The weather in PA today was dark, cloudy, and raining for the first game, which was delayed almost an hour because of rain.  ESPN offers the games live online, or you can watch the replays of today’s games if you missed it.

Little League World Series results for Day 1:

Staten Island, New York vs. Mercer Island, Washington – 10-2 New York

Chinese Taipei vs. Germany – 16-0 Chinese Taipei

Warner Robins, Georgia vs. Urbandale, Iowa – 11-3 Georgia

Peabody, Massachusetts vs. San Antonio, Texas – 1-10 Texas

Watch games live on ESPN & replay

Little League World Series

Taken from:

Merlyn Mantle, with an image of her husband in background. (File 2001)

A native of Cardin, Okla., she met Mantle in 1949, when he was a star player at Commerce (Okla.) High School and she was a cheerleader at archrival Picher High School.

Remy was one of two security personnel fired by the Red Sox organization last September and more recently questioned by MLB investigators, the other being Nicholas Alex Cyr. Cyr has now told the Boston Globe that Remy has been questioned about being a supplier.

Remy’s case was not helped by the fact that he has supplied steroids to Cyr himself. Then again, neither man is new to police records. Remy wascharged with assault and battery and resisting arrest in 2005 in an incident with a previous girlfriend, and Cyr was found asleep at the wheel of his car in the middle of Quincy Shore Drive in Boston last summer with the steroid Anadrol in his car.

The Globe’s own investigations have brought up associations with a friend of Ortiz, but no hard evidence of the two star players’ own drug usage.

Taken from:

A three-time All-Star, Martinez is hitting .284 with 15 homers and 67 RBI, but he’s done that in a home park that ranks 28th in scoring (and last in the AL) in scoring, according to ESPN’s Park Factor calculations. Boston’s Fenway Park, on the other hand, ranks ninth overall (and fourth in the AL).

That bodes well for V-Mart’s fantasy owners, who can expect an uptick in production just by moving to a better offensive lineup. However, he also creates a logjam at first base since the Red Sox recently acquired Adam LaRoche from the Pirates. Martinez will also cut into playing time for starting catcher Jason Varitek, who’s probably the biggest loser from a fantasy standpoint. David Ortiz, hitting just .228 this season, also figures to lose at-bats – especially against left-handed pitching.

Perhaps the biggest news is that neither of the top young arms on Boston’s major league roster, Clay Buchholz and Daniel Bard, is part of the deal.

The Indians, who’ve already traded ace Cliff Lee and first baseman Ryan Garko in the past week, will receive 24-year-old right-hander Justin Masterson as the centerpiece of the three-player package. If that’s the case, it’s a huge boost to Masterson’s fantasy value since he’d probably go straight into the Indians’ starting rotation.

Also in the package are minor league pitchers Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price. Hagadone, 23, was a college teammate of NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum. He missed most of last season after having Tommy John surgery and has only pitched 25 innings at Class A this year.

Price was drafted 45th overall by the Red Sox in the 2008 draft, but only has a 5-11 record in the minors with a 4.42 ERA.

Taken from:

The name that jumped out at me was Hagadone, a lefty who has strong local ties. He pitched at Sumner High School and then for the Huskies, where he had a stint as Tim Lincecum’s closer and also started games, making first-team All-Pac 10 in 2007.

The Red Sox picked him in the supplemental first round in 2007 (55th overall), and he was on the fast track until undergoing Tommy John surgery in June of 2008. But he’s come back this season to start nine games at Class AA Greenville of the Southern League. Hagadone has an 0-2 record but a solid 2.86 ERA, with just 13 hits allowed in 22 innings, and 30 strikeouts. The fact that he’s pitched just 22 innings in nine starts tells me he’s on a strict pitch count.

Here are a few links about Hagadone. And one more: A story I did last October on the Red Sox’s Northwest connection.

Here’s the take of ESPN’s Keith Law on Hagadone: Left-hander Nick Hagadone, 23, is just 26 innings into his return from 2009 Tommy John surgery, but has shown most of the velocity he had before his elbow snapped (on a changeup, of all things) last April. As a reliever, Hagadone should sit in the mid-90s with a potential out-pitch slider and a much-improved changeup; he has the pitches to start but lacks starting experience and stretching his arm out so he can handle a full season’s workload in a rotation will take a long time. His command has been mediocre this year, but that’s usually the last thing to return after a pitcher has ligament-replacement surgery. The odds are good that either Price or Hagadone will start for Cleveland down the road, with the other and Masterson becoming impact relievers.

Copied from:

Hairston Jr. has been in the majors for a decade, making his debut back in September 1998 with the Orioles. He played second base in Baltimore through 2003, eventually moving to the outfield in 2004 after Brian Roberts established himself as the everyday second baseman.

Hairston hit .261 with 26 homers, 160 RBI and 94 stolen bases in six seasons with the Orioles before being traded to the Cubs in February 2005 for Sammy Sosa. He has bounced around since then, playing parts of two seasons in Chicago before being traded to Texas, where he played for 1 1/2 years with the Rangers. He’s spent the past two seasons in Cincinnati, serving as a jack of all trades for the Reds.

This season, the 33-year-old Hairston has played 33 games at third base, 31 at shortstop, 17 in the outfield and nine at second, so he’ll likely replace Cody Ransom on the roster while giving the Yankees another player to use in the outfield before Brett Gardner returns from the DL. Hairston is hitting .254 with eight homers, 27 RBI and seven steals in 86 games this season.

Weems, 20, was selected by the Yankees in the sixth round of the 2007 First-Year Player Draft. He batted .260 (45-for-173) with 10 doubles, 1 HR and 14 RBI in 55 games with Single-A Charleston this season. Weems made his professional debut in 2008, combining to bat .220 (18-for-82) with 8 runs, 5 doubles, 1 home run and 10 RBI in 33 games with the GCL Yankees and Charleston.

Taken from:

LaRoche, 29, played for the Braves from 2004 to ’06. He hits for more power than Kotchman and traditionally hits well in the second half. The Braves’ thinking is that he could ignite returning to familiar surroundings.

The Red Sox’s motivation in adding Kotchman is not as clear. Kotchman is an outstanding fielder, and the Red Sox’s defense would improve if he were at first and Kevin Youkilis got the majority of playing time over Mike Lowell at third.

Martinez, under that scenario, presumably would get most of his at-bats at catcher and DH.

This is the second straight year that Kotchman has been dealt at the trade deadline. Last year, the Angels sent him to Atlanta as part of the Mark Teixeira deal.

Taken from:

The San Diego Padres traded their ace to the White Sox on Friday, barely beating the deadline to make deals without waivers.

The Padres got four young pitchers for Peavy — Clayton Richard, Aaron Poreda, Dexter Carter and Adam Russell.

In May, the Padres and White Sox agreed to a deal for Peavy, but the 2007 NL Cy Young Award winner turned it down. But this time, Peavy agreed to waive his no-trade clause and joined the AL Central contenders.

“He never said no, he just said ‘not yet,’” White Sox general manager Kenny Williams said.

The 28-year-old Peavy is 6-6 with a 3.97 ERA in 13 starts with the Padres this season but has been on the disabled list since June 13 with a strained tendon in his right ankle. Williams said the White Sox didn’t expect Peavy to pitch until the end of August.

Over eight major league seasons with the Padres, Peavy is 92-68 with a 3.29 ERA and 1,348 strikeouts in 212 starts. He was a unanimous selection for the Cy Young Award in 2007 when he went 19-6 with a 2.54 ERA and 240 strikeouts in 34 starts.

He will give the White Sox a top starter along with lefty Mark Buehrle, who pitched a perfect game in July. Peavy joins a rotation that includes Gavin Floyd, John Danks and Jose Contreras. The White Sox began play Friday in third place in the AL Central, two games behind first-place Detroit and a half-game back of the Twins.

Richard, who pitched well in his past two starts, was the scheduled starter Friday night against the Yankees before the trade was announced.

The 25-year-old lefty was 4-3 with a 4.65 ERA in 26 games, including 14 starts, with the White Sox this season.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

George Sherill racked up 51 saves in two seasons with the Orioles, but he'll be a set-up guy for the Dodgers.

The Dodgers, on the other hand, have one of the most overworked bullpens in baseball, and desperately needed help for Jonathan Broxton, Hong-Chih Kuo, Ramon Troncoso and pals. Entering Thursday, Dodgers relief pitchers had thrown an amazing 350 innings, with only the Padres bullpen logging more. Of the seven bullpens currently logging the most innings, only the Dodgers would be playoff participants if the season ended today.

Sherrill will certainly help, but from a fantasy aspect, don’t expect saves. This is the danger of owning closers on bad teams, that they sometimes get dealt and become setup men for good teams. Broxton, abused or not, has been fantasy’s top closer this season, in part from his seven wins, but he also leads all relief pitchers in strikeouts and he’s among the league leaders in saves. Troncoso, a 26-year-old right-hander, leads all major league relief pitchers in innings. Kuo just returned from an elbow injury that three months ago was rumored to possibly end his career. The Dodgers needed Sherrill bad to help set up Broxton. I don’t envision saves coming the left-hander’s way.

The Orioles now need someone to save games, and don’t think this is a meaningless role. Sherrill had 20 saves for a team with 43 wins, which is not a bad percentage at all. The obvious choice would be the team’s main set-up man, Jim Johnson, a groundball-throwing right-hander who leads the Orioles with 14 holds, and pitched in with two saves as well. Johnson has a solid 3.17 ERA and 1.24 WHIP, but he isn’t having quite the same season he did in 2008, when he threw 68 2/3 innings and allowed nary a home run. Johnson has already given up five home runs, and right-handed batters held a .296 batting average against him. Johnson could pick up 10 or more saves the rest of the way, so he’s worth adding in pretty much any format, but he’s no guarantee to be successful.

Taken from:

David Ortiz, left, and Manny Ramirez propelled the Boston Red Sox to two World Series titles. Both tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.

Some of baseball’s most cherished storylines of the past decade have been tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, including the accomplishments of record-setting home run hitters and dominating pitchers. Now, players with Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007 have also been linked to doping.

Baseball first tested for steroids in 2003, and the results from that season were supposed to remain anonymous. But for reasons that have never been made clear, the results were never destroyed and the first batch of positives has come to be known among fans and people in baseball as “the list.” The information was later seized by federal agents investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes, and the test results remain the subject of litigation between the baseball players union and the government.

Five others have been tied to positive tests from that year: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Jason Grimsley and David Segui. Bonds, baseball’s career home runs leader, was not on the original list, although federal agents seized his 2003 sample and had it retested. Those results showed the presence of steroids, according to court documents.

The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.

Unlike Ramirez, who recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.

Scott Boras, the agent for Ramirez, would not comment Thursday.

Asked about the 2003 drug test on Thursday in Boston, Ortiz shrugged. “I’m not talking about that anymore,” he said. “I have no comment.”

The union has argued that the government illegally seized the 2003 test results, and judges at various levels of the federal court system have weighed whether the government can keep them. The government hopes to question every player on the list to determine where the drugs came from. An appeals court is deliberating the matter, and the losing side is likely to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

A spokesman for the United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California, which seized the tests, declined to comment on Thursday. Michael Weiner, the general counsel for the players union, also declined to comment.

One by one, the names of elite players tied to performance-enhancing drugs have surfaced this year. In February, it was Rodriguez and Bonds. In May, it was Ramirez — for the first time. In June, it was Sosa.

Rodriguez had been viewed by some as a clean player who could eventually overtake the career home run record established by Bonds, who had been linked to possible drug use through the federal investigation. Rodriguez subsequently admitted that he used a performance-enhancing substance from 2001 to 2003.

The Times reported in June that Sosa was among those who tested positive in 2003, the first time he had been publicly tied to performance-enhancing drugs. Sosa became a national figure with the Chicago Cubs in 1998, when he and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals engaged in a celebrated race to overtake Roger Maris’s single-season home run record of 61. McGwire’s image suffered tremendously when, at a Congressional hearing in 2005, he refused to answer questions about steroid use.

By 2003, Ramirez had long since established himself as one of baseball’s best hitters. Ortiz, however, was less known. In 2002, the Minnesota Twins effectively cut him after failing to trade him. He signed a bargain contract with the Red Sox and began the 2003 season as a backup.

Ortiz quickly blossomed, setting personal highs in home runs (31) and runs batted in (101). He surpassed those numbers in each of the next four seasons.

Ramirez, with his dreadlocks and quirky behavior, and Ortiz, with his gregarious personality and portly build, formed a dynamic tandem on and off the field. They seemed to feed off each other — not to mention demoralize opponents — by hitting back-to-back in the heart of the lineup.

In 2004, they helped the Red Sox overcome a 3-0 series deficit against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. The Red Sox then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series to end decades of heartbreak in Boston. Ortiz had a game-winning home run and a game-winning hit against the Yankees and was named the most valuable player of that series. Ramirez was named the World Series M.V.P. after going 7 for 17 at the plate with a home run.

Three years after winning that first title, Ramirez and Ortiz returned Boston to another World Series, where they defeated the Colorado Rockies.

The pairing was split last season when the Red Sox traded Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers after team officials grew concerned that he was not playing hard in response to a contract dispute. In Los Angeles, Ramirez took off again, becoming popular among the fans and leading the Dodgers to the playoffs.

But Ramirez’s hero status in Los Angeles took a hit in May when he was suspended after baseball officials learned that he had been prescribed a fertility drug often used by bodybuilders after they stopped using steroids. When Ramirez was suspended, he issued a statement that appeared to maneuver around his 2003 test results.

“I do want to say one other thing,” Ramirez said. “I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.”

That five-year period extended back to 2004, which excludes the 2003 test.

Since returning from his suspension, Ramirez has been widely accepted by the home fans. In 48 games this season, he has compiled a .327 average and has hit 11 home runs.

Ortiz, meanwhile, has been in a sharp decline. He had an operation on his wrist last year and missed nearly a third of the season. He started this year in a slump and did not hit his first home run until a month and a half into the season. Since June 1, however, he has hit 12 more home runs.

In 2007, Ortiz said that he used to buy a protein shake in the Dominican Republic when he was younger and did not know if it contained a performance-enhancing drug.

“I don’t do that anymore because they don’t have the approval for that here, so I know that, so I’m off buying things at the GNC back in the Dominican Republic,” Ortiz told The Boston Herald. He added: “I don’t know if I drank something in my youth, not knowing it.”

In February, he said that players who tested positive for steroids should be suspended for an entire season — about 100 games more than the current policy requires for a first offense.

David Waldstein contributing reporting from Boston.

Copied from: