The Mourning After Page 22 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Doug Gottlieb has to grovel like the chode he is
As sports media devolves into the same kind of morass that the rest of the media is, and society probably (happy to do my part!), you can kind of split the main outlets into two main categories. There are those who are simply around to belch out something most days of the week, no matter how noxious...
Relieved to miss the redemption arc we didn’t need
It certainly speaks to the world’s ability to completely turn over and surprise you that Nick Kyrgios was installed as the favorite to win the U.S. Open after he pretty much paddled Danil Medvedev and Francis Tiafoe overturned Rafael Nadal. This is Nick Kyrgios after all, who never needed more than ...
It’s come together for Frances Tiafoe
There’s a pretty common narrative for tennis players, which has been blunted on the men’s side for a while because well, there’s been three guys stopping anyone else from taking the final step. The arc is supposed to be that a player shows up in his late teens or early 20s, flashes some serious game...
It’s just a game
The first time I wrote “professionally” about Serena Williams, back when Bleacher Report was still an onslaught of slideshows, I called her overrated. I was just out of college, and my terrible, awful, horrendous take was she didn’t win as much as she could. This was more than a decade ago, and it w...
Where does Tony Khan think stars come from?
AEW maven Tony Khan had his pre-All Out media call yesterday. These can be fascinating encounters, where he’s there basically to promote a show, and most of the people asking him questions are throwing hanging curveballs so he can do so. However, every so often someone asks him something that doesn’...
No one wants to let go
It is obviously going to take a brave woman to stare down Serena Wiliams at Ashe Stadium, where 24,000 (minus the handful they have in their player’s box) will be backing the legend to keep her career alive for just a couple more days. It is perhaps the most unique advantage in tennis history, a wal...
Baseball is for lovers
The joke used to be that you were supposed to think of baseball to un-horny yourself. When you needed to prolong proceedings to a length of time that wouldn’t be embarrassing or possibly even to one acceptable to both (or more?) parties. Think of every third baseman in the National League in 1991 an...
Imagine having your parents issue a statement about your rape allegation — really imagine it
I rarely think about the parents when a player gets drafted or signed. We always see the tear-filled interviews, or the wild cheering after a first hit, and I genuinely believe that almost all parents are just genuinely filled with pride and joy and happiness when their children reach sport’s bigges...
The Los Angeles Dodgers, the greatest team of all time
The Dodgers won on Sunday. Which really isn’t news, they do that a lot. Beating the Miami Marlins isn’t really cause for celebration either, as it’s far more of a function than an accomplishment. And yet, zoom out and it is pretty startling what the Dodgers have accomplished....
Reminder: WNBA players are still going abroad to earn a living
It seems pertinent on Women’s Equality Day to mention that there are still WNBA players going overseas to earn more money than they would by playing stateside....
Oh, wow, a sport obsessed with stats finally realizes numbers are marketable
If you’re reading a post about baseball to start your Thursday morning procrastinating there’s a good chance that at some point in your life you’ve been at a bar with one of those punching bag machines. You know what I’m talking about, it looks like a huge speed bag and you put in a dollar or whatev...
The most uncomfortable at-bat ever
I join many others in giving MLB hitters a hard time. The need to lift and drive has added an untenable amount of strikeouts to the game, and it can be frustrating watching guys simply pound contact right into a gaggle of fielders shifted over. But we also try to defend them as best we can, given th...
C.B. Bucknor drags everyone down with him
It was yet another banner day for C.B. Bucknor behind the plate, as we watched in real time while he lost sense of the strike zone and perhaps indeed any sense of direction at all. The plane which the ball must pass through to be called a strike is imaginary, of course, and tough to judge from a pos...
UFC has its moments
I feel like if I ever write about the UFC it’ll be treated like Walter Slobchak dressing down Donnie about walking into the middle of a movie. So when I walked into a friend’s house with a semi serious interest in the Kamaru Usman-Leon Edwards fight, I only knew as much as I gleaned from proofing th...
There are only two faces on this week’s Mount Rushmore of stupidity
Have you ever witnessed an argument so stupid you’d rather not pick a side? I’m sure parents with multiple kids know what I’m talking about, repeating “Leave me out of it” until they inevitably have to intervene because, you know, children. Still, nothing irks a parent like having to rule on who get...
USMNT unveils new jerseys that even the players hate
You know it’s bad when even the players hate the jerseys they’re wearing...
We’re on the precipice of the NCAA's death
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day — and one day we’re all likely to still be alive for, depending on your cholesterol and financial status, because as we know, the rich die old and comfortable here. And it won’t be the complete end of the NCAA, as long as it holds the keys to the bask...
Whiny golfer is whiny
Perhaps it’s being too glib about the real-world implications of something like LIV Golf — the insidiousness of a very small and already entitled group of people all too happy to grab a huge bag of money while ignoring the source and results of such a thing is probably exactly how our society ended ...
God bless Johnny Cueto
There’s just something about a veteran pitcher whose stuff isn’t the same and yet finds a way. The joy is in knowing every opposing fanbase is screaming, “HE’S SPINNING IT ON HIS FINGER! JUST TAKE IT!” or some such derivative while he’s on the mound as they watch hitter after hitter be bewitched by ...
The allure of near-perfection
I spend a lot of time, admittedly too much time, writing about everything that’s wrong with baseball. I get crankier and more cynical the more my knees hurt. But yesterday was a reminder of one of the things that make baseball special. No other sport can stop for a day to focus on one spot like on ...