Locker Page 57 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Golden Knights sure know how to lose, just like the tourists they’re built around
It’s no secret that Las Vegas is built on losers. They don’t construct a new hotel per week because everyone goes there and takes down the blackjack tables. It’s a town with a foundation on losing. You lose, they win....
Trae Young is The Noid
I’m glad “The Noid” has made a return to TV commercials. It’s important that we remember he’s actually the hero in the struggle against people eating Domino’s. He’s just trying to protect us. Sadly, he’s not very good at protecting us, but maybe one day....
All the foreign substance checks are doing is proving what babies baseball players are
We knew this already. We knew baseball players were a bunch of babies, because if you think about how they behave, there’s no other sport even close to having the level of pissbaby-dom that baseball does. Hell, let’s just go back a few days to that adorable Joey Votto story with that cute little gir...
Don’t just tell us Carl Nassib helps the Raiders win
I haven’t bothered to look, because no one needs to, but I know there’s already the cliche and tired backlash to Carl Nassib’s coming out as gay while an active NFL player (or as ESPN put it, “actively gay”). Sure, there’s just the hateful, bigoted insults openly hurled. And then there’s the “why is...
It doesn’t matter what we think if Ben Simmons’ teammates are done with him
I admit that I fell into the trap of using every NBA playoff game as a referendum on the legacy of every NBA star. Things are never that simple, and winning a championship is hard. Especially in the NBA, where it’s an actual referendum on how your team is built. It’s not hockey where the bounces jus...
The true price of camaraderie and competition
The concept of sports gambling has gotten skewed in the past year. Now that it’s becoming legal in more and more places, you see Allen Iverson or Paige Spiranac in a dress that very well might cause her to cough up her soul (now word on how AI would fit into it) telling you about all the things you ...
Doc Rivers’ head coaching days must end
While he won Coach of the Year this year, his second such accolade, it becomes clearer and clearer that Tom Thibodeau’s greatest accomplishment was as assistant head coach: getting those Boston Celtics teams around whatever roadblocks Doc Rivers threw in front of them to win that one championship an...
Giannis is going to wear this one, no matter how the rest of this series goes
The Bucks might still win this series. Getting harder to see how, as Kyrie Irving could be back for Games 6 and/or 7 and James Harden might actually gain the use of a second leg. And even if neither of those things happen, they still found a way in Game 5. And it’s not that Giannis Antetokounmpo was...
This is what happens when you’re always reacting
I’ve remarked numerous times that MLB owners can only see the one dollar right in front of their face instead of the three that might be waiting down the road. Most of the decisions that were just about cashing in now are why baseball’s popularity is currently diving down in a way that DC won’t let ...
Man, do the Cubs need to shut up
I’ve documented how on the field, the Chicago Cubs are quickly becoming one of the stories in Major League Baseball. This is a team that had been partially stripped for parts by its owner (even though he’s tried to duck that in recent days like the coward he is), who also left the roster high and dr...
Hey, another country is forcing an international sporting event down its citizens’ throats
Only 29 percent of the people in Brazil want the country to host Copa America, with 64 percent opposed, but that’s what’s happening anyway, even with 2,000 deaths a day from COVID-19 in Brazil, even with 65,000 new daily cases of coronavirus, even after a dozen members of Venezuela’s contingent test...
Cool take: Four hours is too much baseball
Ryan Butcher started the 10th inning for the Diamondbacks in their game against the Angels on Friday night, with Jared Walsh serving as the courtesy runner at second base. But it was another of baseball’s unnecessary and irritating new rules that really wound up causing trouble for Arizona....
Nazem Kadri cost the Avs everything
Hockey is a truly vicious sport, in that the team that wins the Presidents’ Trophy — i.e. the team that is best over the largest sample size — rarely “justifies” that achievement in the playoffs. You have to go all the way back to the Hawks in 2013, another shortened season, to find a team that was ...
I just want to keep hearing the raucous din of Islanders games
I don’t have a real affinity for the New York Islanders. Great jerseys, ones they should have never abandoned, but other than that, whatever. Barry Trotz is maybe the best at getting his players to buy into his system, which is why it works so well, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that entertaining t...
Gerrit Cole gives away the game
Were you in the mood for an extremely uncomfortable two minutes of media interaction to kick off your day? I bet you were. Who wouldn’t be? This will probably look like any meeting you’ve had with upper management. Step up, Gerrit Cole, and give the people what they want!...
Do those MVP trophies come with a receipt?
No individual award in American sports generates more debate than the NBA MVP. No one cares about hockey, and half the awards are given to players where the voters don’t really understand why they’re voting for them. Baseball awards are too mired in the debate between how we view the game today and ...
U.S. beats Mexico in some combination of soccer, whirlyball, and Fury Road
The CONCACAF Nations League isn’t really supposed to be anything. It’s something of a cheap mockery of Europe’s Nations League, which was really only conjured to get rid of meaningless friendlies in years between major competitions. So, even that’s not really a thing. The CONCACAF version is basical...
How many Tampa Bay Lightning players do you think Tom Brady can name?
It’s no big deal if Tom Brady isn’t familiar with anyone on the team, and he was just glad to agree to serve as the Bolts’ “fan captain” for Saturday’s Game 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes. It’s also hilarious to see the big-time Cameo video energy that Brady brought to the table to fire up the Ta...
Eat it, Javy Baez! Here’s a Cinderella-saving squeeze-play, a ‘caught stealing/unassisted/by catcher,’ a dinger hitting a moving freight train & a buzzer beater
No unseeded team had ever won its first two games at the Women’s College World Series, so James Madison’s second straight triumph in Oklahoma City was historic in its own right on Friday night....
LeBron’s gone, and the NBA did him no favors with short offseason
I grew up in Chicago, which means I grew up in a basketball atmosphere that was convinced the league was always rigging things for the Knicks. Even though the Bulls would go on to win six titles — beating the Knicks along the way for most of them — Bulls fans were always insistent that they had to o...