Technology is coming to baseball in a weird way in 2013, as several ballparks will somewhat abandon the corded wall phones managers use to call their bullpen, and replace them with cell phones. The move is a part of MLB’s partnership with T-Mobile, and will eradicate the few steps managers had to take from the steps of the dugout to the phone on the wall. True, unadulterated progress.

This is four years overdue, but the reluctant baseball powers are finally giving serious thought (we think) to expanding replay. Up to this point, only questionable home run calls are subject to replay while everything else is subjected to irreparably flawed human beings hawk-eyed umpires who don’t let Dewayne Wise take advantage of them.

The Major League Baseball playoffs start today, as the new wildcard play-in game format takes place with the Saint Louis Cardinals heading to Atlanta to face the Braves at 5:00pm EST, and the Baltimore Orioles heading to Texas to square off against the Rangers at 8:00 (both games on TBS).

Celebrate the Fall Classic with a an ode to baseball team names and the places they’ve been.

It’s a rough economy, folks. That means job security is at a premium for plenty of hard working ‘Muhricans, not the least of whom is Bobby Valentine. The Red Sox skipper, by just about everyone’s estimations, had a disappointing first season in Boston, but there’s no universal consensus that he won’t be back in the Fenway home dugout next season. That’s because Bobby himself thinks he’ll be wearing BoSox fatigues again in 2013.

Former Dodgers closer Eric Gagne, the consummate Canadian he is, recently came out with a French-language book where he alleged that 80 percent of his teammates were using steroids. Gagne, who himself as admitted to steroid use, also confided that he went through five cycles of steroid use throughout his career.

In case you missed it, which you probably did not, the Mets have been absolutely horrendous the second half of this MLB season. Nothing out of the ordinary for the Mets, who have made sputtering after the All-Star break something of an art the last five years. But just how drab and dreary is it over at Citi Field? What kind of a ghost town has Flushing turned into? Read more after the jump.

In 2007, Keith Hernandez’s mustache was voted the best mustache in sports history by the American Mustache Institute. Apparently, there’s no sanctity in winning such an honor, because — like our greatest nightmares come to life — Keith is going to go ahead and shave his mustache. It’s going to look something like the picture to the left, and it’s going to be terrifying.

These days, if you’re a Red Sox player you’d make up just about any excuse to get yourself out of having to play baseball. Lucky for Dustin Pedroia, his wife Kelli was going into labor with the couple’s second child. Watch him get the news from Bobby V, after the jump.

Do you care what Alfonso Ribeiro has been up to since Fresh Prince went off the air 16 years ago? Yeah, I don’t either, nor what I am exactly sure about what he does nowadays (I think it involves hosting a game show). But is he moonlighting as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays grounds crew? Or is this groundskeeper just really, freakishly good at Carlton’s signature dance? Watch and decide for yourself, after the jump.