Pro Baseball

ATLANTA - From his backyard in Monroe, La. to pitching in a third-deck setting, as Ben Sheets described Turner Field, the former four-time All-Star for the Milwaukee Brewers never flinched.

The money! The fame! The privileges! The glamour! The death threats!

Being the wife of a professional athlete isn't what it used to be.

Barry Bonds admits that his reputation is "iffy" and that "I created that guy out there for entertainment only. Whether you hated me or liked me, you were there."

Five years removed from his playing days and 14 months from his felony obstruction conviction, Bonds wouldn't mind improving his public image.

You have to hand it to Josh Hamilton. While he's constantly on guard against his personal demons, he somehow still seems to be exactly what we want all athletes to be -- a big kid playing a child's game.

The Red Sox Nation is about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of Fenway Park, the oldest Major League Baseball stadium in use. The Boston landmark, which hosted its first American League game on April 20, 1912, has since achieved a status in America sports history unrivaled among inanimate legends. Praise for Fenway runs the gamut from literary understatement to wry humor to dead-on accuracy.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The numbers from opening day 2012 aren't yet available, so we don't know if the trend is continuing.

We don't know if the percentage of American blacks playing Major League Baseball continues to dwindle, wallowing at a single-digit level that concerns the suits running the game.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Ernie Bowman received his devastating diagnosis last summer: Stage IV prostate cancer with a prognosis of two months to live.