Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco looks ready for Opening Day.

Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez will leave the club after Tuesday’s Cactus League game to play for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic qualifier tournament in Mexicali, Mexico. Gonzalez is expected to rejoin the Dodgers before next Monday’s game.

Even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, Noah Syndergaard can find ways to get hitters out.

Butler’s NCAA title battle against Duke in 2010 was a rare instance of an underdog college basketball program vying for a championship.

Dayton Moore is the GM of the defending World Series champions, but he is quick to share the credit with those around him.

As the 30 Major League teams continue to play out their Cactus League and Grapefruit League schedules, trimming down their rosters, assessing the talent in their organizations and finding out where they might be headed once the bell rings in April, there is international intrigue afoot once again in the week ahead.

Throwing mementos up into the stands has been standard practice for Astros bullpen catcher Javier Bracamonte. For 16 seasons, fans lucky enough to be sitting near the Astros’ bullpen have reaped the benefits of Bracamonte’s friendly, generous approach to his job.

Monday’s 14-game slate — with four available for streaming live on MLB.TV — features some of the game’s elite pitching talent. Five former Cy Young Award winners will toe the rubber, including Seattle’s Felix Hernandez, who will be making his spring debut.

Major Leaguers looked up from their lockers and tuned in to Selection Sunday for the anticipated details of the upcoming NCAA men’s basketball tournament. They wanted to know where their favorite schools were headed and what their seeds would be. They were ready to root along to the rhythms of the Big Dance.

Technology has allowed today’s fans to watch and appreciate Brooks Robinson, Willie Mays and others at least as much of fans of a half-century ago. Hundreds of baseball’s greatest moments are right there on our phones and tables, and what can be better than that?

Pick-off, diving stop, awesome scoop, diving catch.

By the time Jerry Dipoto had finished his first offseason as Mariners general manager, and Spring Training was ready to open, the franchise had 40-man roster that included 18 players acquired from other organizations.

Joey Gallo hit his second home run of the spring, and this one can officially be classified as a monster shot.

Spring Training scoreboards are notorious for their inconsistent velocity readings, on those occasions when the radar guns even work at all. So Matt Harvey couldn’t help but laugh when he looked up Sunday after throwing a fastball, in his words, “as hard as I could,” then watching it register at 47 mph.

The number 200 has special significance for Chris Sale.
No, it doesn’t represent a victory goal for the White Sox ace, which would make him one of three pitchers in franchise history to win that many. And no, it’s not the southpaw’s strikeout target, a number he has surpassed in each of his last three seasons, including a team-record 274 in 2015.

It was a rollicking first day of Spring Training for Hall of Famer, Oakland icon and A’s special instructor Rickey Henderson, whose presence in the clubhouse and on the field in Sunday morning at Hohokam Stadium seemed to brighten up everyone around him.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he’s confident rookie shortstop Corey Seager will be ready for Opening Day, even though Seager needs at least a full week of rest for his sprained left knee.