Welcome to Sliders, a weekly in-season MLB column that focuses on both the timely and timeless elements of baseball. 

It was glimmering out there for Ryne Sandberg, the same destination for a very different test of endurance and will. He had made it to Cooperstown as a player. Now, he wanted to make it as a cancer patient on the way to recovery.

And he did. Sandberg was one of the 14 Hall of Famers who gathered last Saturday at Doubleday Field for the East-West Classic, a recreation of the old Negro Leagues All-Star Game. He didn’t play, but he won.

“The timing was good for this trip, so I had this on the calendar, kind of penciled in,” Sandberg said behind the batting cage before the game. “Then I got good news last week, so it freed me up to come up here. And this is a well-needed getaway. This is a special place to come anyway, and my wife also needed a break; she’s had her hands full as well. We always love coming here.”

Sandberg, 64, announced on Jan. 22 that he had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. In the four months since, he has chronicled his ordeal on Instagram, posting messages through six rounds of chemotherapy.

In a post last week, Sandberg revealed that PET and MRI scans on May 20 revealed “NO detection of Cancer!” He said he would…

BOSTON — It’s not uncommon for kids to go out to the backyard and play catch with their dad.

What is uncommon is when the dad is a former big-league pitcher.

And when Dad happens to have been a longtime practitioner of the tricky and dreaded knuckleball, that’s off-the-charts unusual. But so it was with the late Tim Wakefield and his two kids, Trevor and Brianna. Like most dads, he played catch with the kids. Like hardly any dads, he taught them how to throw a knuckleball.

Which brings us to Fenway Park, Tuesday afternoon, Opening Day, Red Sox versus Baltimore Orioles. The Red Sox held a pregame ceremony in memory of Wakefield and his wife, Stacy, both of whom died of cancer over the past six months. The club also remembered longtime Sox president Larry Lucchino, who died last week.

When it came time for someone to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, it was Brianna Wakefield, an 18-year-old high school senior who’ll be headed to Boston College this fall, who toed the Fenway rubber. Now for everyone who was at Fenway Park on Tuesday afternoon, for everyone who was watching on television, for everyone who was listening to Hall of Fame-bound Joe Castiglione call the game over the radio, the answer to your question is yes, yes, yes, of course Brianna Wakefield took a very Tim…

There are many unanswered questions surrounding the betting scandal involving Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. What we do know, though, is Mizuhara wasn’t just an interpreter. He was Ohtani’s right-hand man, his catch partner, his liaison for on –and off– the field matters because the most successful interpreter-player relationships are built on one thing: unrelenting trust.

“It’s such a big part (of the job),” Mizuhara told The Athletic last summer of establishing a close connection. “We are together pretty much every day, longer than I’m with my wife, so it’s going to be tough if you don’t get along on a personal level.”

The Mizuhara-Ohtani relationship — the pair worked out together on Christmas – was perhaps extreme, but the role of interpreters in baseball has evolved significantly over the years. Interpreters are in dugouts, team meetings and have carte blanche into the life of a professional baseball team. It’s not impossible to imagine a scenario where Mizuhara had access to Ohtani’s finances, as interpreters are often tasked with off-the-field errands like picking up food or dry cleaning.

So what exactly do interpreters in Major League Baseball do on a daily basis? And how do you get the gig?…

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has declined his invitation to be a part of the 2004 championship ceremony the Red Sox will hold during their home opener on April 9, according to team sources. The Boston Globe first reported the news.

The Red Sox announced earlier this week they would be hosting a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the 2004 team during their home opener and that all members of the team had been invited to attend. In addition, the club plans to honor the life of former Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield and his wife Stacy, both of whom died recently from cancer.

GO DEEPER

At the Jimmy Fund, tragic loss of Stacy and Tim Wakefield felt deeply: Buckley

Schilling pitched in Boston for four seasons and was a key part of the Red Sox’s 2004 and 2007 World Series teams, but became a controversial figure in his post-playing career. Schilling officially retired in March 2009 but threw his last official MLB pitch in 2007.

In 2015, he was suspended from a broadcasting job at ESPN and then fired the following year for making insensitive remarks on social media about Muslims and members of the transgender community.

Later in 2016, Schilling made headlines again for sharing a photo on Twitter of a Donald Trump supporter wearing a T-shirt that read, “Rope. Tree….

With ESPN’s direct-to-consumer plan, the network is attempting to uphold its mission statement of, “Serving sports fans. Anytime. Anywhere.”

In the process, Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro are looking to make deals. Anytime. Anywhere.

Iger and Pitaro are trying, through equity stake talks with the biggest leagues and with distribution discussions with the largest digital players, to add to ESPN’s already impressive content lineup and have price points to serve every sports fan.

It all sounds simple, but they are engaged in complicated negotiations with a full ESPN direct-to-consumer subscription product launching this fall in combination with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, and then ESPN’s standalone service slated for 2025.

At a fee of more than $10 per subscriber, no company has been more important to the cable bundle than ESPN, and no one has benefited more. While ESPN will still be offered on cable, Disney/ESPN are trying to stack the sports content and distribution deck even more in their favor.

In 2011, ESPN peaked with 100 million cable homes, according to Nielsen, but now is at around 71 million homes. One of the overarching goals for Iger and Pitaro is to reverse the subscriber trend with its direct-to-consumer plan.

ESPN’s goal is to sell…

Shortly after haggling his way out of free-agent purgatory and into a new contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Kiké Hernández asked his wife, Mariana, to investigate another market. She contacted former Dodger Rich Hill’s wife, Caitlin, with a request: Could the Hernándezes live in the Hills’ house again? 

The Hills had bought the property, located in the Toluca Lake neighborhood, in 2017, soon after Rich signed a $48 million contract. The family decided not to sell it after Hill’s final season with the team in 2019. The house has since become a popular destination among Dodgers personnel. Catcher Austin Barnes lived there one season. Manager Dave Roberts has inquired about its availability. When Hernández rejoined the team at last year’s trade deadline, he moved into the house, which is a convenient 20-minute drive from Dodger Stadium, with access to three different highways. 

“It’s very appealing, because of the location,” Hill said. 

But that’s not its only selling point; almost as important is that the homeowner understands his tenants’ nomadic baseball lifestyle.

When searching for a place to live, players often rely upon each other’s recommendations, connections, and familiarity with baseball’s unique schedule and travel. That has led to a…

Shohei Ohtani has yet to debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he already has a ring — a wedding ring.

The two-way superstar, who is notoriously private about his personal life, revealed the news on Instagram early Thursday morning. He said his wife is Japanese, but he didn’t provide her name or any details about his wedding.

“Not only have I began a new chapter in my career with the Dodgers but I also have began a new life with someone from my Native country of Japan who is very special to me and I wanted everyone to know I am now married,” Ohtani said. “I am excited for what is come and thank you for your support.”

Ohtani, whose statement is in Japanese, said he would share more information in an interview, according to the Associated Press.

The 29-year-old’s Instagram post featured a photo of his dog, Dekopin, whose American name is Decoy.

“We hope the two of us — and one animal — will work together,” Ohtani wrote, per the AP.

This isn’t the first time Ohtani has abruptly revealed major news on Instagram. In December, he announced on the social media platform that he signed with the Dodgers, ending feverish speculation about his landing spot in free agency. Ohtani’s agency, CAA, later said he agreed to a 10-year, $700 million contract with the club.

It’s a quarter to eight on a Sunday and a sportswriter gets up from bed to go into his home office. He tells his wife, a Chicago Cubs fan, that Cody Bellinger signed while they were sleeping.

“For a lot of money?” she asks.

“Well …”

As it turns out, it was a pillow announcement over a pillow contract for Bellinger, his agent Scott Boras and Cubs president Jed Hoyer.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal confirmed Jeff Passan’s overnight report that Bellinger signed a deal that could potentially go for three years for a possible $80 million.

Really, it’s a one-year deal with options, just like last year but for more money. Bellinger gets $30 million this year and if he wants it, $30 million again in 2025. He can keep it rolling with $20 million in 2026. But I think we’ll see Bellinger, good health willing, test free agency again next offseason. Then Boras can get back to work and Cubs fans can get back to complaining online about Cubs owner Tom Ricketts being cheap.

A lot of money? For one year, sure. But it’s not the blockbuster, nine-figure deal that Bellinger likely expected after opting out of his deal with the Cubs last fall. Still, it’s a raise from the $17.5 million he made from the Cubs in 2023. (He also got a $1 million bonus for winning Comeback Player of…

SURPRISE, AZ — Seth Lugo’s first question to Will Smith was not one a free agent often asks a potential new teammate:

Does anyone else on the team have children?

Smith, 34, was recruiting Lugo, also 34, to join him with the Kansas City Royals. Lugo’s wife, Amanda, knowing the team was young, had said to him in a near-panic: “We’re going to have the only kids!”

The Lugo children are 3 and 1. Smith, texting rapidly with Lugo as the two families tried to get their kids to sleep, relayed that he understood Amanda’s concern.

“You don’t want to be the only wife there with a kid,” Smith said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m married. Yeah, we have a son (less than a year old). Your wife won’t be out there solo.’”

With that, the Royals’ offseason began to accelerate, featuring Smith, a respected, popular veteran who has played for three straight World Series champions, as lead recruiter.

The Royals ended up spending $109.5 million on seven free agents, then signing shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. to an 11-year, $288.8 million extension and adding reliever John Schreiber from the Red Sox on Saturday in a trade. The projection systems to this point are unimpressed. Fangraphs has the Royals winning 76 games, PECOTA 70. But the club’s new additions offer a singular vision,…

Jenny Cavnar continues to climb the broadcasting ranks, and this time, she’s making history in her new gig as the Oakland A’s play-by-play announcer.

The A’s announced Cavnar’s hiring Tuesday, making her the first female primary play-by-play voice in MLB history.

“It is a dream come true to join the broadcast team for the Oakland A’s and their rich baseball history,” Cavnar said in a statement. “Growing up the daughter of a baseball coach, I have loved the game from a young age, along with the stories, history, and relationships the game provides.”

Cavnar will work alongside NBC Sports California color commentator Dallas Braden, who welcomed her to the broadcast booth in a video on social media.

A dear friend, a true professional & Major League Baseballs first female PxP broadcaster….

Welcome to the Town @jennycavnar I can’t wait to get it goin’ homie! pic.twitter.com/wOZYGsS3Rn

— Dallas Braden (@DALLASBRADEN209) February 13, 2024

Cavnar heads to Oakland after working as a Colorado Rockies reporter, backup play-by-play announcer and pregame and postgame host over the past 12 years.

In April 2018, she became the first woman in 25 years to call TV play-by-play for an MLB game when the Rockies hosted the San Diego Padres. It was a fitting first game for her…