 White Sox 12:05 PM FSWMarch 7 Seattle 12:05 PM PRIME TICKETMarch 9 San Diego 12:05 PM FSWMarch 10 San Francisco 12:05 PM FSWMarch 11 Cleveland 1:05 PM FSWMarch 12 Dodgers 1:05 PM FSWMarch 15 Cincinnati 1:05 PM FSWMarch 16 Cleveland 1:05 PM FSWMarch 17 Milwaukee 1:05 PM FSWMarch 19 @ Colorado 1:05 PM FSWMarch 22 Kansas City 1:05 PM FSWMarch 24 @ Texas 1:05 PM FSWMarch 25 Texas 1:05 PM FSWMarch 26 Colorado 1:05 PM FSWMarch 29 Kansas City 1:05 PM FSWMarch 30 Arizona 1:05 PM FSWMarch 31 @ Cubs 1:05 PM PRIME TICKETApril 1 Cubs 1:05 PM FSWApril 2 Dodgers 7:05 PM FSWApril 4 @ Dodgers 12:10 PM FSWSchedule subject to change

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The Arizona Diamondbacks announced Saturday that FOX Sports Arizona, the exclusive home of D-backs baseball, will again televise 150 regular-season games in high definition.

A trio of spring training games will also be carried on FOX Sports Arizona: March 13 vs. the L.A. Angels, March 27 vs. Colorado and April 4 vs. Milwaukee at Chase Field.

Daron Sutton returns for his sixth season as play-by-play announcer on the majority of D-backs telecasts on FOX Sports Arizona, with Greg Schulte filling in on select games. Mark Grace will return for his eighth year as an analyst, with Hall of Fame announcer Joe Garagiola Sr., Luis Gonzalez and Tom Candiotti stepping in as an analyst on select games.

FOX Sports Arizona will launch its 15th season of televising D-backs baseball with a special one-hour pregame show starting at 3 p.m. on April 6 prior to the Opening Day game against the San Francisco Giants at Chase Field.

FOX Sports Arizona will air its Miller Lite “Diamondbacks Live” pregame show before telecasts from the site of the game. Diamondbacks Live, presented by CenturyLink, will air after each D-backs game this year. FOX Sports Arizona’s pregame and postgame shows will air live from Chase Field’s Miller Lite Diamond Club for home-game telecasts.

For the second consecutive season, FOX Sports Arizona also will air its “D-backs Snapshot” series. Profiles will allow fans to get to know their favorite players even better. There are six episodes planned for 2012, featuring Ryan Roberts, Daniel Hudson, Trevor Cahill, Jason Kubel, Willie Bloomquist and Paul Goldschmidt.

In addition, the Diamondbacks 10th inning will return in 2012, as the monthly magazine show gives viewers an up-close view of the D-backs organization, its players and its fans.

Coming off an NL West championship in 2011, the D-backs have already been selected to appear six times on FOX for regionally or nationally televised Saturday games. Those dates include April 7 vs. San Francisco, May 5 at the New York Mets, May 19 at Kansas City, June 2 at San Diego, June 30 at Milwaukee and July 14 at the Chicago Cubs.

The complete television broadcast schedule can be found at dbacks.combroadcast.

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Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes is now free to sign with any team he would like and his agent, Adam Katz, told Fox Sports Monday that his client is expected to do just that before spring training camps open in a few weeks.

“We are aware of the [spring training] dates,” Katz told Fox. “We expect him to be in camp with one of the clubs.”

Of course, Katz may have a lot of sifting to do before then. The word has been that pretty much everybody who has seen Cespedes pick up a bat has some interest in signing the 26-year-old. Katz termed the market for Cespedes as “meaningful and aggressive” to Fox.

ESPN’s Jim Bowden reports that it’s expected that Cespedes will come to the United States from his new home in the Dominican Republic in the next 7-10 days and that six teams are “seriously negotiating” for him at this point.

Five of those teams are believed to be the Miami Marlins, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers.

While Cespedes batted only .143 in a short stint with Aguilas Cibaenas in the Dominican Winter League recently, he was a star player in Cuba. Last season, he batted .333 with 33 homers and 99 RBIs in 90 games.

Let the rumors come to you. Follow Scoop du Jour on Twitter or Facebook.

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ST. LOUIS Continued anger and disappointment from Cardinals fans over the departure of slugger Albert Pujols has forced a St. Louis restaurant bearing his name to part ways.

Pat Hanon, owner and founder of Pujols 5 Westport Grill, said Thursday that sales dropped so much in the recent months since the nine-time All-Star left for the Anaheim Angels that he had no choice but to end his association with the slugger.

The restaurant’s name has changed to the ‘St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame Bar and Grill’ and will now display authentic sports memorabilia and artifacts currently owned by the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame.

“I knew all along that he was a national figure but I never suspected the anger,” Hanon said. “I thought the Cubs would be the only one that would have drawn the anger, but quite honestly, the anger was pretty tough here. People started refusing to come into the place to tell you the truth.”

Contrary to public belief, Pujols was not invested in the company and was merely paid a fee by Hanon for the use of his name. The money – five percent of restaurant profits – was donated to the Pujols Family Foundation.

Hanon met with Pujols and his agent to discuss the drop in business, informing the three-time MVP that he had no choice but to part ways in hopes of keeping the restaurant open.

“Albert’s fine with it, he understands,” Hanon said. “I tried for 55 days to weather the storm but sales just kept going nowhere and the hate mail and emails and everything kept pouring in.

“The fans were tough. Customers were tough.”

A 1,100-pound bronze statue of Pujols remains in front of the restaurant. The statue a gift to the Pujols Family Foundation from an anonymous donor rests on land owned by the Westport Plaza complex and not the restaurant.

While Hanon has no connection to the statue, his understanding is that the Foundation plans to keep the statue in it’s current location despite Pujols being dropped from the restaurant’s name.

Pujols is quoted in a press release as saying, “I want to wish Pat Sr., Dave, Pat Jr. and the rest of the Hanon family nothing but success and happiness with their new restaurant. They are passionate about what they do and that is why the Hanon’s are the best in the business.”

The restaurant remains open during the transition period.

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