Word: batting
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...season shuffling, the Detroit Tigers lineup is now a murderers' row. The club traded for one of the best young hitters in the game, Florida third baseman Miguel Cabrera, who hit .320 last season, with 34 home runs and 119 RBI. The team also acquired Jacque Jones, who batted .332 after the All-Star break with the Chicago Cubs, and Edgar Renteria, long one of the most solid offensive shortstops in baseball (though his defense has declined). Magglio Ordonez, the '07 AL batting champ, and the always dangerous Gary Sheffield return from last year. How good is this lineup? Jones...
...heal a Dodger clubhouse in which the vets like Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciaparra and young guys like Matt Kemp and James Loney have previously failed to get along. New centerfielder Andruw Jones hit just .222 in his last Atlanta season - he'll need to get his bat back if Torre can work his magic once again...
...BATMAN In the past, a katana, a Japanese sword, was a samurai's soul. The warriors may be long gone, but the samurai spirit lives on--particularly among Japanese professional baseball players. Take the Seattle Mariners' All-Star center fielder Ichiro Suzuki. Between games, Ichiro gives his bat the katana treatment: keeping it protected in a sealed aluminum case. After every game, he takes it to his locker and shows his gratitude for its service by going through the ritual of cleaning...
Ichiro's reverence for the bat came to him during a 1992 visit to the wise man of batmaking, 64-year-old Isokazu Kubota, master craftsman for equipment manufacturer Mizuno Technics Corp. Over the past 49 years, Kubota has made custom-designed wooden bats for more than 1,500 professional players, including Pete Rose and Hideki Matsui...
When making a bat for Ichiro, for example, Kubota shaves it to 31 oz. to 31.75 oz. (880 g to 900 g), taking into account the 0.25 oz. (7 g) of lacquer that will be added. He places the sweet spot--the point of peak springiness--2 in. to 2.4 in. (5 cm to 6 cm) from the top, which is where Ichiro wants...