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Eddie Vedder, Yo-Yo Ma, and Juliana Hatfield are among the artists performing at this year’s annual Hot Stove Cool Music fundraising concert, which will take place virtually on May 18th.

Notable baseball execs and former players like ex-Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein, pitcher Bronson Arroyo, New York Yankees great Bernie Williams, and famed sportswriter Peter Gammons are also set to take the stage at the event, which raises money for the Foundation to Be Named Later (Ftbnl)’s college scholarship program.

Vedder — a diehard Chicago Cubs fan — is...

Chicago Cubs catcher Miguel Montero had trouble throwing people out as they stole bases this year, but he should be glad he wasn’t thrown out by none other than President Donald Trump. Montero was released from the team earlier this week. And when the Cubs visited Trump at the White House on their road trip to play the Washington Nationals, the team considered having the President dust off his old “Apprentice” catch phrase to break the bad news, according to Mlb Network’s Peter Gammons, who spoke on “The Rich Eisen Show” on Thursday. During the appearance, Gammons said...

[[tmz:video id="0_u13lgbm6"]] Good news for Bryce Harper ... baseball expert Peter Gammons says someone will definitely pay the small fortune he wants ... telling TMZ Sports the owners have the money, and it's just a matter of who. Harper is reportedly looking for Record dough in the form of a 10 year, $400 million deal ... a deal some say the Washington Nationals are hesitant to give him. We got Peter Gammons -- a legendary Mlb writer and analyst -- out in D.

Chicago – One of the specialities of HollywoodChicago.com is the film and personality interview. The majority of these chats came through me, Patrick McDonald, and I couldn’t narrow it down to a top 10 or even a top 20. For 2014, there were 25 top interviews, and it is a diverse range of voices.

It is a privilege to get the opportunity to participate in the promotional tours, awards ceremonies, film festivals, book appearances, phoners and other lucky happenstances that feature the notable among us. To whittle down the list, I mostly thought about what was said in these interviews, whether inspirational or provocative – plus the status of the participants, whether they are up-and-coming or established.

The interview highlights are broken down by “Background and Behind-the-Scenes” and the “Memorable Quote” associated with each subject, and are often accompanied with exclusive photography by Joe Arce of HollywoodChicago.com. Four notables who just missed the...

Bobby Cox, Tom Glavine, Tony La Russa, Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas and Joe Torre are inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame 2014 class in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Sunday, July 27. Mlb Network has exclusive coverage of the ceremony live at 1:30pm Et. Mlb Network begins the festivities with Mlb Tonight on Sunday at 12pm Et, featuring Greg Amsinger, Peter Gammons, Harold Reynolds and John Smoltz, and Bob Costas will have exclusive interviews with all six new inductees before the ceremony. Additional details in the press release from Mlb Network below: 2014 National Baseball Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony … Continue reading →

The post National Baseball Hall of Fame 2014 induction ceremony on Mlb Network appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.

Chicago – With the 2014 Major League All-Star game coming up next week on July 15th, that break is a time to reflect on the current season and your favorite team. At the “Hot Stove Cool Music” event in Chicago on June 20th, HollywoodChicago.com got in the All-Star spirit by talking with the President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs, Theo Epstein, plus baseball writer and former Espn commentator, Peter Gammons.

Hot Stove Cool Music was co-founded by Peter Gammons in 2000, and began in Boston. Theo Epstein and his family charity organization, “Foundation to Be Named Later” partnered with the event shortly thereafter, and in total it has raised more than $5.5 million dollars, creating positive opportunities for disadvantaged children and families. Cub Charities was also a co-sponsor of the night, which featured Gammons, Epstein and other Chicago talents rocking on the Cabaret Metro stage in Wrigleyville, about one block from the Chicago Cubs home base,...

How Robert Lipsyte, author of the new memoir An Accidental Sportswriter, stood athwart the sports page yelling, "Stop!"

When a young man on the make tells me he wants to be a sportswriter, I tell him to read one book. It's called SportsWorld by Robert Lipsyte. Starting next month, I'll tell him to read another: An Accidental Sportswriter, which is functionally Lipsyte's sequel. In sportswriting's cosmic baseball card set-Jimmy Cannon! Dan Jenkins! Charlie Pierce!-you can find men who wrote as pretty as the former New York Times columnist. But Bob is the five-tool sportswriter. His beat is the ballpark, the '60s, African-American history, women's lib, Muslim theology, sports as metaphor, and-most interesting for you, young sportswriter-the craft of sportswriting itself.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Four Missing New York Times Journalists

Lipsyte is the guy who makes us ask the pencil-stopping question: Are sportswriters wasting their careers?...

Houghton Mifflin announced the editor for their 2010 Best American anthologies. The well-regarded line of books continues with familiar names handling many of our favorite genres.ComicMix readers can start saving up for the Comics collection to be edited by Neil Gaiman.

Here's the complete list:

The Best American Short Stories 2010: Richard Russo

The Best American Essays 2010: Christopher Hitchens

The Best American Comics: Neil Gaiman

The Best American Nonrequired Reading: Dave Eggers (guest introducer: David Sedaris)

The Best American Science and Nature Writing: Freeman Dyson

The Best American Mystery Stories: Lee Child

The Best American Travel Writing: Bill Buford

The Best American Sports Writing 2010: Peter Gammons

The Best American Noir of the Century: Otto Penzler and James Ellroy

Continue reading Neil Gaiman to Edit Best Comics Collection ›...

I made some notes on the Costas-McGwire interview. McGwire got all emotional and cried several times. He admitted to taking steroids but not for the purpose of cheating. Although not as bad as Peter Gammons (Melissa Rivers asks tougher questions than the ones Gammons posed to Alex Rodriguez in a similar interview last year), Bob Costas didn't hold McGwire's feet to the fire. He didn't really cross-examine him. McGwire stated that he's wanted to come clean for five years now. McGwire couldn't be more contrite and apologetic. These were notes I took Before the interview. It was that predictable. And boring. Halfway through I thought, why don't I just pop in my DVD of Frost/Nixon? At least that was somewhat entertaining and the acting was convincing. This was just an orchestrated damage control charade. Tom Hanks' line in A League Of Their Own was wrong. There is...

Peter Gammons, arguably Espn's best baseball reporter, is leaving the sports network after 21 years. His final column for Espn's Web site is scheduled to run Dec. 11.

In a statement Dec. 8, Gammons said "Espn gave me a great deal more than I gave it."

Gammons was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005. He also took home three National Sportswriter of the Year honors and in 2004 won the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing.

"Peter was the best and brightest in making the transition from print to video," Espn executive editor John Walsh said in a statement.

There's no word on whether Gammons will continue to cover baseball elsewhere.

Follow Zap2it on Twitter and Facebook for the latest TV, movie and celebrity news updates. 

Related:

Steve Phillips fired from Espn

30 films, 30 reasons to watch Espn

Michael David Barrett arrested for nude peephole video of Espn's Erin Andrews...

By Dylan Stableford

Peter Gammons – easily the most famous journalist covering the sport of baseball – has decided to leave Espn.

In a statement released Tuesday, Gammons said he will leave the network after this week's baseball winter meetings, which are under way in Indianapolis.

"My decision to leave Espn and move on at this point in my life has been conflicted," Gammons said. "I owe a great deal of my professional life to Espn, having spent more than half of my 40 years in jour...

New York -- Ten days after the allegations about a failed 2003 drug test came out in Sports Illustrated, Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez answered questions from reporters in a nationally televised news conference.

Rodriguez told reporters that he was there to "tell the truth and apologize to my teammates and baseball fans everywhere" and to talk about what he took and where he got it. He acknowledged he had taken a performance enhancing drug that he purchased with his cousin in the Dominican Republic and took it by injection, believing that it gave "a dramatic energy boost but (was) otherwise harmless." He said that he did not take human growth hormone but did take another substance, which was available over the counter, but was later pulled and banned from Major League Baseball.

The news conference was carried live on cable news, where it also competed with the scheduled signing by President...

New York -- Alex Rodriguez is now not only the poster boy for steroids, he is also the poster boy for the World Baseball Classic -- literally.

The Yankees third baseman is one of four athletes that will be featured in a global campaign promoting the Wbc on Espn. As part of the effort, Rodriguez, New York teammate Derek Jeter, Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki and Florida's Jorge Cantu will be featured in cable TV, print, outdoor and online ads as well as on posters distributed at sports bars.

Rodriguez has been the center of a media storm since it was leaked that he tested positive for a banned substance in 2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers. The All-Star, in an exclusive interview with Espn's Peter Gammons, admitted to using steroids and apologized. On Thursday, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said Rodriguez "shamed the game."

Beginning Feb. 23, A-Rod will not only...

New York -- Espn on Monday snagged the first interview with New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who reportedly tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003.

Speaking first to Espn's baseball analyst Peter Gammons, Rodriguez acknowledged that he took performance-enhancing drugs for three years beginning in 2001 while he was a member of the Texas Rangers. The positive test result, which came in 2003, occurred in his last year with the Rangers before he was traded to the New York Yankees.

"I was stupid for three years," Rodriguez told Gammons. "I was very, very stupid." Espn was one of the many TV outlets that clamored for the interview, but got it first. There was a crush of requests from all major media for the first to tell Rodriguez's story.

For Espn, success came after the company reached out to Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras on Saturday. They learned Sunday that the interview request was granted,...

Finally, someone in Hollywood has recognized the awesome dramatic potential of watching men calculate on-base-plus-slugging percentages and ponder the trade value of Kevin Youkilis. Variety reports that Brad Pitt has signed on to star in a big screen adaptation of Moneyball, Michael Lewis' best-selling account of how Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane changed the baseball world with his revolutionary approach to evaluating prospects. Despite a severely limited budget, Beane was repeatedly able to assemble winning teams by employing a method known as "sabermetrics" to identify undervalued players.

Pitt will be playing Beane. As for his potential co-stars, some suggestions:

Hall of Fame journalist Peter Gammons: veteran character actor Donald Sutherland

 

 

 

Ex-Dodgers G.M. Paul DePodesta: National Treasure star Justin Bartha

 

 

 

Yankees Slugger Jason Giambi: Irish badboy Colin Farrell

 

 

 

Blue Jays G.M. J.P. Ricciardi: Sopranos star Michael Imperioli

 

 

 

Red Sox star Kevin Youkilis: Yukon Cornelius...

NEW YORK -- ESPN said Tuesday that it has reached a multiyear extension with Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons.

Gammons has been a studio analyst for ESPN and "Baseball Tonight" -- and more recently a columnist for ESPN.com -- since 1988. Last season, he joined the "Sunday Night Baseball" telecast, a role he will continue under the new accord. He'll also continue to work on "Baseball Tonight" and write his column.

Gammons was off the air and in the hospital for several weeks after he suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm in June. He returned to the air in September and, in a statement released Tuesday, praised ESPN for "the humane way I was treated when I was sick last summer."

Gammons, 61, received the 2004 J.G. Taylor Spink Award for writing from the Baseball Writers Assn. of America and entered the Hall of Fame a year later. He started his career at the Boston Globe and has also worked at Sports Illustrated.