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 call came on the evening of Jan. 9, as the Caray family gathered in the living room in St. Augustine, Fla.

Sitting on pins and needles, St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster Chip Caray, his wife, Susan, and three of their children Summerlyn, Stefan, and Tristan, waited with bated breath as a fourth child, Chris Caray, answered the phone. His agent, Lou Oppenheim, was on the line, and he had a couple of pertinent questions.

NBC Sports California, the regional cable network of the Oakland A’s, had spent the offseason conducting a search for a new play-by-play voice. Chris was a finalist, and the network had circled Jan. 10 as their internal deadline. Oppenheim began the call with some logistic inquiries. If Chris was hired, a cross-country move would need to take place. Where would he live? What would the transportation situation be like? Would he get an apartment?

“I said, ‘Dude, I can’t even answer these right now,’” Chris recalled with a laugh.

The response from Oppenheim?

“Well, you better come up with answers pretty fast, because you got the job.”

Chaos erupted in the Caray household. A fourth generation of the family had made it to the major leagues. At 24 years old, Chris was officially a big-league broadcaster, the same age as his father when he landed his first…

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…

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It’s time to start thinking about the All-Star rosters, we have history waiting in the wings, and if you’re gonna be a buyer — or a seller — you gotta get it right. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

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She plays a tune for those who wish to overlook

I’m just old enough to remember the cover of Sports Illustrated from March 14, 1988. An umpire is shown pointing and yelling, and while the face is obscured by a mask, the headline caught my attention:

THE LADY IS AN UMP: Pam Postema gets a shot at the big leagues

That was 35 years ago, but no woman — not Postema or anyone else — has ever worked a regular-season game in the big leagues, despite women working as officials in the NBA and NFL (including Sarah Thomas, who became the first woman to work a Super Bowl in 2021).

That might change in the coming years. Britt Ghiroli has a great story today about Jen Pawol, who is currently working games in Triple A. It’s a story about a trailblazer, sure, but Ghiroli digs into the history of female umpires, including Postema, who settled out of court on a lawsuit alleging discrimination, and Teresa Cox, whose lawsuit…

On April 30 in Durham, N.C., St. Louis Cardinals legend Adam Wainwright made a rehab start for the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds. All eyes were on Wainwright, the three-time All-Star and playoff hero, who was on the verge of rejoining the big-league team.

Still, it’s doubtful many fans noticed one of the more mundane parts of every game: when the home plate umpire came out to check Wainwright’s hands for foreign substances.

For 46-year-old Jen Pawol, the first female umpire to reach Triple A in 34 years, nothing is mundane. Every play, every pitch – even a substance check – is another step closer to the big leagues. Pawol is just trying to get the next call right. But sometimes, even in her eighth year as a professional umpire, the gravity of what she is attempting breaks through.

“Jen, I have four daughters,” Wainwright said as Pawol approached the mound, “and I think what you’re doing is awesome.”

Major League Baseball has had female coaches and general managers and scouts and all-women broadcast teams. But there has never been a female umpire in the big leagues. Women have umpired major league spring training games and in the minors, but never in the show. Several have tried. They lowered their voices and cut their hair short, they tried to fit in, and still…

If you have questions about the future of your team’s live games on your local cable, satellite or digital provider, particularly those on Bally Sports channels, we’re here to answer with what we know so far.

Diamond Sports Group, the Baltimore-based corporate parent of the 19 Bally Sports channels that air 47 NBA, MLB, NHL and WNBA teams, announced Feb. 15 that it would skip a $140 million debt payment due that day and use the month-long grace period as part of its effort to financially reorganize itself.

Many observers interpret the move as a precursor to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, though that is not a certainty. Diamond has $8 billion-plus of debt, incurred as part of parent Sinclair’s 2019 purchase of the regional sports channels, and lost $1.2 billion in the most recent fiscal quarter.

“Certainly more likely that they will file bankruptcy because they did not make the payment,” said Schuyler Carroll, a bankruptcy attorney who is not connected to Diamond. “But not necessarily that they will file bankruptcy. They are still continuing discussions with their creditors to try and avoid bankruptcy. But those can often be difficult.”

Diamond in a Feb. 15 statement said it “intends to use the 30-day grace period to continue progressing its ongoing…