Chipper Jones hates Toronto

Don’t expect Toronto mayor David Miller to hand ballplayer Chipper Jones the key to the city any time soon.


The Atlanta Braves third baseman wasn’t exactly selling the city as a tourist destination this week while attending the World Baseball Classic as a member of Team USA.

“Just way too many days off,” he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We stayed in Toronto for a week and played three games. I don’t know if you ever stayed in Toronto, but it’s not exactly Las Vegas. To say that we were plucking our eyebrows out one at a time would be an understatement.”

Jones, who has never managed to play a full 162-game schedule in any of his 14 major league seasons, strained an oblique muscle during the tournament and has since left the American club to join the Braves at spring training for treatment.

The sour grapes didn’t stop with Toronto.

Jones told the newspaper there’s far too many days off between games, and if the format doesn’t change, he won’t play again.

“There’s some serious problems with the WBC setup,” said Jones, who will skip the rest of the tournament. “I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. But I wouldn’t do it again under the current format. There’s way too many days off. This tournament could be over by now.”

The 2008 National League batting champ went 0-for-10 with six strikeouts in three games for Team USA.

Complaining about having too many days off? not having anything to do?? If you can't find something to do in Toronto, there is something wrong with you.

Have you heard of The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Royal Ontario Museum, Casa Loma (I love that place) the CN Tower, The entire entertainment district, All of our restaraunts (foods from all over the world can be found here) I could keep going and going.... Nothing to do in Toronto? What are you talking about???

Elderly California woman finds extremely rare baseball card from 1869

Somewhere amid her collection of worn jukeboxes and slot machines, a 72-year-old California woman recently discovered an antique worth saving: a rare baseball card of the first professional team in the United States.

And if it weren't for the keen intervention of a friend of hers, she would have sold the valuable 1869 card of the Cincinnati Red Stockings on auction website eBay for just $10.


"I didn't even know baseball existed that far back," said Bernice Gallego, who owns an antique shop in Fresno, a mid-sized city in the state's farming region. "I don't think that I've ever been to a baseball game."

She put a $10 price tag on it, deciding against $15 because it would have cost her an extra 20 cents in fees (darn eBay with there fees!!!!).

She immediately pulled the card from auction after realizing it could be worth much more when someone asked her to end the auction immediately.

The front of the card features a sepia-toned, gelatin-silver photographic print of the entire team. The reverse, a red-and-white advertisement for Peck & Snyder, a New York sports equipment manufacturer.

Experts at the Los Angeles-based PSA, the leading sports card grading and authenticating company, say the card is indeed authentic and the team photo is relatively unscathed.

Sports card collectors prize any card featuring the Cincinnati Red Stockings, who laid the foundation for what is today's Major League Baseball.

"They were kind of an all-star team before that concept really existed," said Tim Wiles, who directs research at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. "They went around and challenged all comers. They barnstormed around the country and were undefeated."

Gallego and her husband still can't say for certain how they got the card, but believe it was in the contents of a storage space they bought a few years ago.

"We really don't know where we got it," Gallego said. "It's a little card I found in a bunch of stuff."

New York Yankees offer 25¢ bleacher seats for 2009 opening game at new Yankee Stadium

The price of a bleacher seat for the exhibition openers at the new Yankee Stadium will cost far less than a soda at the concession stands.

The Yankees have announced that bleacher seats for the games against the Chicago Cubs on April 3 and 4 will sell for 25 cents and grandstand tickets will be $1.10(US funds) .

That matches the prices for the opener of the original Yankee Stadium against Boston on April 18, 1923.

Field level seats at the new 52,325-seat ballpark will cost $45 to $50, main level $20 to $45 and terrace level $20 to $35. Full season-ticket holders will get the seats for free, and those who bought partial season-tickets will be given a pre-sale.

The regular-season opener is scheduled for April 16 against Cleveland.

Tickets cost as much as $2,500 a game during the regular season.