Astros

NC minor league teams start season

April 12, 2026 Shawn Krest

For the second year in a row, North Carolina has a minor league team on the move. Last year, Kinston’s franchise moved to the Spartanburg, S.C. area. This year, the state lost another longtime fixture […]

Minor league baseball wraps up

September 24, 2024 Shawn Krest

Durham Bulls The Bulls opened the Triple-A season with one of the top minor league prospects in baseball, in Junior Caminero. The perennial championship contenders struggled, however. Caminero missed extended time with an injury, then […]

Alvarez blasts Baker, Astros to World Series title over Phillies

November 5, 2022 The Associated Press

HOUSTON — Yordan Alvarez hit a towering go-ahead homer and the Houston Astros clinched their second World Series title in six seasons and got Dusty Baker his first crown as a manager with a 4-1 […]

The Big Dumper leads NC’s representation in MLB postseason

October 12, 2022 Shawn Krest

October is famous for crowning new cult heroes during baseball’s postseason, and this year has already found a prime candidate to join them: The Big Dumper. Cal Raleigh’s nickname — which celebrates the Seattle catcher’s […]

Camels crash 1st round of MLB Draft

July 20, 2022 Brett Friedlander

Members of the Campbell baseball team fancy themselves as “a bunch of nobodies from nowhere” because of their remote location in Buies Creek and the considerable shadow cast by their nationally recognized neighbors at UNC, […]

Braves take Game 6, win 1st World Series since ’95

November 2, 2021 The Associated Press

HOUSTON — Most of the season, it just seemed this wasn’t their year. They dropped their first four games, and soon injuries piled up. They lost their most dynamic player before the All-Star break. They […]

Baseball lifers Dusty Baker, Brian Snitker make World Series family affair

October 26, 2021 Shawn Krest

The last time Dusty Baker was in the World Series, his son nearly got run down. Darren Baker, then 3 years old, was helping his dad’s San Francisco team as a very small batboy when […]

MLB playoff contenders built from NC minor leagues

October 6, 2021 Shawn Krest

The MLB playoffs open this week, and the Durham Bulls and Charlotte Knights will battle for the chance to win the World Series. Not the current editions of the Bulls and Knights, of course, but […]

Lessons in sign-stealing from a major leaguer

October 14, 2020 Shawn Krest

The former major leaguer sat in front of a plate of barbecue, making eye contact with me across the table. His eyes darted hard to the left. After returning his gaze to me, he cut […]

Durham native, former Rays and Bulls exec Click named Astros’ GM

February 3, 2020 Cory Lavalette

HOUSTON — The Houston Astros hired James Click as their new general manager Monday, taking the Tampa Bay Rays executive and putting him in charge of the scandal-ridden team a week before the start of […]