Locker Page 18 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

That’s not very California of you, Dodgers
And you thought it was only hockey that could water down its Pride Nights for the benefit of the slug-portion of their fanbase. ...

Tempe voters put an end to the Arizona/Glendale/Phoenix Coyotes sideshow
It was a bad idea from the start. When Gary Bettman enacted his Great Southern Strategy for the NHL, the original Winnipeg Jets, and the Phoenix area never quite fit into it. Phoenix wasn’t a captive market like Tampa or Nashville were, with the hockey teams being the only games in town during the w...

The party gets serious at annual Bettingpalooza
After the initial head-first dive into the markets, sports betting operators and states have come to an in-between space where unmitigated enthusiasm has consequences. ...

I don't know why the Seattle Kraken were good, and because of that I’m glad they’re gone
At this time of year, when the NHL gets down to the brass tacks, it’s best to know why teams are in the conference finals and why you’d want to watch. It should be easily identifiable what these teams do and/or who they have that makes them worthy of the time of the year, and have left the proletari...

Joel Embiid’s play in Game 7 said more than all the pressers in the world
There isn’t really anything Joel Embiid could have said after his Game 7 beer belch that would have made up for it. He could have laid out all the mea culpas in the world, and Sixers fans are going to be pretty sharp-eyed and tongued (pardon for making you think about Philadelphian tongues) come nex...

Pickleball at the mall? Sounds like a good time for all
Are you sick of the Johnny-come-lately groups at your tennis court playing a game that sounds like batting practice? Fear not, local American malls are working on getting those people into proper courts that are being built where the Home Depot-sized Old Navy was once located....

The Toronto Maple Leafs disappoint their fans by winning
No one does a post-mortem like the Toronto Maple Leafs. For the past six years, it’s been an April tradition. The Leafs spit up all over themselves in the playoffs, and then the next week the rest of the playoffs are drowned out by the wailing from southern Ontario about who needs to be traded, who ...

Shohei Ohtani isn't this generation's Babe Ruth — he's even better
It’s easy to connect Shohei Ohtani to Babe Ruth, because Ruth is the only figure that we think even compares to Ohtani. Baseball hasn’t had a dominant two-way player since the Great Bambino, so that’s what the numbers have to be compared to. It used to be that Ruth’s pitching exploits were kind of a...