Locker Page 33 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
I’m adrift in a world where the Chicago Bears do smart things
For 30 years now, anything good that happened to the Chicago Bears was assuredly an accident. The only time they ever seemed streamlined was in the middle of the 2000s when they had a GM that hired his own coach, which was Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith. That was the only time they’ve made the playoff...
Who let Philadelphia be the sports capital?
In one light, there probably is no better place than Philadelphia, the epicenter of North American sports right now. There might not be a place where the teams matter more to the fans and residents, which of course leads them to some very curious words and deeds at times. You have to be truly dizzy ...
Michigan State paid $95M for a 3-5 team, but the ‘scuffle’ was free of charge
Before I get to the rest of this post, I’m just going to give you what you came here to see because you’re going to scroll down the video regardless of what’s penned before or after it. So, here you go, ya hyenas. Here’s the clip of a group of Michigan State players more or less jumping two lone Wol...
Still amazed by the Phillies? You haven’t been watching them
The Houston Astros entered the World Series perfect for the postseason. They extinguished the sizzling Seattle Mariners, and then sent New York Yankees fans spiraling. And in Game 1 of the World Series, they looked inevitable, getting out to a 5-0 lead after three innings with Justin Verlander perfe...
Tom Brady and the infinite sadness
Thursday Night Football is usually a pretty sad occasion as ritual, given the mess that it tends to be with the short rest and everyone still very much sore from the game they played just four days prior, and the lack of practice time dulling any sharpness. But last night was particularly acute. ...
Mullett Arena is somehow dumber than you’d imagine something called Mullett Arena could be
I’m one of many hockey observers that Coyotes fans, whoever they may be, claim to have an agenda at all times against the Yotes. And on some level, it’s fair, because it is hypocritical to talk often at length about the place teams have for fans in their lives and the public trust that they really a...
The <i>L.A. Times</i> still can’t quite seem to get a handle on the Dodgers’ playoff exit
It’s now generally accepted that playoff baseball is confusing. Given that every series is a week long at most, and it’s distilling down teams that have played for six months, everything is in bounds. Small moments like a pitching change here or a cutoff man missed there that would just be barely a ...
You mean the guy from West Sh*tkicker University wasn’t the answer?
There is no getting it back from the Patriots or their fans. They’d have to go through a couple of decades of haplessness, and that’s only because most of the Pats fans you know will be dead by then, and only then could you get some peace. Such has been their track record. The battle is lost, so you...
Every James Bond villain’s sports owner counterpart
It’s a struggle to get billionaire owners to see themselves as the public views them. When you’re heavily isolated and surrounded by yes men, it’s easy to think your plan for league domination is flawless, and your various exploits are on the level and wouldn’t get any person without an army of lawy...
This is what it's all about
It’s not usually supposed to work like this in baseball. The quirk, some would say the beauty, of the game is that the big at-bats can fall to anyone. They don’t always fall to a team’s star player, and in fact, they rarely do. Opponents spell out a strategy most of the time to make sure they don’t....
It’s impossible to be completely miserable (or happy) during the sports equinox
There are 17 gazillion things happening in sports right now, and as much as I’d like to update you on all the happenings of the opening weeks of the NBA and NHL, the World Series-deciding MLB rounds, College Football Playoff-ramification slates, and every NFL, EPL, MMA, boxing match, game, contest, ...
If you were to watch the NLCS instead of just complaining about it, you might like it
There’s no denying that the ALCS is a bigger draw than the NLCS this year. The Yankees always garner eyeballs, New York and Houston have a recent, contentious history, and there is no fence straddling when it comes to the Astros’ cheating scandal. Either they should have a postseason ban like a coll...
For the Houston Astros, it can be as simple as one pitch
I am guilty, as well as many others, of thinking of the Astros as the same Godzilla offense as they were in 2017, whatever means they used to get there. I hear Astros and think whatever batter they’re sending to the plate sends thousands of Tokyo residents scurrying for cover. And the Astros offense...
I can’t with this Juan Soto swing
If you spend too much time arguing about the macro, you miss out on the micro. And it is in the micro that the real enjoyment can be found in any sport. Whether it’s a silky drive to the hoop and layup, a cross-seam pass to set up a one-timer, a perfectly-timed tackle, the sort of things top-tier at...
Bombs win in the playoffs, plain and simple
It’s not underground baseball science to say that home runs are the determining factor this time of year. Everyone has known it, and yet every so often someone tries to fool themselves into thinking that there can be another way. Generally, it’s someone clinging to the past, “the way baseball used t...
Football sucks now, but why?
As a Bears fan, I can’t help but grin at the plight of the Denver Broncos on national TV. See, it can happen to someone else! The Broncos have been on an island game already four times this season, and there are three more to go. And in every game, they’ve been awful. To be clear, they’ve been awful...
It’s never been easy to win a World Series
The past 24 hours or so have been filled with shrieking referendums on the MLB playoffs and its structure. Not that this structure is really all that different from what came before. But the hope, expressed by yours truly as well, was that making the lower-seeded teams play one or two more games bef...