MLB

There's absolutely no way Mike Scioscia returns to manage the Angels following Joe Maddon's firing ... the former Halos coach tells TMZ Sports he's officially done with that part of his life.

The 63-year-old, who coached L.A. from 2000 to 2018 -- winning one World Series -- told us out at LAX that even though his ex-team is looking for another manager after canning Maddon this week, he won't be a candidate.

"No, man," he said with a laugh. "No, I'm relaxing now. I'm retired."

Scioscia is still hanging around the game -- he coached the U.S. Olympics team to a silver medal in Tokyo last year -- and he's slated to be a manager for one of the teams in the All-Star Futures Game next month.

He made it clear, though, dabbling here and there on the end of the dugout bench is as far as he'll go these days.

"I've done my time," he said. "I loved it. But now, I'm in a little different scenario."

Earmuffs, kids!!!

Dodgers pitcher Tyler Anderson dropped a massive F-bomb during a game on Thursday that was so loud, it was actually captured on a hot mic at the stadium.

Anderson let the obscenity fly in the fourth inning of L.A.'s game against the White Sox in Chicago, after throwing his fourth ball to Jose Abreu.

The pitch, on a 3-2 count, just barely missed ... but Anderson still clearly hated it.

"F***!!!!" he screamed.

The game's broadcasters had fun with the moment ... with one saying, "There was something that he yelled when he delivered that ball and I'm thinking, you're a very young man, close your headset. You don't want to hear that."

Anderson ended up being pulled from the game a few batters later -- not because of cussin', but rather because he was just ineffective -- but it all still could end up OK for him.

Not even Chad Kroeger's sweet vocals were enough to pull the Angels out of their losing skid ... 'cause despite playing Nickelback songs on repeat in L.A. on Wednesday to try to get a win -- the team still lost.

Every Angels batter walked out to a different Nickelback tune in their game against Boston in an effort to mix up the mojo amid a 13-game losing streak ... and the idea had initial promise.

With Shohei Ohtani coming out to "Photograph" and Jo Adell strutting to the dish to "Rockstar" -- the team held up strong against the Red Sox for most of the game.

Sadly for L.A., the Nickelback theme didn't work ... and Boston ultimately pulled out the win, 1-0 -- handing the Angels their 14th consecutive loss.

Afterward, interim manager Phil Nevin -- who replaced the newly fired Joe Maddon this week -- said he had no clue where the idea started, but he was in favor of it.

"I like it. I like Nickelback," the 51-year-old said. "The entire game I've got songs in my head I can't stop singing."

Stunning news in the MLB ... the L.A. Angels have just fired Joe Maddon after hiring him less than three years ago.

The team announced the move Tuesday afternoon ... canning the 68-year-old as the Angels are currently mired in a 12-game losing streak.

The org. has named Phil Nevin manager in the interim.

Despite the team's skid of consecutive losses, most figured Maddon would at least make it through the year -- given his track record (he's a 3-time Manager of the Year and two-time World Series Champ) and the fact that the team just signed him before the 2020 season.

But, L.A. execs clearly believed the squad was underachieving ... especially with two of the best players in baseball in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the roster.

And, it certainly didn't help Maddon's case that he was getting snippy with reporters lately -- becoming visibly upset with some following the team's loss to the Red Sox on Monday night.

Tampa Bay Rays players refused to wear the Gay Pride logo on their uniforms this weekend -- saying their religious beliefs wouldn't allow it, but also saying they accept everyone.

The players are all pitchers, and there's 5 of them -- Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs and Ryan Thompson. On Saturday, during the team's Pride Night celebration, they reportedly ditched the custom jerseys/hats featuring rainbow-colored lettering and instead opted for standard unis.

The reason ... "faith-based" purposes. Adam explained ... "So it’s a hard decision. Because ultimately we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here."

He adds, "But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe -- not that they look down on anybody or think differently -- it’s just that maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like (Jesus) encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage. It’s no different."

Manager Kevin Cash said the players' decision had sparked some conversation in the clubhouse, but it doesn't sound like things have gotten heated ... and that the team understands.

Adam concluded ... "It’s not judgmental. It’s not looking down. It’s just what we believe the lifestyle he’s encouraged us to live, for our good, not to withhold. But again, we love these men and women, we care about them, and we want them to feel safe and welcome here."

The team was certainly in support of hyping the fact that it was Pride Night, as they've even changed their official logo on social media to reflect the month (as do many companies).

Longtime MLB announcer Jim Kaat has found himself embroiled in controversy yet again ... this time, it's because he referred to New York Yankees star Nestor Cortes as "Nestor the Molester" during a broadcast.

83-year-old Kaat was providing color commentary for the Detroit Tigers vs. Minnesota Twins game on Thursday afternoon ... when he tried to offer some on-air praise to Cortes, who was pitching against the L.A. Angels in a game in New York at the same time.

Kaat made a reference to Twins pitcher Devin Smeltzer and said, "That favorite pitcher, being kind of like Devin Smeltzer, 'Nestor the Molester!'"

"Nestor Cortes," Kaat added. "Man, he is fun to watch."

The comment was immediately hit with raised eyebrows on social media ... and while Kaat didn't address it again on-air, a Twins official told the Associated Press the team did speak with the Hall of Famer about the matter following the game.

"Obviously, we take these matters seriously and, like in all cases, will handle this internally and privately," Twins vice president of communications and content Dustin Morse said, before adding, "Jim meant no ill will."

Cortes, meanwhile, was also asked about the comment ... but he told the AP he was not offended.

"I'm sure, you know, he didn't really mean it," the left-handed pitcher said, "and people make mistakes, but it didn't offend me at all."

This is the second time in less than a year Kaat has faced backlash for an on-air remark ... back in October, he was forced to apologize for making a slavery reference during a Yoan Moncada at-bat in an Astros vs. White Sox playoff game.

Kaat -- a former Twins pitcher who was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame last year -- has been broadcasting games for decades.

Joe Girardi is out in Philadelphia ... the Phillies just canned the manager after the team's disappointing 22-29 start.

The team announced the move Friday morning, revealing bench coach Rob Thomson will replace the 57-year-old.

"It has been a frustrating season for us up until this point, as we feel that our club has not played up to its capabilities," president of baseball operations David Dombrowski said in a statement.

"While all of us share the responsibility for the shortcomings, I felt that a change was needed and that a new voice in the clubhouse would give us the best chance to turn things around."

The move is very early -- there's still more than 100 games left in the season -- but the Phillies are already 12 games behind the first-place Mets in the National League East division.

The Phils were a favorite to win the division this year ... after they shelled out huge contracts to Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber this offseason.

"I believe we have a talented group that can get back on track," Dombrowski said, "and I am confident that Rob, with his experience and familiarity with our club, is the right man to lead us going forward."

Girardi was hired by the Phillies in 2019 and never made the playoffs with him as headman.

Take notes, 50 Cent, Dr. Fauci and Steve Aoki ... Miles Teller showed exactly how a first pitch should be done on Wednesday -- throwing a perfect strike before the Phillies game!

The "Top Gun: Maverick" star was at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for the Phils' "Top Gun" night ... and the team allowed him to toe the rubber for the game's ceremonial first pitch.

And, Teller didn't disappoint while on the mound -- ripping a fastball right down the middle to Phillies legend Ryan Howard!!!

Of course, the throw shouldn't surprise many ... 35-year-old Teller is a huge baseball guy -- and has previously said he might have picked a pro career on the diamond over an acting one if given the choice back in high school.

Teller told local media after the throw that he used some advice from Phillies star Nick Castellanos to complete the toss -- explaining the outfielder told him, "let it eat."

Trevor Bauer just sounded off on Amber Heard following the verdict in the defamation lawsuit with Johnny Depp ... saying the actress deserves to pay every single penny of the MILLIONS she was ordered to give her ex-husband.

"It took four years of torching Johnny Depp's reputation over false allegations of abuse to get to today, but he has finally been vindicated," 31-year-old Bauer tweeted Wednesday.

"Thank you to the jurors in this case for rightfully holding Amber Heard accountable for defamation."

Bauer is clearly sending a message here -- the Cy Young winner faced allegations of going too far with three women on multiple occasions, which he contended was consensual rough sex. He recently filed a defamation lawsuit of his own.

While Bauer was never charged criminally, Major League Baseball handed him a 2-year ban after a lengthy investigation ... one of the longest suspensions in modern sports history.

Bauer has maintained his innocence throughout ... saying the only bad decision he made was associating with the wrong people.

As for Depp and Heard, the jury awarded $10.35 million total in compensatory and punitive damages against Heard ... but his ex-wife will only have to shell out $8,350,000.

Tommy Pham says his fantasy football beef with Joc Pederson is really partially Mike Trout's fault ... explaining on Tuesday that the Angels MVP was actually the commissioner of the MLB stars' league!!

The Cincinnati Reds outfielder went in-depth Tuesday about the Joc drama with reporters before his team's game against the Red Sox ... revealing some key details about what led to him slapping Pederson in the head last week.

Pham explained the fantasy league was a $10,000 buy-in, where the last-place finisher had to pony up an additional 10 Gs. The 33-year-old also said MLB stars like Mike Moustakas, Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer were members.

Pham confirmed he was pissed at Joc over a bunch of things -- including roster moves and "disrespectful" text message trash-talk -- and he added that he believed Trout could have stepped in and stopped it all at one point.

"Trout did a terrible job, man," Pham said. "Trout's the worst commissioner in fantasy sports. Because he allowed a lot of s*** to go on and he could've solved it all."

Pham, though, did appear to have at least some sympathy for Trout ... adding, "Nobody wanted to be commissioner."

"I didn't want to be the f***ing commissioner. I've got other s*** to do. He didn't want to do it. We put it on him. It was kind of our fault too, because we made him commissioner."

Pham revealed he walked away from the league in the middle of the season -- but said he was in 2nd place at the time.

An MLB fan terrifyingly leaned over some railing with his baby in his arm to try to catch a home run ball on Tuesday -- but, thankfully, he avoided disaster, made the grab and kept everyone safe!

The wild moment went down in the first inning of the Washington Nationals game against the Mets in New York -- when Starling Marte crushed a home run to deep center field.

The ball landed in an area with no seats, took a huge hop -- and that's when a dad in the stands made a play that we're sure Mom wasn't too pleased to see.

Broadcast video from the game shows as the ball was coming back down from its initial carom, the man held his baby with one hand and made the barehanded catch.

"Did he catch that?!" the game's announcers asked. "Baby's fine! All good!"

The fan actually spoke to the Associated Press about the play following the game ... and revealed he was a former baseball player -- so the catch was no sweat.

"In Dominican Republic, we don't all get to have gloves, so we do play baseball barehanded, so I figured I could do it," the fan said. "I did it many times when I was a kid, so why not?"

The kid, meanwhile, was totally fine.

Braves fans will be able to spot their star outfielder whenever he's rolling around ATL -- Ronald Acuna Jr. just copped a brand new luxury whip for $175k ... with his very own logo etched all over it!!

TMZ Sports has learned ... the 2-time All-Star is the proud new owner of a BMW X6 M Competition with a bright yellow paint job.

If you look closely, the car has a personal touch -- featuring Acuna's name and custom logo all over the exterior, which was his business partner Nick Drbal's idea alongside Xample.

"Ronald and I wanted to brand his logo in a unique and personal way," Drbal tells us. "The best way we envisioned this was for his own city to be able to identify who was inside, based on what was outside on the car."

We're told Acuna will only have the whip in ATL for a short time before it gets shipped back to his home country of Venezuela.

The RA13 logo is also featured on the inside ... with the emblem getting put on the headrests for a special touch.

The Beamer X6 M Competition usually comes with a starting price tag of around $130k ... but we're told with all the bells and whistles and the custom job, it ended up being around a $175k purchase.

The slugger definitely seems pleased with the end result -- posing next to the car for a quick photo.

Cincinnati Reds outfielder Tommy Pham has been suspended 3 games for SLAPPING San Francisco Giants slugger Joc Pederson over an alleged fantasy football beef.

Pham, who admitted to reporters in an interview on Saturday he purposely went after Pederson, received the three-game ban for "inappropriate conduct" and was hit with an undisclosed fine.

The incident went down on Friday as the Reds and Giants were preparing to start their series -- Pham approached and slapped Pederson over a dispute stemming from a fantasy football league.

In the video of the alleged incident circulating on social media, Pham appears to walk up to Joc and slap him in the face.

The Giants outfielder spoke candidly about the encounter with Pham after the Reds' 5-1 victory over his club ... saying the whole thing stemmed from Pham accusing him of cheating in the fantasy league they're in together (you can't make this stuff up).

Pederson said the dustup was the first time Pham ran into him ... and claims there was no argument between the two before the slap occurred.

Giants skipper Gabe Kapler -- who announced Friday his decision to skip the national anthem moving forward due to the current state of the country -- refused to comment on the situation between Pham and Pederson.

San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler is very upset about the direction of our country after the latest mass shooting ... and now he's protesting the national anthem.

Gabe says he's breaking from baseball tradition and plans to no longer join players and coaches on the field before games for the playing of the national anthem.

The Giants manager told reporters Friday in Cincinnati before his club played the Reds, "I don’t plan on coming out for the anthem going forward until I feel better about the direction of our country."

In a post on his personal blog earlier Friday, Gabe reflected on the Uvalde school shooting and the response across the sporting world.

Gabe wrote ... "The day 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered, we held a moment of silence at sporting events around the country, then we played the national anthem, and we went on with our lives."

The all-too-familiar response is not sitting well with GK, who adds ... "We didn’t stop to reflect on whether we are actually free and brave after this horrific event, we just stood at attention."

Gabe says his father taught him a lesson early on in life, and he's applying it to his anthem protest.

"When I was the same age as the children in Uvalde, my father taught me to stand for the pledge of allegiance when I believed my country was representing its people well or to protest and stay seated when it wasn't," Kapler writes. "I don't believe it is representing us well right now."

Gabe says he tried to protest the anthem earlier this week, but it didn't materialize.

"My brain said drop to a knee; my body didn’t listen," he wrote. "I wanted to walk back inside; instead I froze. I felt like a coward. I didn’t want to call attention to myself. I didn’t want to take away from the victims or their families. There was a baseball game, a rock band, the lights, the pageantry. I knew that thousands of people were using this game to escape the horrors of the world for just a little bit. I knew that thousands more wouldn’t understand the gesture and would take it as an offense to the military, to veterans, to themselves."

Gabe says after a few days of reflection, he decided on his anthem protest.

Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson is issuing yet another mea culpa ... this time, apologizing to Jackie Robinson's family for any issues he may have caused them following his controversy with Tim Anderson.

As we previously reported, Donaldson was suspended 1 game by the MLB for calling Anderson "Jackie" multiple times during a Yanks' tilt with the White Sox this past weekend.

Donaldson said he intended the remark to be in jest -- saying he thought it was an inside joke he had with Anderson stemming from comments that the Chicago shortstop made in a 2019 interview.

Anderson, though, said he found it very offensive, and Donaldson later said he was sorry for it all.

On Thursday, the New York slugger issued another apology, this time to Robinson's wife and family.

"I would also like to apologize to Mrs. Rachel Robinson and the Jackie Robinson family for any distress this incident may have caused," Donaldson said in a statement. "Jackie was a true American hero and I hold his name in the highest regard."

In his statement, the 36-year-old reiterated he meant no disrespect to Anderson by the comments.

"I stated over the weekend that I apologized for offending Tim and it was a misunderstanding based on multiple exchanges between us over the years," he said.

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Brooks Raley says the shooting in Texas on Tuesday hit very close to home for him ... revealing Wednesday he actually attended Robb Elementary School as a kid growing up in Uvalde.

"I walked those halls," the 33-year-old reliever told media members at his locker. "I can't imagine what they experienced yesterday."

Raley said he learned that a gunman had killed 19 students and two teachers at the school from family and friends who still live in the city ... and called it all an absolute tragedy.

"Obviously growing up there, going to that school, it kind of hits home," said Raley, whose parents and brother still live in Uvalde. "Having young children myself, you just feel for those families."

"And you pray for them, and your thoughts are with them."

Raley -- who moved out of Uvalde as a teenager to go to college at Texas A&M -- called the community surrounding Robb Elementary "small" and "close-knit" ... and added that he's really feeling for them.