samfels27 Page 67 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

No wild-card chaos
Most seasons, on the last day, we hope for some kind of chaos to hit MLB’s playoff system. I think, deep down, it’s because people want to see the wild-card sham proven to be just that. Because having teams play a game just to play a game to get into the playoffs after 162 games and six months is pr...

Liverpool and Manchester City hurl everything at each other in game of the season
It’s rare that games between the top-table inhabitants of soccer can live up to the billing. They usually cancel each other out, the fear of losing greatly outweighing the benefit of winning, and you might get the odd goal here or there in contests that are high on tension and intrigue but low on an...

Another black eye for hockey
It’s not so surprising that hockey could step on a few rakes before its season even starts. It’s just surprising how not surprising it is. It would have been bad enough for the sport to deal with Robin Lehner’s accusations of NFL-like painkiller distribution among its teams, trainers, and players. Y...

SEE IT: Fernando Tatis Jr. launches one out of Dodger Stadium
We’ve addressed the Cubs’ buffoonery this morning already, so let’s get to matters on the field — especially Fernando Tatis Jr. turning a baseball into a moon rock....

The Cubs are the dumbest
There are people out there, who — unlike me — didn’t fire the Cubs as a fan back in July after they completed their three-year sandbagging of the roster that brought them their first World Series win in 108 years. That should have been enough to see Wrigley be more desolate than the Atacama, but tha...

Houdini, thy name is Ole Gunnar
While most every Manchester United supporter you know will scream at you about what a sneaky good manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær is, and certainly never in a tone or volume that will make you think they’re trying to convince themselves as much as they are you, the urge for all of us who don’t support t...

Devin Williams to miss postseason for dumbest of reasons
In the dumbest injury at the worst time department, we’d like to announce Brewers reliever Devin Williams as this year’s recipient....

A hot mess without Messi
Good lord is Barcelona awful....

Richard Sherman has the right message — can only hope he’s the right messenger
I was hard on the Bucs for considering signing Richard Sherman back when it was rumored, and, probably, a touch unfair. Perhaps I was too focused on the Bucs and the feeling they’re giving off of getting away with anything now after signing Antonio Brown last season, and every observer thinking it w...

Fat Bear Week is the event you didn't know you needed
Perhaps you have your own signs that summer is coming to an end. Here locally, it’s the ending of outdoor street fests or concerts. MLB playoffs might be another for you. Every place and individual probably has its own marker. But another one for all of us is the annual “Fat Bear Week” competition p...

We said depth would be the main thing
If it feels like World Cup qualifiers are boomeranging right back into your consciousness after not much of a break from the last ones, you’re not alone. This is the normal calendar, you just had a year off from it thanks to the pandemic, but just wait until qualifiers are crammed into January and F...

Lighten up, Wainwright
I understand that every team in every sport is desperate to make the “only the guys in this room believed in us” the rallying cry of their team. It’s easier to think you’re the underdog, and when you’re a professional athlete you need anything and everything to drive through an interminable season. ...

Is Giancarlo Stanton officially a Yankee yet? Asking for absolutely nobody
While it’s hard to take any joy out of the Yankees being good unless you’re from the Tri-State Area, it has been worth a smile to see Giancarlo Stanton absolutely carry the Yankees to a playoff berth this month. ...

MVP debates make my ass weary
I’ve come to the conclusion that a big part of being a member of the baseball media is just justifying your existence. Which is why they spend most of the time turning stuff into a debate that isn’t really a debate. Nothing is worse than individual awards, where distilling what “valuable” means has ...

Real Madrid goes down in Champion’s League shocker
The main headlines of Tuesday’s Champions League will be Lionel Messi scoring his first for PSG. But fuck that, Messi scores every goddamn day. The real story is FC Sheriff, from a country that kind of doesn’t exist, in their first Champions League campaign ever, just beat Real Madrid in the Bernabe...

...If it weren’t for those meddling Mariners
Friday, July 23. If you’re an A’s fan or player, you wake up feeling pretty good. I’d say it’s a beautiful day in the Bay Area, but July tends to be pretty miserable there. And anyway, you’re in Seattle this morning, and it is lovely there. As far as your team’s fortunes, everything is ok. Not great...

Maybe the Manningcast works because they don’t meet with coaches
In this age of working from home, and the push-and-pull with companies around the nation at the moment about whether to return to the office or not, we can all find inspiration in Peyton and Eli Manning saying they want to analyze Monday Night Football but they don’t see why they should have to leav...

The last thing we need is a Maple Leafs docuseries
The whole behind-the-scenes docuseries has been a bit played out. Hard Knocks started it, and it came to hockey almost a decade ago with the 24/7 series that tracked the two teams in that given year’s Winter Classic for the month leading up to the New Year’s Day game. Some of it was compelling stuff...

Look, I’m really trying to avoid wrestling company tribalism, but…
It would be healthier to not use WWE as a comparison point for AEW, or vice versa. One shouldn’t need the other to prove why it’s good and worthy of fanship. And you can enjoy both equally, which should make this time the best it’s ever been to be a fan (and it is!). These are the tenets I’m trying ...

Why wasn’t anyone punished for this?
It’s always strange, as a forever-doomed Bears fan, to comment on Packers fans bitching about the one call in 3,000 they didn’t get. Which didn’t matter anyway, because the Packers ended up winning, 30-28, when the 49ers decided that 59 minutes of man-coverage was enough and to let Davante Adams run...