samfels27 Page 86 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

No one seems to care that Kevin Durant is a homophobe
I made jokes about it yesterday, and that’s really all the effort I was prepared to give it. And yet, another day rolled by after Michael Rapaport (who I assume just walked off the set of another charity MTV softball game as that’s still what he does, right?) revealed the heinous and disgusting mess...

Conor McDavid should have been suspended for this garbage, but of course the NHL didn’t
The NHL only threw a fine at Connor McDavid for this attempted decapitation of Montreal’s Jesperi Kotkaniemi on Tuesday night:...

Sergio Aguero, Manchester City’s last through-line
There’s little point in talking about Sergio Aguero without talking about this goal, so let’s get to it at the top:...

AL West Preview: Now without the noise, what are the Astros?
There are many who thought the Astros got off light before even hitting spring training last year. While the response was always “immunity,” only a couple managers and a GM suffered with the loss of their jobs. ...

AL Central Preview: Which is it, Luis Robert?
The White Sox are probably the second-most fascinating team heading into the 2021 season. They haven’t quite cannonballed into the pool and ruined the buffet the way the San Diego Padres have — a team they will always be linked to thanks to Fernando Tatis Jr. and the rampant screen-punching amongst ...

The NFL is poised to be the victory cigar
It was a triumphant day for the NFL, at least the business of the NFL and for its owners. Somehow it always is, even when they’re not playing games. The league announced adding a 17th game officially, even though it doesn’t make sense on any logical level other than owners looking at a pile of money...

AEW wins the Wednesday Night Wars with WWE, if they ever really started
It’s been in the water for some time, but WWE made it official today. They’re moving NXT from Wednesdays to Tuesdays two weeks from now, just after Wrestlemania. What they didn’t announce is that they’re essentially giving up on the “Wednesday Night War” against AEW on TNT. WWE would never admit def...

NL Central Preview: Smell the glove
The teams in the NL Central seem to be going completely anarchist punk these days. In a league where everyone is trying to hit more homers and amass more power, the top of this division’s strength is going to be defense, the absence of runs and hits, the cooler. When is that the case with one baseba...

With Francisco Lindor and Anthony Rizzo seeking extensions, it's a tale of two owners
Lindor-palooza has apparently begun. News broke last night that the Mets have offered Francisco Lindor a 10-year, $325 million extension to his deal that ends after the season. Lindor is apparently after a 12-year, $385 million deal. As always, both sides are making noise about negotiations being cu...

The Flyers have eaten another one
As every sport relies more heavily on analytics to tell us what’s really going on, there are fewer and fewer occurrences that seemingly spring from a different plane of existence. Something beyond explanation. Things that are only familiar to Wiccans. We can just about always point to some number or...

The last Opening Day
Of course it’s not the last Opening Day this week. There will be a baseball season after 2021. It’s likely that it will be in 2022. But it could not be! You can’t imagine that MLB owners and the MLBPA would lose a full season and another World Series to a work stoppage. But also, you can’t rule it o...

The Pulisic, the bad, and the ugly of USMNT’s up-and-down weekend
It was a mixed day for USMNT fans Sunday. Then again every day pretty much is. The afternoon saw the full squad win their first game in Europe against a European team in five years, beating Northern Ireland 2-1. Yeah, it was Northern Ireland. Yeah, it was Northern Ireland’s B-team. Still, Christian ...

A modest proposal for the NFL’s 17th game
It was the worst-kept secret, and the NFL owners have been pushing for this for years. But this week the NFL will make the 17th game official. The players hate it (see Alvin Kamara), but some are kind of shocked that they agreed to this in the latest CBA. Communication is not the NFLPA’s strong suit...

Daniel Bryan is going out the only way he can
If you’re a wrestling fan, it may feel like 2014 again. Generally, rerunning something from recent history shows a lack of creativity and ambition, and both of those things have afflicted WWE something fierce for a while now. But when it comes to Daniel Bryan, there isn’t anything he can’t turn to g...

Taylor Hall runs from the living and the dead
Taylor Hall is for sale again. It seems he’s destined for this, toiling away on an also-ran while the speculation about his next stop, and his impending free agency, consumes all the oxygen around him. He has become a drifter, the object of blame for an organization-wide failure. Is it merely coinci...

Empty protests of Qatar World Cup show players see evil, but can't close FIFA's Pandora's Box
It’s been a week for performative protests in soccer. Last Sunday, Glasgow Celtic and Rangers followed Wilfried Zaha’s lead and tore the facade of the kneeling before the opening whistle protest. It was just three days after one of Rangers’ players was racially abused by an opponent, and it was clea...

The USWNT’s fight for equal pay is still kind of nebulous
Yesterday, Megan Rapinoe and Margaret Purce met with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. Afterward, both Rapinoe and Purce met with the press. As always, Rapinoe was forthright, cutting, insightful, and funny. None of what comes next is to argue against Rapinoe being anything less than a ...

Avs announcer John-Michael Liles and his wine cave are a life goal
I’ve always liked John-Michael Liles. He was the type of player I had spent decades as a Hawks fan wishing they would have. When my professional life combined with my fandom life, my cohorts and I must’ve dreamed up 50 different proposals to pry him loose from Toronto or Carolina to bolster the Hawk...

Every scuff you take, every smudge you make, MLB will be watching you
It’s been the dirty little secret in baseball for years. Pitchers were doing something to baseballs to increase spin, which either helped with velocity or movement or both. This has been a factor in the far bigger problem than shifts for baseball, i.e. the inability for anyone to make regular contac...

Tim Peel is just a symptom of the NHL’s problem with enforcing fake parity
As expected, the NHL couldn’t wait to toss Tim Peel out on his ass after he got caught on a hot mic basically admitting to make-em-even calls. It’s not really much of a punishment. Peel was due to retire next month anyway, will still get paid, and due to his years and years of clown shoes refereeing...