The San Diego School of Baseball was backed by hitting stars such as Tony Gwynn and Alan Trammell, but it was the pitching minds that gave the early 1980s baseball camp its charm — and its legacy.

Brent Strom and Tom House had been teammates at the University of Southern California and then, later, journeyman pitchers in the major leagues. Aside from lineage, they also shared deep-seated hunches that there was more to learn about baseball than previous generations had taught.

So when the day’s instruction was over, they sat in the dugouts of Grossmont College or ventured to a local watering hole, tossing ideas back and forth: the things they loved about the game, the things they thought were wrong, the things they wanted to change.

Once, during a baby shower for another coach’s wife, the men were scolded when they were found in the corner of a room, playing back film of pitchers. They were all obsessives, and the San Diego School of Baseball was their offseason oasis — a place where they could gather and discuss, without judgment and scorn, some of the very concepts that decades later would alter the balance of baseball.

“A summit,” House called it, “of smart baseball minds.”

Before PITCHf/x and Statcast could measure progress, before internet message boards and…

The Hall of Fame is made for players like Adrián Beltré. As a pure hitter, reliable slugger and slick third baseman, Beltré had few peers: No other infielder in the history of baseball has 3,000 hits, 400 homers and five Gold Glove awards. Beltré, now 44, was a lock for the Hall of Fame.

As a first-time Cooperstown candidate, Beltré did not need to follow the breathless tracking of public ballots this winter. Yet he still could not feel secure, he said, until his wife and son assured him on Tuesday that election day looked promising. He could savor it.

“That made me relax a little bit more, and I kind of forced myself to try to enjoy this moment,” Beltré said from his home in Southern California, moments after achieving his sport’s greatest honor. “It was going to be a nice moment, and probably the last moment in baseball that I was going to accomplish, being at the pinnacle of the game.”

Beltré had company at the summit on Tuesday, with Todd Helton and Joe Mauer joining him in the new class of Hall of Famers. Former manager Jim Leyland, elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee last month, will also be inducted at the ceremony July 21.

Candidates must receive 75 percent of the ballots from 10-year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of…

From the perspectives of people from multiple teams who met with him during the recruiting process, Yoshinobu Yamamoto cared about winning. People involved in the stakes knew money would play a role because it usually does, but at 25 years old, Yamamoto was always going to get paid substantially, regardless of which team he picked. So a common belief was that Yamamoto spoke sincerely when he talked about wanting to go where he could win and where he would be allowed to train similarly to how he did in Japan.

The New York Mets badly wanted Yamamoto. They wanted him so much that they placed him alone at the tippy top of their wishlist. They wanted him so much that owner Steve Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns hopped on a plane to Japan a few weeks ago to meet with him. They wanted him so much that Cohen and his wife, Alex, hosted him for a dinner in Connecticut. And they wanted him so much that Cohen offered him the largest sum of money ever for a pitcher.

By all accounts, the Mets went to great lengths to try to sign Yamamoto. It didn’t work. The Mets presented Yamamoto with an offer of $325 million over 12 years, which the Los Angeles Dodgers matched, a league source told The Athletic. Yamamoto accepted the offer from Los Angeles, where he will join…

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 25-year-old free-agent star pitcher from Japan, dined on Saturday night at the Connecticut home of New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, league sources confirmed.

It’s believed that the dinner went well, with the participants enjoying the hospitality and free-flowing conversation leading to a generally good connection. During the meeting, the Mets were again able to share with Yamamoto why they believe they’d be the right spot for him. The Cohens hosted Yamamoto seemingly in hopes of offering a nice, personal touch, one that may help distinguish the Mets from the other clubs locked in competition for the righthander’s services.

The in-person meeting, first reported by the New York Post, was the latest example of Cohen and the Mets doing whatever it takes to try and land Yamamoto, the highest-ranked (No. 3) unsigned free agent on The Athletic’s Top 40 free agent big board. Earlier this month, Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns flew to Japan to meet with Yamamoto.

Stearns, manager Carlos Mendoza, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and Cohen’s wife, Alex, also attended the dinner. Meanwhile, Yamamoto brought his own translator. Overall, the meeting was a step forward for the Mets, who have put Yamamoto at the top of their list of…

In the twilight of Sunday night, more than an hour after the Mets’ 2023 season had come to an end, Pete Alonso was still in full uniform just outside New York’s home dugout, taking a picture with his wife.

Alonso has been the face of the Mets’ franchise seemingly from his debut on Opening Day in 2019. But with his future as in doubt as ever before, new president of baseball operations David Stearns said Monday said he expects Alonso to remain with the Mets for 2024.

GO DEEPER

Amid Mets’ repositioning, where does Pete Alonso fit in?

“I expect Pete to be the Mets’ Opening Day first baseman next year,” Stearns said.

Alonso’s future is in doubt because he will become a free agent following the 2024 season and because the Mets listened on trade offers for the first baseman at the trade deadline, including from Stearns’ old team in Milwaukee. (Stearns said he was not involved in any of those conversations this past summer in his role as an advisor.) With the Mets eyeing 2025 and 2026 as their best chances to contend in the near future, dealing Alonso away for talent that better fits their timeline could make sense.

On the other hand, Alonso would be extremely difficult to replace. He leads all of baseball in home runs since his debut in 2019, and he just polished off the…