Astros slugger Marisnick suspended for two games

Houston Astros outfielder Jake Marisnick was suspended for two games and fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Baseball for his home-plate collision with Los Angeles Angels catcher Jonathan Lucroy on Sunday.

Joe Torre, MLB’S chief baseball officer, announced the ruling on Thursday.

Torre said he didn’t believe Marisnick “intended to injure” Lucroy, but that he broke a rule designed to protect catchers from “precisely this type of collision.”

Lucroy sustained a concussion and a broken nose on the play. Marisnick was ruled out after deviating from his path and lowering his shoulder to make contact with Lucroy.

Marisnick was scheduled to begin serving his suspension Thursday, but could appeal the ruling.

Former Boston Red Sox star David Ortiz had additional surgery as he continues to recover from a gunshot wound sustained more than a month ago, his wife Tiffany said in a statement released on Thursday.

Ortiz, 43, was shot in the back on June 9 as he sat at a club in the Dominican Republic. Local officials have said Ortiz was shot in a case of mistaken identity and have at least 14 people in custody in connection with the shooting.

Doctors removed his gallbladder and part of his colon and intestines in the initial surgery. Ortiz also sustained liver damage.

Former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, whose irreverent, raunchy baseball memoir, Ball Four, attracted both hostility and acclaim, died on Wednesday at his home in Massachusetts, according to media reports. He was 80.

The Newark, N.J., native died following a battle with a brain disease linked to dementia after weeks of hospice care, New York’s Daily News reported.

The knuckleballer, who spent 10 years in the major leagues, was best known for writing the bestselling Ball Four, recounting the 1969 season when he was a member of the expansion Seattle Pilots and the Houston Astros, as well as his earlier years with the Yankees.

The book gave fans an intimate glimpse into the drinking, drug use and sexual escapades that went on in pro baseball at that time.

When released, the book was harshly criticized within the game, especially by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

But the memoir became widely popular with baseball fans. It is now considered one of the most important sports books ever written and is on Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest non-fiction books of all time.