The Mourning After Page 35 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Why do we keep thinking sports is the best of us, when it’s just … us?
Maybe it’s just my misconception of why people watch and follow sports. It seems like they’re held to too high a standard at the worst possible times. Because we’re asking people completely unequipped to deal with serious, life-changing issues… to say and do things that we’d imagine we do if put in ...

Even on MLB’s biggest night, Rob Manfred can’t keep his thumb out of his ass
I understand at the dawn of every league’s championship that the commissioner has to do something of a state of the union. Roger Goodell, Gary Bettman, Adam Silver… they all have a press conference before Game 1 or the Super Bowl. Given the daily nature of baseball, Rob Manfred has to do it on the d...

Before baseball’s grandest show, let’s get one last laugh at the Mets
MLB will showcase, at least in theory, its best for the next week to 10 days. The World Series doesn’t usually pair the two best teams, depending on definition, but it does pair the two that are playing best at the moment. And it’s got all the stakes that matter. Whatever the participants, it’s supp...

It’s time to send Bob Nightengale to a farm upstate
It’s not much of a story that Bob Nightengale was once again spewing out lava of baseball drivel. That’s been his gig for years now, essentially just acting as a conduit for whatever bullshit the powers that be want out there in exchange for his beloved “access.” Access which he’ll use to lord over ...

Fare Thee Well, Penn State, it was’t even fun while it lasted
Penn State has now lost back-to-back games by blowing a two-touchdown lead at Iowa and scoring eight points over the course of nine overtimes at home against Illinois. That’s quite a way to go from being No. 4 in the country to having no hope for the national title whatsoever....

You know how sneaky-annoying auto-renew can be? Well, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy loves it now
Mike Gundy’s new perpetually renewing contract at Oklahoma State is just another reminder that cancel culture does not exist, and especially does not exist for mediocre rich white men like Gundy....

Sometimes you have to just sit back and appreciate what’s on offer
Perhaps I’m feeling wistful because last October, we didn’t have our normal schedule. There’s a clock to this, a rhythm, that we have spent our entire lives attuned to. Hockey and basketball start during the MLB playoffs. Go a year without it, and suddenly the axis is off, red lights are blinking, t...

What will Dave Roberts’ legacy be?
I know better than to write the Dodgers’ eulogy now. We’re just where we’ve been before. The series should be over, and if it wasn’t for Cody Bellinger guessing right on a high fastball on Tuesday, it would be. The Braves’ 9-2 win in Game 4 only makes it 3-1, which is exactly where they were against...

You always want a Laz Diaz show in a League Championship Series, amirite?
I’ll put it right here at the top when discussing the Astros 9-2 win in Game 4 over the Red Sox, because I’ve spent the latter half of my life having Red Sox fans yell at me in some sort of fashion anyway. The non-strike call Laz Diaz came up with on Jason Castro from Nathan Eovaldi’s curve in the n...

Nick Rolovich is the latest to display college coaches’ hypocrisy
More than a few of us wouldn’t have been able to stifle a laugh, or at least a smirk, when it was announced Washington State head coach Nick Rolovich got shitcanned because he wouldn’t get the COVID-19 vaccine. ...

Dave Roberts can’t help himself
The MLB playoffs can get pretty muddled between decisions and results. Rarely do they line up because... y’know, baseball. It doesn’t cooperate. Right decisions, wrong results, vice versa, the throughline is rarely consistent. But Dave Roberts has been at this for years now, so he certainly makes fo...

Dabo must be shaking in his Skechers
The University of Connecticut has won a football game....

Someone get the Canucks an editor stet… err, stat!
When Alex Chiasson played for the Vancouver Canucks in their season opener on Wednesday night in Edmonton, his name was spelled correctly on the back of his jersey....

We were so close
You couldn’t really have asked for much more from the Dodgers and Giants, series or Game 5. What you want is it to be close and dramatic, and those boxes were checked. The stats for these teams are staggeringly close. 109 wins each going in, a season series that is now tied at 12, the run-differenti...

Kyrie is an agenda whether he likes it or not
It’s not that Kyrie Irving is wrong about everything, because he’s been right in the past. And he’s done good things. It’s just that he likes to huff his own farts. And when you’re someone who likes to huff your own farts, two things happen. A) You’re bound to do and say some pretty dumb stuff to pr...

There is no escape from the Astros
The longer the Astros stick around, the more baseball fans complain and bring out the tired jokes about their cheating. Maybe more opponents get suspicious, as Chisox pitcher Ryan Tepera did after Game 3. This is obviously the price the Astros have to pay for 2017’s scandal, and the only price they...

Dinosaur organization has dinosaur coach, film at 11
There isn’t much to add to the whole Jon Gruden dumbassery that my colleagues Carron Phillips didn’t address yesterday or Criss Partee the day before. Gruden never deserved his position, certainly didn’t do much to earn it while he was there, and then was found out as a world-class asshole who also ...

This was your human element moment
I’m not here to claim that anyone should feel sorry for the Tampa Bay Rays. While MLB would love to position them as the plucky underdog, what they really are is the model that almost every team owner has pointed to while yelling at their front office saying, “Why can’t we win that cheaply?!” while ...

Unbeaten Oklahoma on road to playoff, unbeaten Cincinnati not so much
Enjoy it now, Cincinnati, because they’re going to find a way to screw you over in the end....

Your weekend roundup of B.S.
We’ve reached a point where none of this bullshit is surprising. It’s just exhausting....