ad Page 480 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Fernando Tatis Jr. signs 14-year, $340 million deal with Padres and that’s awesome
Pitchers and catchers reported to training camps on Wednesday, and the San Diego Padres marked the traditional passage of spring by turning the baseball world on its head by announcing they had signed Fernando Tatis, Jr. to a staggering 14-year, $340 million contract, according to reports....

From LeBron James to the mayor of Atlanta, nobody wants to be bothered with the All-Star Game except Adam Silver
I was always taught that you should never show up somewhere unless you were invited. I’m guessing Adam Silver didn’t learn that lesson growing up....

Daniil Medvedev broke Andrey Rublev on a point he lost
The big story out of Melbourne today is that Rafael Nadal actually looked like he’s in his mid-30s last night, as he blew a two-set lead to Stefanos Tsitsipas, with the latter looking much the fresher in the fifth set. That sets up a semifinal match with Daniil Medvedev, who when he hasn’t been yell...

Rush Limbaugh, dead at 70, spewed racist filth from every pulpit including ESPN’s
Rush Limbaugh, who died on Wednesday at the age of 70, was a terrible human being whose hate the world is better off not having in it. That includes the sports world, which at least did its best to expel Limbaugh years before the physical world finally did....

Brett Gardner isn’t a Yankee right now and it makes zero sense
Brett Gardner was the Yankees’ third-round pick in the 2005 draft, debuted in pinstripes in 2008, and has been in the Bronx ever since. He’s the last remaining player with the Yankees from their last championship team in 2009… except that right now, even he’s not remaining....

Good on you, Jalen Johnson, for sitting out the rest of this disastrous season
One thing that college is supposed to do is serve as a transition between childhood and adulthood, getting people ready for the “real world.” Jalen Johnson is now fully there, making a decision about what’s best for himself and his family, and getting ripped for it by some dope who only sees the wor...

The Champions League returns this week... all over the place
One of the rites of...well, not spring exactly, but a rite of reminding you that spring might actually arrive at some point before the light within you has completely extinguished, is the knockout stage of the Champions League. It drops into the sporting scene at the end of February, right after you...

Remembering Leon Spinks’ forgotten upset over Ali 42 years ago
Leon Spinks passed away on February 5 due to prostate cancer at the age of 67. On February 15, 42 years ago, he starred in one of sports’ larger-than-life upsets over one of the most unforgettable boxers to have ever stepped into a ring. If you compile your own Tale of the Tape retrospective, withou...

It’s been a wacky Australian Open, even if no one’s around to see it
As we’ve previously stated, the Australian Open has a surreal quality, at least on these shores, where an already-niche sport takes place in the dark for only the truly dedicated/bewildered. It’s even more so this edition, as on Friday the live spectators were shooed out of the tournament altogether...

NCAA reveals preseason college football Top 25 … oh, nope, wait, it’s the top 16 March Madness seeds
Top-seeded Gonzaga, Villanova (6 overall), and Virginia (9) crashed a gridiron greats (and merely goods) get-together Saturday, as the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee revealed its prospective top 16 seeds for March Madness. A preview in the mold of the pointless weekly College Football Playoff r...

Valparaiso drops mascot linked to KKK & violence after already having ditched Nazi-linked name in '40s; might we suggest one?
You probably haven’t thought much lately about Valparaiso University, the Lutheran school about an hour southeast of Chicago, in the Indiana town that lends its name to the institution....

Seven Flyers now on COVID list, and one of them, Oskar Lindblom, just got over cancer
Friday was a rare night in the NHL with no games postponed due to COVID-19 … because there were only two games scheduled to begin with....

Texans releasing J.J. Watt offers peek into racially coded language — what’s 'classy' & who gets to be the 'face of a franchise'?
When the Texans decided to release J.J. Watt on Friday, it marked the end of an era in Houston — and the continuation of an era in media’s use of coded language....

Bradley Beal’s path to winning with Washington is unclear at best, but he wants to stay
Bradley Beal is obviously to be commended for his patience, his loyalty, his character, and even his stubbornness. His stubbornness — in a noble way — is how we’ve arrived here, to begin with. But it’s also keeping him from winning in the immediate future. ...

Inebriated fan flips bird and curses out Rafa Nadal because Australia gets to have nice things like that
I’ve missed sports fans....

Put a mask on, Tom Brady
Tom Brady has won so many Lombardi Trophies that he just doesn’t seem to care anymore. It must be like being so rich that you can have whatever and however many cars you want, and just hand the keys to your McLaren to your teenager. After all, if something happens to it, it’s not a big deal – you ha...

Who could grace the cover of Madden 2022?
With the Super Bowl over, it’s time to begin arguing about this year’s Madden cover....

Citi Field opens for 'mass' vaccinations, but with far fewer doses than Yankee Stadium, because NYC
If this isn’t a metaphor for New York baseball I don’t know what is....

Stop ignoring fighters in your 'greatest athlete ever' conversations
Somehow, someone decided that that speculation of Tom Brady’s standing amongst all athletes following Sunday’s Super Bowl was a spectacular idea. And days later, here we are, still extrapolating over it....

The push for Tom Brady as the greatest ever feels like Great White Hope talk
Once Tom Brady won his seventh Super Bowl ring on Sunday, you knew people would gush all over the 43-year-old Tampa Bay quarterback....