News

Vida Blue, a hard-throwing left-hander who became one of baseball’s biggest draws in the early 1970s and helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series titles, has died. He was 73.

The A’s said Blue died Saturday but didn’t give a cause of death.

“I remember watching a 19-year-old phenom dominate baseball, and at the same time alter my life,” Dave Stewart,” a four-time 20-game winner for the A’s a generation later, wrote on Twitter. “There are no words for what you have meant to me and so many others.”

Blue was voted the 1971 American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player after going 24-8 with a 1.82 Era and 301 strikeouts with 24 complete games, eight of them shutouts. He was 22 at when he won Mvp, the youngest to win the award. He remains among just 11 pitchers to win Mvp and Cy Young in the same year.

Vida Blue, a dominating left-hander who helped the Oakland Athletics win three straight World Series championships from 1972-74, died on Saturday. He was 73.

“There are few players with a more decorated career than Vida Blue,” the A’s said in a statement. “He was a three-time champion, an Mvp, a six-time All-Star, a Cy Young Award winner, and an Oakland A’s Hall of Famer. Vida will always be a franchise legend and a friend. We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends during this arduous time.”

One of the dominant starting pitchers of the 1970s, Blue debuted at age 19 in 1969, the franchise’s second year after moving to Oakland. His career started slowly, but soon built into one of the key cogs for the team known as the Swingin’ A’s for its talent and swagger.

In September 1970, Blue showed what was to come. Two starts after...

The popular baseball video game, MLB The Show 23 includes a large roster of baseball legends, including Mark McGwire, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and more. Developed by San Diego Studios and published by Sony Interactive, this game takes the best of baseball and turns it into a video game for players everywhere to enjoy. For 2023 there were a fitting 23 Legends added to the game who can be played as or against, as well as collecting them to create the perfect team for Diamond Dynasty mode.

One of the exciting changes with each new yearly version of MLB The Show is the addition of new athletes for players to choose from in the game. The "Legends" Program within MLB The Show honors former Legends from the MLB teams and these Legends are all highly coveted within the game for their high stats. They are particularly useful for anyone wanting to play...

In 2001, Phish were at the peak of their first wave of success, but the band’s piano player Page McConnell was looking for a new challenge. Then he went to see the Funky Meters play New York City’s Irving Plaza. Watching his friend Russell Batiste Jr. drum behind the R&b legends, McConnell says, “It just kind of hit me: ‘I know Russell, I could ask him to be in a band with me. I think the next week, I went to see the Allman Brothers and saw Oteil.

With the release of their official debut album, one rock band is picking up steam.

Trainwreck, the brainchild of Tenacious D guitarist Kyle Gass, has announced plans to go on tour to promote the large-scale release of "The Wreckoning," their official studio album. The album, first available for download on music sites on December 1 and currently available for purchase on the band's Web site, will be released on March 2.

Like Tenacious D, Gass's band with actor/musician Jack Black, Trainwreck's musical repertoire provides both a hard rock beat and alternately comedic and serious lyrics. However, the band provides a different tone in their sound, with a slant toward the Southern and progressive subgenres of rock. Gass has described the group's music as "a cornucopia of rock and a five-headed hydra of pleasure." The roots for the band go back as far as 1997, and aside from opening for bands such as...