as Page 464 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

World Cup Group H Preview: Why can’t there be more like Morocco?
The women’s World Cup should be, and still is in a lot of ways, a celebration of how far the game has come from where it was even just four years ago. The attention is more, the players, and teams are better, the quality of play keeps rising, the anticipation grows, as does the appreciation when it ...

Trade James Harden for Grade-A role players, you coward!
When Daryl Morey says he’s not going to be irrational with a James Harden trade, he is to be trusted. We saw what happened with Ben Simmons, and the plain-clothes staring contest that resulted in Harden becoming a Philadelphia 76er. It was an arduous ordeal that festered until mid-February 2022, and...

Is Sam Howell the next great Tank Commander or Kirk Cousins redux?
Renewed hope for the Washington Commanders is on the menu in 2023. New ownership will have an opportunity to leave their imprint on the organization eventually. But for now, the direction of the Commies 2023 season rests in the relatively small hands of its anointed Tank Commander Sam Howell. Tank c...

Everyone wants to love women’s soccer without taking any responsibility for it
It wasn’t quite the theater of the idiotic that his pre-Qatar speech was, but FIFA president Gianni Infantino had to get in front of a mic before the kickoff of the women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and certainly wasn’t in any more of a mood to take any responsibility for problems with ...

Once again in MLB, it’s better to be worse
MLB owners have been dead set on rewarding their own mediocrity, because the larger economy and society as a whole has basically been set up to reward shitfucks like them for barely being able to remain upright, and intaking oxygen. The expansion of the playoffs was meant to get more money from TV c...

Russell Wilson attends Tyler Lockett’s wedding, proves charisma not totally gone
Russell Wilson is back in the good graces of his teammates — at least a couple of them. The longtime Seattle Seahawks quarterback attended the wedding of past No. 1 receiver Tyler Lockett. There’s even photographic evidence of the party so Wilson now has proof of affability when he gets back to Denv...

Only one thing is going to fix college athletics, and it’s not Congress
There’s a problem facing college athletics that cannot be solved by the NCAA, the courts, the states, or the conferences. This immoral predicament of the greatest consequence — unregulated name, image, and likeness money — can only be solved by Congressional oversight, according to SEC commissioner ...

First former Northwestern football player files lawsuit in program’s hazing scandal
A little more than a week has passed since allegations of a toxic locker-room culture were unearthed about Northwestern’s football program, leading to the hasty dismissal of head coach Pat Fitzgerald. The first lawsuit in the scandal was filed Tuesday morning against the university, Fitzgerald, and ...

Women’s World Cup Group G preview: Italy and Argentina, you're in the middle of the ride
There’s a clear top and bottom in Group G. Sweden is No. 3 in the world and has every bit of skill needed to win the whole tournament. It’ll be a minor miracle if South Africa picks up a point before a return flight to Johannesburg. The most important game of Group G will be contested by the two tea...

Las Vegas Aces are the solution to the Oppenheimer-Barbie conundrum
The WNBA’s All-Star Break provided the Las Vegas Ace’s “Core 4” with a showcase for 80 percent of a historically stacked starting lineup to strut their stuff in an exhibition. On the downside, it also cracked open a conduit for the cranks to spew their usual bile. ...

Ain’t no love in the heart of NFL ownership for running backs
On the field, running backs have an offensive line to protect them. Off of the field, all they have is each other. The position with the shortest career span in the NFL has become the one that comes with the hardest fight to receive a contract that properly compensates their contributions. The deadl...

Wiz Khalifa continues Pirates tradition of pitching while totally zooted
While the Pirates will never build him a statue, Dock Ellis has made sure that the greatest accomplishment in sports was performed by a Pirate. That was throwing a no-hitter while on LSD. Perhaps as our country continually lessens its aversion to drugs it’ll get the display it deserves at PNC Park, ...

Dak Prescott calls his shot — but do his words ring hollow?
The 2023 NFL season is right around the corner, with the start of training camps just days away. As usual, there are plenty of storylines for fans to follow all over the league, and of course, “America’s Team” is never lacking in that department. As if there wasn’t enough pressure on the Dallas Cowb...

Emoni Bates is fighting his way back from the abyss
It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since Emoni Bates was the nation’s No. 1 middle schooler in the country. Three years ago, Bates was imagined as the type of ethereal prospect who would have viewed the summer league as a formality. By the time he arrived in Memphis during the fall of 202...

Stop knocking over Tour de France riders
Selfies are already a narcissistic activity. People taking pictures of themselves and then posting them on social media, and this self-absorbed activity is rewarded with likes, comments, and gifs. At least if a selfie is being taken at the Washington Monument or the last standing Blockbuster no harm...

History has its eyes on Carlos Alcaraz and his early quest to become tennis’ GOAT
Tennis is undergoing its Steph Curry moment. The way Carlos Alcaraz controls the country club sport through his racket is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Nearly a decade after Curry’s rise to superstardom, every high school sophomore thinks swishing a 40-footer is routine. It’s not, and every air...

Women's World Cup Group F Preview: Can happiness buy France the whole thing?
Sadly, the story for a lot of teams in this World Cup are those taking the field in spite, or directly to spite, their FAs. Canada, Spain, England, Nigeria, Haiti don’t even complete the list of teams that are having problems with their governing organizations as they enter the biggest tournament in...

'Vacating' wins is the dumbest punishment of all time — do better, NCAA
The kids might not realize it, but in 1997 the movie of the summer was Men In Black. In the ‘90s, Will Smith was the king of summer blockbusters, especially if they opened July 4th weekend — or included aliens. One of the best parts of the MiB franchise was the Neuralyzers, a device that was used to...

Joel Embiid sends warning shot to Sixers management
The Philadelphia 76ers have advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals in five of the last six postseasons. During the Joel Embiid era, that has been their ceiling chasing that ever-elusive Eastern Conference Finals appearance, which the franchise hasn’t been featured in since 2001. Pressure cont...

Carlos Alcaraz out-Djokovic’d Novak Djokovic
There is a vision of how to beat Novak Djokovic at a major, especially at Wimbledon, and even more especially at Centre Court, where he hadn’t lost in 10 years. It’s only a vision, because so few have ever achieved it. Only Rafa Nadal and Daniil Medvedev had managed to beat Djokovic in a major in th...