Jayson Stark

Senior Writer, MLB

Jayson Stark is the 2019 winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for which he was honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jayson has covered baseball for more than 30 years. He spent 17 of those years at ESPN and ESPN.com, and, since 2018, has chronicled baseball at The Athletic and MLB Network. He is the author of three books on baseball, has won an Emmy for his work on "Baseball Tonight," has been inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame and is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year award. In 2017, Topps issued an actual Jayson Stark baseball card.

Weird & Wild MLB June highlights: Running Red Sox, outrageous Ohtani and a 'clock-off' win

Congrats to Kyle Finnegan, the first pitcher to let a game end by forgetting to throw a pitch until after the pitch clock ticked to zero.

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The 25-game hitting streak is vanishing (but don't tell Bryan Reynolds)

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MLB offense is nearing all-time lows — hitters have theories: 'Pitching is out of control'

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The incomparable Willie Mays: 22 numbers that highlight the greatness of No. 24

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Triple-A games to start fully using automated ball-strike challenge system

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Yusei Kikuchi's 'crazy' collision, Dodgers-Yankees classics, and blowing a 15-1 lead

I can't stop watching the video of Kikuchi romping out of the dugout to flatten a first baseman who was merely trying to play first base.

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Orioles' amazing AL East series streak is most impressive run of division-play era

The O's have played 21 consecutive series against teams in their division without losing any of them. So how historic and astonishing is it?

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Weird & Wild's 12 MLB players and teams of the month, from Aaron Judge to smelly White Sox

From the A's to (Luis) Arraez, these dozen teams and players are standing out for all the right — or wrong — reasons.

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The Weirdest and Wildest MLB games, feats and minutia of the past month

From Corey Seager to Jeremiah Estrada to Rhys Hoskins to the injury of the month. Plus a conversation with the turtle delay announcer.

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Did Satchel Paige throw more no-hitters than Nolan Ryan? As MLB adds Negro League stats, it's unclear

Paige is the perfect example of the difficult decisions that await the committee weighing the next phase of MLB's complicated stats project.

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Twelve MLB rule change ideas to save the starting pitcher: Suggestions from people in the game

The Athletic spent weeks asking pitchers, execs and coaches how baseball can save the starting pitcher. Here are their rule change ideas.

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Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander sound off on how MLB can save the starting pitcher

“You have to force the issue a little bit, and it needs to happen quickly,” Verlander said.

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Can MLB save the starting pitcher? The search for solutions to baseball's 'existential crisis'

What rule changes could keep pitchers healthier and restore the prominence of the starter? A look at ideas from execs, players and coaches.

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Weird and Wild: Aaron Boone’s ejection, a bee swarm in Arizona and unrefrigerated sausage

Eric Stangel, former head writer for Letterman, stops by to give a W&W opening monologue and try to make sense of a crazy couple of weeks.

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Opposite day for Yankees, Diamondbacks, Marlins. New lows for White Sox, Rockies

Only in baseball can a team one day annihilate its opponent, or look like it might never get a hit. And then ... do the exact opposite.

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What we learned in MLB's first month of the season, an unpredictable and electric April

April baseball can confound, but we're here to help make sense of it, with 10 things we learned and insights from front-office executives.

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Could the woeful White Sox lose more than the '62 Mets? They're off to a great start!

Is this just a rough start? Or is it where the road to 121 losses begins? This Weird & Wild starts with just how bad the Sox have been.

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A quick appreciation of Red Sox pitcher Tanner Houck's 1-hour, 49-minute shutout

“When I was there,” former Red Sox managerial quipster Terry Francona said, “we couldn’t even do the introductions in an hour and 49.”

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MLB's endangered ace crisis: Spencer Strider's surgery is latest reminder of what baseball has lost

The slew of injured starters is inflicting seismic damage on the entertainment value of the sport. A talk with Strider offers a reminder.

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Presenting Baseball's All-Eclipse Team, from Sonny Gray to Moonlight Graham

Behold the other-worldly majesty of the first (and undoubtedly last) All-Eclipse Team, in all its pun-filled glory.

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Ronel Blanco's no-hitter history, Rockies' (and Mets') rocky start, Bryce Harper's homers

Houston, we have a(nother) no-hitter: Welcome to the first Weird and Wild column of 2024. Let's run through the highlights (and lowlights).

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Happy New Year, Baseball: 15 wild ways Week 1 of 2024 MLB season was nothing like 2023

It’s basically one week into this MLB season, and of course it seems like the whole sport is turned upside-down. That’s how baseball works.

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Help us come up with baseball's All-Eclipse Team!

Submit your suggestions for baseball's All-Eclipse Team. From Sun-Woo Kim to Moonlight Graham, there are plenty of pun-laden possibilities.

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Joe Maddon's front-row view of Ohtani’s relationship with interpreter: They were 'inseparable'

During his Angels tenure, Maddon witnessed the close bond between Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara. He discussed that and much more on Starkville.

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MLB in 2024: 25 numbers that define baseball and set the stage for this season

In baseball, every number tells a story. And this is the column where I let the numbers tell the story of the season that’s about to unfold.

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