Sammy to Big Z: Hold off on retirement talk  —  Former slugger wants players to know life after baseball ‘not easy’  —  CHICAGO — Sammy Sosa knows all about life after baseball, and planned on reaching out to Carlos Zambrano to remind him that once you retire, “it's a whole different ballgame.”

Teams Spend $236 Million On '11 Draft  —  MLB teams combined to spend $227,939,050 on draft bonuses in 2011, and a total of $235,989,050 include additional guarantees in major league contracts for Danny Hultzen, Trevor Bauer, Dylan Bundy, Anthony Rendon and Matt Purke.

Mariners Acquire Ruffin To Complete Tigers Deal  —  The Mariners announced that they have acquired Chance Ruffin from the Tigers to complete the trade that sent Doug Fister and David Pauley to Detroit for Casper Wells, Charlie Furbush, Francisco Martinez and a player to be named on July 30th.

Randall Delgado shines, Martin Prado wins it in 11th for Braves  —  ATLANTA - Rookie Randall Delgado allowed no hits through six innings in his second big-league start, and the Atlanta Braves pulled out another last at-bat win on Martin Prado's two-out single in the 11th Tuesday night.

Cards' top prospect Shelby Miller suspended indefinitely  —  PITTSBURGH  • Class AA Springfield righthander Shelby Miller, the crown jewel of the Cardinals' farm system as the team's top pick in the 2009 draft, has been suspended indefinitely by the organization, Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said Tuesday night.

Rays top Red Sox 6-2 in Game 2 to split twin bill  —  Rookie Desmond Jennings hit his fifth home run of the season and Jeff Niemann struck out 10 as the Tampa Bay Rays salvaged a split of a doubleheader with a 6-2 win over the Boston Red Sox [team stats] on Tuesday night.

THOME HITS NO. 600  —  Ken Rosenthal has been the senior baseball writer for FOXSports.com since August 2005.  He appears weekly on MLB on FOX.  Follow him on Twitter.  —  WNBA  —  Boxing  —  IRL  —  F1  —  NCAA WBK  —  Horse Racing Air Racing … Thome's mark should not be overlooked

Torii Hunter Gets Trapped In An Oxygen Chamber, Pisses In a Bottle, Tweets  —  In need of a little rejuvenation after the Angels' 7-3 loss last night to the Rangers, Torii Hunter entered a clubhouse oxygen chamber, thinking that would do the trick.  It's not known what happened next …

Hamels to miss start with shoulder inflammation  —  PHILADELPHIA — Cole Hamels said he feels fine and expects to be back in the Phillies' rotation next week.  —  But the Phillies said Tuesday he will miss at least one start because of inflammation in the back of his left shoulder …

Mariners Announce Two International Signings  —  Mariners Sign Two Players from Venezuela to First Pro Contracts  —  Seattle Mariners Vice President of International Operations Bob Engle today announced the signings of two international free agents.  The following players were signed to 2012 contracts.

Who Owns “Evil Empire”?  The Yankees Launch A Proxy War For Control  —  Bridgehampton, N.Y., out on the East End of Long Island, is Red Sox territory.  The bars along Main Street are decked out in red and will only show Yankees games if there's nothing else on.  TVs receive the Hartford network affiliates.

Baseball sees a run of walk-off wins this season  —  Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley coined the phrase in 1993, but he couldn't have fathomed that nearly 20 years later the “walk-off” would become as common as overpriced ballpark beer.  —  Teams won on the last at-bat in 10% of games this season …

Yankees bail out struggling Ivan Nova, take over first  —  KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In one sensational at-bat, Robinson Cano saw 12 of the 90 pitches that Royals rookie starter Danny Duffy threw Tuesday night.  —  Cano fouled off seven straight deliveries.  The next pitch he sent into orbit.

Hannahan's Indians teammates have his back  —  After a couple of days of talking about Carlos Zambrano, let's look at the other side of the good teammate spectrum — the tale of the Cleveland Indians and Jack Hannahan.  —  Hannahan is in his first year with the Indians …