john-smoltz Page index.xml - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Aaron Rodgers can't stop being a total idiot
It’s been nearly two weeks since America last rolled their eyes at Aaron Rodgers, thus giving him the attention he so desperately craves, so you knew he was going to say something galaxy-brained and bone-headed before the week was up. Luckily, we have Pat McAfee paying him for that, so we were not d...

Now pitchers are just showing off
Pitching has become so easy in MLB that relievers can carry a conversation with the booth while getting the last out of the eighth inning in a one-run All-Star Game. No longer content to interview guys in the dugout/not actively in the field, players talked with announcers during the showcase that e...

Pick a sport, any sport, and Danny Woodhead will beat you at it
I find it equal parts awe-inspiring and maddening when an athlete can play two sports let alone pick one up and, in a relatively short period of time, become better at it than a lot of people who do it for a living....

How is Justin Verlander still doing this?
Justin Verlander served notice to those sleeping on the Houston Astros and their 39-year-old ace: He’s all the way back. ...

It’s not Obi Toppin’s fault the ASG dunk contest was lame
Saturday night was not that. But it was fine. Obi Toppin won, deserved to win, and deserved better than having to answer for the shoddy performance of his competition....

All this fun and you get paid, too!
I’ll level with you. I didn’t really think that much of John Madden as an analyst, at least for most of my experience listening to him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think his personality or presence didn’t warrant his standing at the top of the broadcasting game. They very much did. And perhaps I’m ju...

Yes, Justin Verlander is worth every penny he makes on the open market
The 2022 MLB offseason is filled with outstanding free agents. With studs like Kevin Gausman, Freddie Freeman, Max Scherzer, Marcus Semien, Trevor Story, Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, and Kris Bryant all on the market, the MLB hot stove is sure to overcook the souffle many times over before March....

No big deal, just a four-year veteran backup QB out-performing the entire NFL in his first-ever start, winning a bettor 2.5X that player’s salary
The person who was the happiest after the Kansas City Chiefs bounced back after an ugly loss to the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football was likely not in the home locker room at Arrowhead Stadium after the game, and probably has no association with the Kansas City metropolitan area. That perso...

The baseball is good at the World Series, but Baseball is horrendous
Once you get past the Astros merely being there again after suffering no meaningful consequences for their cheating, and the racist Chop, and the scheduled attendance of Donald Trump at Game 4, and the idea that losing awaiting-trial-on-felony-charges Marcell Ozuna was some kind of “adversity” that ...

Max Scherzer trade to Dodgers is one of the greatest deadline deals of all time
Where does Max Scherzer to the Dodgers rank among MLB’s best deadline deals?...

Nationals’ Bob Boone is the latest to pick ‘principle’ over science and safety
Bob Boone isn’t the first and won’t be the last....

It may be incremental, but it’s progress
Vaccinations were the news of the night, as they tend to be these days. But at least it was news on the side of people being rational about it to the people being irrational morons. That was something of a gear change from most of the time....

It would be fun if baseball still had waiver deals
Quietly, one of the more intriguing times of the baseball season had typically been waiver trades around this time of year. ...

Bob Brenly has always been a turd
This story can be done pretty much every season, and it’s so fucking tired, but yet you can’t help but be surprised at its regularity. Bob Brenly complains about modern baseball in a not-all-that-vaguely racist way. Last night’s target was Marcus Stroman:...

What an actually good, consistent Rockies roster should look like
The timing of it made you wonder what exactly Jeff Bridich was fired for, or encouraged to step down, as it was. Make no mistake, Bridich deserved to be shitcanned for his job, and has for a couple years now. Maybe right after the ink dried on Ian Desmond’s or Wade Davis’ contract. But he was allowe...

Please, please, send John Smoltz to a farm upstate
It was a slow, lazy Saturday afternoon. It would have to be for me to turn on the Mets when Jacob deGrom isn’t pitching (though Marcus Stroman can be a very entertaining watch, too). I grew up at a time here in Chicago when we hated the Mets as much as the Cardinals, and those instincts still flicke...

Alex Rodriguez and ESPN’s <em>Sunday Night Baseball</em> are Can’t Stomach TV
Shohei Ohtani’s remarkable mound/plate performance last night helped mask what otherwise was a turgid, if not torturous, ESPN broadcast. The network’s Sunday Night Baseball show has been a bane to fans for pretty much its entire existence, spawning the one site that’s basically responsible for all t...

Stop trying to make Nerds vs. Fun happen in the NBA, too
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: if your reaction to seeing Anthony Edwards’ dunk last week was to complain that it was “all over Twitter” but also note that he was 0-for-7 on three-pointers, you’re either an idiot, a serious killjoy, trolling for attention, or some combination of the thre...

The John Smoltz Urban Legend That Was Too Good To Check
John Smoltz is, at this point in his second career as a color commentator, not really that good at the job. He understands the game well, but he’s also drowsy and grouchy in all the ways that old ballplayers tend to be: checked out and skeptical and reflexively salty about today’s players, grumpily ...

John Smoltz Says The Mets' Rotation Is "Way Better" Than The '90s Braves
In Matt Harvey (26), Jacob deGrom (27), Noah Syndergaard (22), Steven Matz (24), and Zack Wheeler (25), the Mets have some of baseball’s best young starters, and hope to have them for a very long time. That staff just received a ringing endorsement from John Smoltz, who’s as qualified as anyone to t...