NEW YORK -- Byron Buxton didn’t even need to see the sneakers to start out getting excited. Just the field was sufficient. “Are these the shoes?” the Twins All-Star outfielder mentioned, his eyebrows raised, because the field was handed to him throughout a go to to MLB headquarters in Manhattan. “We got the new ones, huh?” Seconds later, Buxton was turning over Nike’s new Jackie Robinson Air Force 1 sneaker in his palms, his eyes broad, taking in all the main points. “These are nasty,” Buxton mentioned. “Oh my goodness!” So … does that imply they do justice to baseball’s best trailblazer? “100 percent,” Buxton answered with no hesitation. “It’s kind of hard to put these into words, but they definitely do justice. [No.] 42 on the sides, the baseball stripes on the back … it represents him t...

Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports When the Braves gained the World Series in 2021, Ronald Acuña Jr. was a bystander, as a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his proper knee knocked him out for the second half of the season and the complete postseason. He returned to motion close to the tip of April final 12 months, however whereas he was the Braves’ second-most priceless outfielder — which wasn’t saying a lot as a result of slumps and calamities that befell the group’s different fly chasers — his efficiency was far in need of the excessive commonplace he’d set since debuting in 2018. With a robust begin to his 2023 season, Acuña is displaying indicators of recovering his pre-injury kind, although his efficiency in a few areas does elevate issues. After hitting a scorching .283/.394/...