Locker Page 44 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Can we please just watch the ballgame?
Major League Baseball made this exclusive deal with Apple for Friday night games, and Mets-Nationals was the very first one, Max Scherzer’s debut for New York (which the Mets won 7-3), against his old team, featuring JUAN SOTO, whom the broadcast gushed over as constantly as he gushed over Apple – b...
Just shorten the season, Chumley
One of the headlines coming out of the NBA yesterday was Adam Silver’s lament that the league’s star players don’t actually dress for enough games during the regular season. This has been a grievance lodged by the media and fans for a while now, ever since the term “load management” entered the lexi...
Welcome back, baseball
I spend a lot of time here pointing out everything that’s wrong with baseball. Maybe even most of my time. And for good reason. Baseball is broken, and the latest CBA doesn’t do nearly enough to address the problems. And those who are in a position to do anything about it aren’t interested in doing ...
We are too broken and hopeless to deserve a Maple Leafs-Panthers series
At least for one night, I didn’t manage to motherfuck something. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers put on a hockey game dressed as Calvinball last night, with the Cats getting a 7-6 win in OT. It wasn’t even that simple, if a 7-6 game can ever be simple....
We’ve got champ-age and chunkage!
The NCAA championship game will be remembered for Kansas’ record comeback in the second half. Or maybe UNC’s abstract shot selection in the last five minutes. Bill Self gets a second national title, and Hubert Davis misses the chance to have half as many national titles as Dean Smith. But North Caro...
UConn had nowhere to go
You couldn’t ask for much more of a premier NCAA tournament final than having the two most recent Naismith award winners in Paige Bueckers for UConn and Aliyah Boston for South Carolina square off. These don’t always live up to the occasion, and UConn has already provided one classic against N.C. St...
Duke-UNC played out like a WrestleMania main event
It wasn’t until the 3 that I knew. That was the moment, when I caught myself pumping my fist, and mouthing “yes!” that I realized I worked myself into a shoot....
LeBron winds up playing the fool
April 1, 10:09 a.m. Pacific Time: LeBron James sends a tweet saying, “I’m out for the season officially. See y’all in the fall....
It’s the Bucks’ until they say it isn’t
It’s a strange phenomenon, not exclusive to basketball, where somehow the defending champs get lost. Perhaps most people just conclude that the fatigue from a playoff run the previous season is just a bit too much to overcome. It’s doubly so for the Milwaukee Bucks, as their Finals run didn’t end un...
They qualified, so shut up
As mentioned previously this week, the USMNT fan’s natural inclination these days is to turn cold and scornful. It’s understandable, as we all spent so much time watching a team and program that was an utter mess and just twirling around before falling like a child you made do the spin-around-the-ba...
Senate looks to stop NCAA from punishing old infractions
Marsha Blackburn and Cory Booker — now there’s two names you don’t expect to see co-authoring a Senate bill. But I guess if there’s one thing that can bridge the ever-widening political chasm in the United States, it’s the universal experience of being fed up with the NCAA....
I guess I know how hockey fans feel now
Last night, there was one of those rare regular-season NBA games that rise to the level of must-see. The Sixers and Bucks met in Philadelphia, and with the top four seeds in the Eastern Conference still in flux, and could very well finish in any order, it had some real meaning. And it was a classic,...
PHF goes into new era, maybe, with a bang on a good night for women’s sports
While NC State and UConn were producing the college basketball game of the year in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, professional women’s hockey was also having a blinder on its biggest night as well....
Tis but a glimpse
It’s not official yet. The USMNT still has to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and all that. Which means they have to manage to not lose to Costa Rica by six goals or more on Wednesday. Quite frankly, the more impressive feat than qualifying for the World Cup would be losing by six in Costa Rica, and e...
I apologize for ruining March Madness
I feel like this is somehow my fault....
St. Peter’s run is already one of the greatest in NCAA tournament history
There have been six double-digit seeds to make the Final Four, and St. Peter’s – after a third straight stunning win Friday night, 67-64 over third-seeded Purdue in the East Regional semifinal in Philadelphia – is one win against North Carolina on Sunday from becoming the seventh....
Gregg Berhalter and USMNT are good enough
In the end, Gregg Berhalter did everything we asked, what most USMNT fans asked. He didn’t treat the trip to the Azteca as something to just get through. It wasn’t just a lottery spin. It wasn’t about keeping the powder dry for Sunday. Berhalter looked at the Mexico squad, looked at his, and thought...
When Jimmy Butler shows you who he is…
We’ve all been down this road before, except so few want to call it what it is. It’s probably because Jimmy Butler is so eager to give the media what it wants, and that is juicy quotes and stories and also to make them feel like one of the guys. He’s happy to have them along, if not outright bring t...
West London is not going to welcome The Ricketts Family
It’s pretty clear that the Ricketts family, who own the Cubs, look upon Fenway Sports Group as something of an idol. They took their GM from Boston and made him the president of the Cubs. You know him as Theo Epstein. They have remade Wrigley Field and the neighborhood around it in the same fashion ...
Phil Mickelson is such a weiner
A rite of spring, The Masters, is sneaking up on us. It’s less than three weeks away. It’s about the first time anyone seriously pays attention to golf, though the recently concluded Players Championship might have stolen some of that shine. Still, the entire sports world generally casts a stare at ...