samfels27 Page 108 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Rating Each League’s Virtual Fans
With all the leagues that had to restructure their schedules or create a completely new tournament now back in action, we’ve seen various ways of trying to incorporate fans into the TV presentation. All leagues want you to know just how much they miss you (or your money), and how welcome you (or you...
The Mourning After: Last Night's Most Troubling News This Morning
While the Mets were pulling their weekly Mets’ing with Yoenis Cespedes and his decision to opt-out/Irish goodbye the season, the rest of the league continues to try and treat the Coronavirus much like an annoying co-worker with the hopes that if you wait until lunch to walk by their desk, everything...
Is Arsenal’s FA Cup Win a Harbinger of Something New, or the Same?
Whatever Arsenal actually accomplished, and whatever they actually promise after yesterday’s FA Cup triumph over Chelsea, there’s hope. Hope that new manager Mikel Arteta is ready to take the club beyond where Unai Emery did, beyond where legend Arsene Wenger left them before that, and hope that he ...
Ain’t A Sheet Of Ice North Of Fargo I Ain’t Played: NHL’s Return Preview - Western Conference
We roll on with hockey’s return, this time to Edmonton where the Western Conference is playing house. And they’ve picked the small window of time every year where the air doesn’t punch you in the face and insult your children in Northern Alberta. Onwards......
Ain’t a Sheet of Ice North of Fargo I Ain’t Played: NHL’s Return Preview – Eastern Conference
The winter sports and their summer bubbles return to us this weekend, because we’re descending into the Upside-Down. The NHL has decamped to Toronto and Edmonton, with a modified playoff system kicking straight off on Saturday. It’s a bit run-before-you-can-walk, with each team only getting one pres...
Don't Cheer Joe Kelly for Being a Coward
It’s a staple of some true heel work to do all the talking and then run behind their allies when confronted. Apparently MLB won’t stand for that....
You’ll Never Believe This, but the NHL Whiffed on Its Protests
It’s obviously awkward for the NHL and its players to find a way to join in on the Black Lives Matter movement and protests before and during their games. It’s an almost entirely white league, with a majority of players not even from this country — and even the ones who are come from a generally aff...
On the Eve of Finally Playing Games that Matter, Sorta, the Coyotes are Still a Mess
You don’t think about the Arizona Coyotes. You might have even thought they were still the Phoenix Coyotes. No one really thinks about them, not even in the hockey world. When anyone does think about the Coyotes, it’s to either laugh at them, notice their favorite team is playing them late at night ...
Rob Manfred is in Over His Head, And He Knows it
If baseball is a symbol or microcosm of our nation at large, as baseball writers like to constantly tell us while finishing their Weetabix, then it scans that both of those entities are lacking leadership at this moment. Rob Manfred has no clue what to do, because his only directive — making sure th...
US Men’s Soccer Team Can Screw Up World Cup Qualifying in a Whole New Way This Time
If you can believe it, World Cup Qualifying in CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) was supposed to have started already. However, with FIFA canceling the spring, summer, and September international windows due to COVID-19, the North American region ...
Why Didn’t the Phillies Get a Vote Sunday?
The main problem of MLB’s “strategy,” such as it was, for playing this season was that it depended on baseball people. It depended on sports people. And in the world of sports people, the binary has always been, “Playing = good, not playing = bad.” Which is how MLB got into this mess....
Are You Watching, NFL?
It’s a day we all suspected, if not outright knew, would come....
NWSL Restart a COVID-Free Success as Houston Dash Win Challenge Cup
As strange as it may sound, maybe because good news is rarer these days than adamantium, the NWSL Challenge Cup wrapped up today and would have to go down as a success. At the top of the “reasons why” list: after the Orlando Pride pulled out before even arriving in Utah, the tournament saw no positi...
Leicester Pull Another Brendan Rodgers, And Villa Hero’s Final Act Saves Them In Premier League’s Last Day
There was a lot to be decided on the Premier League’s long-awaited final day this morning. Two relegation spots, and two spots in the Champions League, were still up for grabs when things kicked off. It didn’t lack for drama....
Baseball Can’t Even Get Started Before It Gets Stupid
MLB was probably hoping to get through its showcase opener, the defending champ Nationals vs. the marquee franchise Yankees, without any indication of just how stupid and dangerous this all is. But when it comes to looking stupid, no one puts MLB in a corner....
NHL Unleashes Another Tentacled Beast (Corey Perry is Less Lonely Now)
It wasn’t the unveiling of the Iceland badge. What could be? And they aren’t the Metropolitans (finally giving us the potential of a functional “Mets” franchise). But Seattle’s NHL expansion team unveiled their name and jerseys this morning, and they’re both kind of great. They are the Kraken. Or it...
Cash-Strapped MLB Owner Finds $350 Million for Mookie Betts
Baseball is probably be delighted that the discussion today shifted from the Blue Jays not having a home because playing a sport at this time is gruesomely asinine, or that six different Royals have tested positive, to on-field matters. Or on-field as much as a player signing an extension is concern...
2020 AL West Preview
Ah, the AL West. The truest representation about where we are as a nation. A division dominated by an organization that couldn’t wait to tell everyone how much smarter it was than everyone in the room, as it cheated, lied, smirked and mocked its way to triumph, only to be found out. And then they’ll...
2020 NL Central Preview
The NL Central is the rare occurrence in modern-day Major League Baseball where an argument could be made for four teams to win it. Or, to put it more accurately in today’s context, only one team has actively given up and merely exists to siphon off revenue-sharing and BAMTech money while causing it...
Leeds United Are Finally Back Where They Belong
Anyone who claims returning from the land of the dead isn’t possible should cast their skeptical eye to the Premier League in September when the 2020-2021 season kicks off. There they’ll find Leeds United, promoted this past weekend, who will be returning from a decade-and-a-half spent in a formless...