Jerry DiPaola stories, Page 147
Kent Tekulve’s message to Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez came from Hall of Famer
Two years ago in spring training, Kent Tekulve approached Felipe Vazquez. Tekulve, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ second all-time saves leader (he recorded 158 to Roy Face’s 191), wanted to impart some of his wisdom on the team’s current bullpen ace. “We had a 10-minute chat,” Vazquez said Saturday night when the...
Pirates notebook: Rookie Dario Agrazal provides big boosts to rotation
Nearly 100 games into the season, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ starting rotation remains a work in progress. Jameson Taillon and Steven Brault remain on the injured list. Trevor Williams, who spent a month rehabbing a side strain, was scratched as the starting pitcher Saturday night while battling a severe case of...
Pitt adds walk-on guard K.J. Marshall to 2019-20 roster
K.J. Marshall, who played in three state high school championship games in North Carolina, has joined Pitt’s team as a freshman walk-on guard. Marshall, 5-foot-11, 160 pounds, was a high school teammate of Pitt sophomore Au’Diese Toney. Marshall averaged 9.5 and 9.4 points over the past two seasons, hit 84...
Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi: No scholarship players sought to transfer this year
It’s July, and everyone is 0-0. So, of course, everyone has high hopes for the upcoming season. Pat Narduzzi is no different. But what makes Pitt’s coach most hopeful about the direction of his program is something that occured — or, actually, didn’t occur — in the offseason. “We were...
Pitt on stable ground in Pat Narduzzi’s 5th season, but with work to doVideo
Pat Narduzzi likes to approach every season in the same manner. Coaches, almost invariably, are creatures of habit. Change interrupts their thought process and their players’ focus. To the liking of Pitt’s administration and fans, Pitt’s football program is blessed with rare (at least, for this decade) stability at the...
Pitt releases first depth chart, but expect it to change
The first point to be made about Pitt’s first training camp depth chart is that it will change. Many times, and often for reasons only a coach could understand. Someone was late for breakfast. Someone else couldn’t answer a question during video study. Someone complained about the heat. But the...
Penn State picked to finish 4th in Big Ten East
Penn State was picked to finish fourth in the Big Ten East behind Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State in a preseason poll conducted by Cleveland.com. A total of 34 media members who cover the Big Ten participated in the poll. Michigan was the choice of 20 voters to win...
Documentary highlights Team Israel’s journey to 2017 World Baseball Classic
From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Seoul, South Korea, Team Israel made history in 2017 by qualifying for the World Baseball Classic for the first time in its nation’s history. The team’s underdog journey to the world stage inspired the making of a documentary “Heading Home, the Tale of Team...
Some Pitt football thoughts as the ACC gathers in Charlotte
Pat Narduzzi will open his fifth training camp as Pitt’s coach Aug. 2 on the South Side. The Panthers will have the place to themselves for a few weeks until the Pittsburgh Steelers return from Saint Vincent, creating that state of seclusion football coaches demand at camp. For three weeks,...
Josh Bell wins Pirates’ Heart and Hustle Award
Josh Bell continues to gain recognition beyond the All-Star Game. The Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association announced Tuesday that Bell is the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 2019 Heart and Hustle Award winner. The award honors active players who demonstrate “a passion for the game of baseball and best embody the values,...
Are Pirates’ pennant hopes gone? Here’s why they are, and why there’s hope
There is an argument to be made that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ playoff hopes disappeared during the three-game sweep by the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. The Pirates never have been more than five games over .500 this season, and that was April 20. Even after winning eight of 12 leading...
Pirates’ Francisco Cervelli says he hopes ‘to catch again’
Francisco Cervelli, who hasn’t played since May 25 after suffering a sixth concussion, posted on Instagram on Friday that his catching career is not over. “Saying that I quit from my catcher responsibilities is inaccurate,” he wrote. “My hope is to catch again.” View this post on Instagram “Saying that...
Wanna bet? It’s the season for college football over/unders
Nothing says the end of summer — even if it’s just begun — more than college football over/unders. We’re not halfway through July and baseball’s regular season still has 11 more weeks to run, but football is approaching. The Pittsburgh Steelers report to camp July 25, Pitt a week later....
What are Pirates’ 2nd-half needs as postseason push continues?
You can do the math, but you may not like how it adds up. The Pittsburgh Pirates will be contenders for a National League postseason berth when they resume their quest Friday at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs. But claiming one of the five playoff spots won’t be easy....
Pitt’s Kenny Pickett learns ‘between the ears’ QB skills from Mannings
The first thing you notice about Kenny Pickett is his chest. It’s bigger than it was during his first two seasons as a Pitt quarterback. Barrel-chested? Not quite, but Pickett said he’s gained 8 pounds since the end of the last season to 222 and admits he feels “bigger, stronger.”...
Former Delaware guard Ithiel Horton plans to enroll at Pitt, sit out this season
Ithiel Horton, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound guard who averaged 13.2 points last season as a freshman at Delaware, reported Wednesday on his Instagram account that he plans to transfer to Pitt. There is it pic.twitter.com/3O5ka6qeC6— Jim Hammett (@JimHammett) July 10, 2019 He has previously posted that he was choosing between Pitt...
Pitt hoops will face Big 12 co-champion Kansas State in Fort Myers tournament
Pitt will play Kansas State, the reigning Big 12 regular-season co-champion, in a semifinal of the Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans Fort Myers Tip-Off on Nov. 25 at the Suncoast Credit Union Arena in Fort Myers, Fla. The winner will be face either Northwestern or Bradley in the final Nov....
Pirates’ Josh Bell collects 1 of NL’s 5 hits in All-Star Game loss
CLEVELAND – Josh Bell has a plan for the next time he faces the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka. He’s just not speaking about it publicly. If there is a next time, it could be in a World Series. Until then, Tanaka must live with the fact that Bell got the best...
Pirates ready to take aim on 1st place in NL Central
CLEVELAND — While street sweepers clear away debris from the past two days of celebrating baseball and its stars, All-Star closer Felipe Vazquez will pack up the car Wednesday morning and return to Pittsburgh with his family. But he won’t be there long. It’s off to Chicago’s Wrigley Field on...
Union looks for changes in baseball’s economics after expiration of CBA in 2021
CLEVELAND — MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday there has been one preliminary meeting with the union to discuss the collective bargaining agreement that expires in 2021. Tony Clark, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, is concerned that the game’s economics are changing, evidenced by the delayed...
Despite record HR pace, MLB’s Rob Manfred insists balls aren’t juiced
CLEVELAND — On one side, you have American League All-Star starting pitcher Justin Verlander, who believes the baseballs are juiced this season. He has allowed a major league-high 26 home runs in only 19 starts, with perhaps 15 more outings to go. “It’s a joke,” he said Monday at All-Star...
Pirates’ Josh Bell bows out in first round of Home Run Derby
CLEVELAND — Josh Bell knows a baseball game when he sees one. What unraveled Monday night at Progressive Field during the MLB’s Home Run Derby had bats and balls, TV cameras everywhere you turned and an announced crowd of 36,119. But Bell knows this: “It wasn’t really baseball in my...
Pirates’ Josh Bell bows out of Home Run Derby early; Mets’ Pete Alonso wins
CLEVELAND — Josh Bell drove a baseball 459 feet, but the Pittsburgh Pirates’ All-Star lost in the first round of the Home Run Derby, 25-18, to the Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuna Jr., on Monday night at Progressive Field. With best friend Jon Schwind — a hitting coach for the Triple-A...
All-Stars Austin Meadows, Charlie Morton, Gerrit Cole find there’s life after Pirates
CLEVELAND — Austin Meadows made the trip to the All-Star Game on a private jet with his wife, Tampa Bay Rays teammates Brandon Lowe and Charlie Morton, and Morton’s wife and four kids. It was hard to believe fewer than 14 months ago, Meadows was hitting .448 through his first...
Pirates’ Josh Bell refuses to say ‘I told you so’ to critics
CLEVELAND — The world was listening. Media from all over the globe, men and women carrying all sorts of video equipment, cellphones and cameras, gathered around Josh Bell’s table Monday at Huntington Convention Center. He talked about everything from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pennant hopes in the second half of the...
