Locker Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

And now, a national moment of silence: The Twins' playoff-win drought is over
Our long national nightmare is over. The Minnesota Twins won a playoff game....

MLS is playing pretty fast and loose with Lionel Messi’s injury
The problem with hinging an entire league’s reputation and financial fortune on one man is what do you do when that man isn’t around? If you’re MLS, you kind of shut your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and pretend it’s not a problem. ...

Caleb Williams drops 400 yards on Colorado, barely wins
College football fans still waiting for USC to play a real team will have to wait at least two more weeks, and after the way Notre Dame looked against Duke, I’m not sure if that’s accurate either. Caleb Williams got his first real closeup of the season, lighting up Deion Sanders and the Colorado def...

Pablo Torre (might) know what Jordan Poole said that got him punched in the face
In the history of NBA talkers, Draymond Green is top five. He’s burrowed into the heads of far more opponents than vice versa, but it’s always the ones closest to you who know how to hurt you, and though Jordan Poole didn’t say anything that offensive to get decked in the face, it was enough....

Apparently, it’s Inter Miami fans who are going to foot the bill for Lionel Messi
What, you thought Apple was going to pay for Lionel Messi’s deal? The other MLS owners? C’mon now, you know how this works. ...

Our national nightmare is over, the San Diego Padres won a game in extra innings
What gets to the heart of baseball, and to the heart of a baseball season, is that 162 games is supposed to be enough for any anomaly or bit of screwiness a long enough timeline to flatten out. Anyone can get hot, but no one can get unreasonably hot for 162 games and six months. Every team is going ...

This time the Cubs can't blame Billy Goat
Though I no longer belong to the Wrigleyville parish, it doesn’t mean I have any more patience for tired and overused narratives about the Cubs. I do not find “#Cubes” any more entertaining or pertinent than I did when I bled blue. Most, if not all, should have been washed away by the 2016 World Ser...

Someone should look into this agreement Justin Verlander has with Father Time
If you’ve watched enough Justin Verlander starts, there’s always a feeling he has one last card to play when he absolutely needs it. That mostly comes from his habit of keeping his fastball velocity just low enough to be a tease early in his starts, and then somewhere later when he really needs it h...

The Chicago Bears are forever hopeless until new ownership arrives
I’ll never be free of this....

Notre Dame chokes, and Dan Lanning steals Coach Prime’s soundbite
Throughout the Notre Dame-Ohio State game, the booth constantly reminded viewers that Irish skipper Marcus Freeman said he wasn’t going to coach scared like he did a season ago against the Buckeyes. For 57 minutes in South Bend on Saturday night, he did that, and the Irish lost, 17-14 as a result. ...

Bryce Young, Anthony Richardson injuries are proof that size isn't everything in the NFL
Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe. F*ck you....

We don’t want to know where Brock Purdy keeps that horseshoe hidden
The most annoying thing about Brock Purdy, and there’s more than a few, is the idea that the Niners planned all of this. ...

Woe is a Chicago Bears fan
It’s obvious a fandom is completely beaten down and without hope when all they ask for is for their team to just be bad and unnoticeable. ...

Boston College hit with hazing scandal
Boston College has placed its men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams on an indefinite suspension after the university’s leadership found there was rampant hazing in the program, the school announced Wednesday. ...

The umpires strike back
There is no longer season than the MLB one, and it’s understandable that just about everyone is at the end of their rope and not ready to deal with any sort of guff from any sort of swine. ...

Coming soon to a city near you: MLB expansion
It’s always been the mantra of Rob Manfred that MLB wouldn’t look towards expansion until the stadium situations for the A’s and Rays were settled. After all, anywhere they’d award an expansion team could still be used as leverage for those teams to wrangle all the tax giveaways and government hando...

Mike Babcock sets a land speed record for being fired for being Mike Babcock
It has to be asked what did the Columbus Blue Jackets think they were going to get by hiring Mike Babcock? ...

The SEC is a one-bid conference — again
This is a weird season for the SEC thus far. Only one team appears worthy of the playoff, and Georgia didn’t exactly look like world beaters against South Carolina on Saturday either. Tennessee lost to Florida (who already lost to Utah), LSU lost to Florida State, and Alabama lost to Texas. Those th...

The Houston Astros don’t deserve a first-round bye
With playoff baseball rapidly approaching and the standings nearly complete, this feels like a good time to point out a flaw in the new six-team format (other than increasing the number of games per round). If you’re going to hand out first-round byes, give them to the two best teams in each league....

Behold, the magic of the Blue Jays' face-plant!
It’s been a wonky season for the Toronto Blue Jays. It was supposed to be the one where they leaped from just a playoff team to AL East titan. Didn’t work out. Part of it is that Alek Manoah started throwing wiffle balls. Another part is that Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s power went to the zoo for most of...