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…

Ryne Sandberg, a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and an iconic player for generations of Chicago Cubs fans, revealed Monday that he was recently diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. Sandberg, 64, shared the news on his Instagram account, announcing that he has already begun treatment.

“I am surrounded by my loving wife Margaret, our incredibly supportive family, the best medical care team, and our dear friends,” Sandberg wrote. “We will continue to be positive, strong, and fight to beat this. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time for me and my family.”

Sandberg, who maintains a residence in suburban Chicago, remains connected to the Cubs as an ambassador for the team and a regular presence around Wrigley Field.

Sandberg’s arrival, via a lopsided trade with the Philadelphia Phillies, helped transform the Cubs into a playoff team in 1984 and 1989. Sandberg became a face of the franchise as the Cubs broadcast their games on the WGN superstation and installed lights for night games at the Friendly Confines.

Sandberg played 15 of his 16 major-league seasons with the Cubs, piling up 10 All-Star selections, nine Gold Gloves and seven Silver Sluggers. He was the National League MVP in 1984 and one of the greatest second…

CLEARWATER, Fla. — When Charlie Manuel began to speak again, he could not talk. It had been five days since his stroke. His heart was better. He’d regain the feeling in his right side with time. But, last September, there were no words.

“I knew what I wanted to say,” Manuel said months later. “That really gets to you. You know what to say and you can’t say it.”

Manuel is the ultimate baseball lifer, with more than six decades in the game. The Phillies’ all-time winningest manager, known for his love of hitting, trademark malapropisms and colorful language, was always most at home behind the batting cage. Five months after the Phillies fired him as manager in 2013, they hired him as an advisor to the front office. He hadn’t yet budged. The role is now largely ceremonial, but Manuel had never viewed it that way. “I’m real, for one thing,” Manuel said. “I’m honest.” He was a constant at spring training. He had bullied his way through constant health problems, to hell and back in 80 years. This was different.

The stroke had damaged a specific part of his brain that controls language expression; the doctors diagnosed Manuel with expressive aphasia and dysarthria. It was the most demoralized and discouraged his wife, Missy, had ever seen him. He exists to…

PHILADELPHIA — He was on the field, shirtless with a blue towel draped over his neck, and this was Nick Castellanos’ place. He concluded an interview with Major League Baseball’s television network by declaring, “I mean, yeah, I f—- with Philly.” He removed the headset. He wandered around the infield Thursday night. His wife, Jess, caught his attention. Otto, his 1-year-old son, scampered into his arms. Castellanos snatched him and pulled him skyward. They looked at the scoreboard and the big red letters, “MOVING ON.”

Castellanos put down Otto and continued his wander. Liam, his 10-year-old son, yelled. “Where’s my dad?” The two made eye contact. Liam ran toward him. They drifted around the grass together. Maybe this was not what they had envisioned, but it was a hell of a view after the Phillies dispatched the mighty Braves with a 3-1 win in Game 4 of the National League Division Series.

There was Liam, behind the backstop in the sixth inning, losing his mind. He held out his arms in shock. He put his hands on his head.

Liam Castellanos is LIVIN’! pic.twitter.com/7aCiTCFnRt

— MLB (@MLB) October 13, 2023

Castellanos had hit four home runs in two nights. No one had ever done that in postseason history. The fourth came on a two-strike, 100 mph fastball from…

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — This game is ruthless, but its soft spots are so poetic. Aaron Nola and Zach Eflin, best friends who met almost a decade ago as baby-faced prospects at Double-A Reading, realized last week they would pitch against one another on July 4 at Tropicana Field. They glanced at the schedule and noticed an off day before the game. It was too perfect.

Nola, this past winter, bought a home here in St. Petersburg with his new wife. They closed on it before Eflin, now a father of three, signed with the Rays for $40 million. He, of course, bought a home 10 minutes from Nola’s. They are never too far from one another. That’s how it is.

So, Nola invited Eflin over the day before they pitched. They spent hours just hanging out. “There wasn’t too much smack-talking,” Nola said. Neither tried to break character. That’s the foundation of their friendship. The two men have made millions upon millions since they met — and they take pride in being the same people as they were before this game lifted them upward.

But, as they tried to match each other Tuesday for seven innings in a 3-1 Phillies win, everyone could tell.

“Nola, he does such a good job of controlling his emotions and trying to make it seem like everything is the same,” Phillies catcher J.T….

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball postponed Wednesday’s Tigers at Phillies and White Sox at Yankees matchups due to “clearly hazardous air quality conditions in both cities,” the league announced. The decision came after conversations throughout the day with medical and weather experts.

The game in New York will be made up Thursday as the first in a single-admission doubleheader, beginning at 4:05 p.m. ET. The game in Philadelphia will be made up at 6:05 p.m. ET on Thursday, when both clubs were scheduled to be off.

In Toronto, the Blue Jays closed the roof of their stadium for their game against the Astros due to poor air quality. Several other minor-league games, as well as a WNBA game and an NWSL game, have also been postponed.

More than 200 wildfires burning in Canada, many of them in and around Quebec, have blanketed the eastern and northern United States in smoke and caused air quality levels to plummet in impacted areas. The National Weather Service issued an air quality alert. The NWS warned of “widespread haze” and smoke, mainly before 11 p.m. ET.

The Environmental Protection Agency pegged the air quality index at 392, earning its “Hazardous” designation, as of 4 p.m. ET. A moderate air quality index is typically around 100.

Earlier Wednesday, New York City…

There is a ping-pong room that Rob Thomson built in his basement back home in Stratford, Ontario, and it is a place where Thomson expected to spend more time beginning in 2023. It needs decorating. There are no pictures on the walls. “And,” Thomson said, “I can just see where I’m going to put all this stuff.” There is so much stuff now.

There are photos of Thomson on a stage constructed over the Citizens Bank Park infield dirt as he clutches a trophy. There are photos of Thomson with his players before raucous celebrations. There are photos of Thomson with his wife, Michele, as they bask in postseason splendor. There are memories from 38 years in professional baseball, most behind the scenes, but nothing quite like the past six months.

There are two other items that have since lost significance. Before he became the interim manager who steered the Phillies to an improbable National League pennant, Thomson was the dutiful bench coach who oversaw spring training. He left his apartment at 2:30 every morning and used the hours before dawn to prepare for that day’s workout. So, when spring training ended in April, Thomson kept a printed copy of the final workout schedule. He asked then-manager Joe Girardi for the lineup card from the final exhibition game. They were…