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…

NASHVILLE — Jim Leyland buttoned up his forever jersey on Monday, the one with “Hall of Fame” in script across the front. He sat on a ballroom dais at the Winter Meetings, flanked by Hall officials as his wife, Katie, beamed with pride from a few feet away. So did former rivals and colleagues like Tony La Russa and Joe Torre.

Leyland, 78, was one of them now: a certified Hall of Famer, elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee on Sunday night. A phone call from the Hall’s chairman, Jane Forbes Clark, welcomed him to Cooperstown.

“My wife said, who is that? I said, ‘It’s Jake from State Farm,’” Leyland said, his deadpan wit still sharp. “Anyway, I had 294 texts last night, from friends and people all over the world, really. … I can’t tell you how fortunate a ride it’s been.”

As joyous as the occasion was for Leyland, it was striking to see the other, empty side of the dais. That’s where Lou Piniella should have been.

At MLB’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, attention has shifted to the Hall of Fame’s newest electee. Jim Leyland addressed the media Monday, reflecting on his life in baseball and looking ahead to July’s Induction Ceremony.

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— National Baseball Hall of Fame and…

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….

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…