EX-PITCHER YOUNG NAMED TEXAS GM
The Texas Rangers hired Chris Young as executive vice president and general manager Friday, bringing the Major League Baseball executive home to work under president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, the club’s GM since 2005.
Young pitched 13 seasons in the majors, the first two with the Rangers after the 6foot-10 two-sport standout grew up in Dallas and played baseball and basketball at Princeton. The 41-year-old had been with MLB since May 2018.
The return to Texas comes after Young interviewed for the GM opening with the New York Mets, who recently abandoned an effort to hire a president of baseball operations to focus on the GM search.
Young was the senior vice president in charge of onfield operations and the umpires with MLB. He worked closely with the Rangers on baseball issues related to construction of Globe Life Field, which opened this past season.
Young oversaw on-field operations for three rounds of neutral-site playoffs in Arling ton this fall. Globe Life was the only venue to have fans during the pandemicshortened 2020 season.
“As a Dallas native who grew up rooting for the Rangers, I recognize what a special opportunity this is and how much the Rangers mean to this community,” said Young, who lives in Dallas with his wife and three children. “I look forward to learning from and working with Jon on a daily basis.”
After winning what would become a career hightying 12 games for Texas in 2005, Young was part of a sixplayer trade with San Diego. He spent five seasons with the Padres, his longest stint with one team, and was an All-Star in 2007.
Young also pitched for the Mets, Seattle and Kansas City, helping the Royals win the World Series in 2015. He was 79-67 with a 3.95 ERA in 271 appearances, including 221 starts.
MLB sues insurers
Major League Baseball and all 30 of its teams are suing their insurance providers, citing billions of dollars in losses during the 2020 season played almost entirely without fans due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The suit, filed in October in California Superior Court in Alameda County, was obtained by The Associated Press, says providers AIG, Factory Mutual and Interstate Fire and Casualty Company have refused to pay claims made by MLB despite the league’s “all-risk” policy purchases.
The league claims to have lost billions of dollars on unsold tickets, hundreds of millions on concessions, tens of millions on parking and millions more on suites and luxury seat licenses, in-park merchandise sales and corporate sponsorships. It also cites over a billion dollars in local and national media losses, plus tens of millions in missed income for MLB Advanced Media. It says all of those losses should be covered by their policies.
Notable
A minor league baseball team once affiliated with the New York Yankees has shut down and filed a lawsuit accusing the Yankees violating an agreement that it would never abandon the farm club.
The owners of the Staten Island Yankees announced in a statement Thursday that with “great regret, we must cease operations.” They also said they were suing the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball “to hold those entities accountable for false promises” that they would always keep the team as a farm club.
The local franchise could have tried playing in an independent league, but that “would force Staten Island to field a subpar team,” the statement said.
Len Kasper, the Chicago Cubs’ longtime TV play-by-play announcer, is joining the radio booth of the crosstown White Sox. Kasper, who spent 16 seasons on the North Side, will call games alongside former major leaguer Darrin Jackson. He replaces Andy Masur, who took over after longtime announcer Ed Farmer died in April.
RHP Joe Gatto agreed to a one-year contract with the Rangers, who brought back OF Scott Heineman with a one-year deal just one day after allowing him to become a free agent.