1 Page 323 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Here Are The FIFA Rankings That Will Determine The World Cup Draw
FIFA's world rankings are, almost without exception, meaningless. This is that exception. The rankings released today determine the top seeds at next summer's World Cup. That's a valuable reward: they get to avoid each other....

Will Ferrell Introduces The Dodgers Before Game 5 Of The NLCS
For what could be their final home game of the season, the Dodgers pulled out all the stops and had Will Ferrell handle today's player introductions. As one might expect, it was very Will Ferrell-y....

UEFA's Stacked 8-Team Playoff Guarantees World Cup Heartbreak: A Guide
Yesterday, we saw 53 European World Cup hopefuls get cut down to just 17. Nine teams—Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Switzerland, Bosnia, and Russia—advanced to next year's tournament in Brazil. There are still four spots up for grabs, to be fought for among the next eight ...

Cruelty Unchained. <em>Twelve Years A Slave</em>, Reviewed.
1. Twelve Years a Slave is a devastating movie experience, one that will leave you shaking with anger. This is not an attempt to shed new light on the shame of slavery, or, heaven forbid, a winky postmodern re-imagining of slavery as a self-referential cinematic revenge fantasy. (After seeing Twelve...

With The World Cup Clinched, USMNT Players Must Now Fight For Spots
The United States men's national team is take on Jamaica this evening in what is, thankfully, a somewhat meaningless World Cup qualifying match. That's because the Americans already whooped Mexico, as well as everyone else in CONCACAF, to clinch a spot in next year's tournament in Brazil. So what's ...

English Soccer Is Dead, And It Deserves To Be
World Cup qualifying runs this week, and a lot of what's going on involves glorified exhibition play. Continental giants like the Netherlands and Italy are booked for Brazil, as is our great nation; other teams of interest, like Germany, Spain, Portugal, and France are more or less box-checking. The...

Pirates-Cardinals, Game 5 Of The NLDS: A Very Deadspin Preview
Tonight's game is win or die. Here's Emeritus and me breaking down everything you need to know....

Why Clowney's Ribs Are An Existential Crisis For College Football
Each week during college football season we put the conventional polls to shame by ranking every FBS team from 1-125, by whatever standard we see fit. As always, last week's rankings were not consulted....

Dodgers To Start Clayton Kershaw Tonight On Short Rest
Had they lost last night, the Dodgers let it be known, they would have considered starting Clayton Kershaw tonight in what would have been an elimination game. Sensible enough—Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball, after all! No reason not to start him in an elimination game. But then they went ou...

Stephen Vogt Is Your Newest Unlikely Postseason Hero
The most compelling bat of last night's Tigers-A's game came in the bottom of the seventh. Oakland had runners on second and third with two outs, and backup catcher Stephen Vogt did his best to make Justin Verlander look mortal....

The Deadspin Twitter -100*: The 73 Worst Accounts In Sports
Last week, SI.com published its third annual Twitter 100, a list of the Twitter feeds that Sports Illustrated staffers purportedly consider "essential to your daily routine for finding news, information and entertainment from the sports world."...

Oh Look, Russia Is Brutalizing Its Olympic Migrant Workers
While we're all still worked up about Qatar's blatant mistreatment of the many thousands of migrant workers who will soon begin building infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup, here's a reminder that Qatar doesn't have the market cornered on turning international sporting events into humanitarian cri...

Wait, Is SEC Football Actually Fun Now? 125 FBS Teams, Ranked
Each week during college football season we put the conventional polls to shame by ranking every FBS team from 1-125, by whatever standard we see fit. As always, last week's rankings were not consulted....

Johnny Cueto Gets Jeered, Drops Ball, Gives Up Home Run
PNC Park finally got to host playoff baseball, and the fans in Pittsburgh made it a party, screaming and chanting and jeering from the moment they passed through the turnstiles. And while there's no way to know for certain, it sure looked like the standing-room-only crowd got to Reds starter Johnny ...


Report: Bobby Valentine Loses TBS Gig Over Dumb 9/11 Comments
Last month, Former Mets manager Bobby Valentine said a bunch of dumb things about how his New York Mets did so much to support New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 while the Yankees sat back and did nothing. We've already demonstrated how flat-out wrong those comments were, and now it appears that...

Jeremy Hill Is A Beast. Does His Past Matter? 125 FBS Teams, Ranked.
Each week during college football season we put the conventional polls to shame by ranking every FBS team from 1-125, by whatever standard we see fit. Last week's rankings were not consulted....

NBA 2K14 Is More Of The Same
NBA 2K has long been the best basketball video game franchise on the market. This year's version is just as good as past installments, but as Kotaku's review points out, nothing much has been added. Maybe 2K is holding something back for next-gen consoles?...

Villa Scores Hat Trick As Atlético Beats The Washington Nationals 5-2
Send stories, photos, and anything else you might have to [email protected]....

The Petty, Thin-Skinned Bravado Of Bo Pelini: 125 FBS Teams, Ranked
Each week during college football season we put the conventional polls to shame by ranking every FBS team from 1-125, by whatever standard we see fit. Last week's rankings were not consulted. ...