ball Page 689 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Blue Jays Have Reached The "Russell Martin, Utilityman" Point Of The Season
Russell Martin has been a fine Major Leaguer for a long time, but the 2018 version of Russell Martin is not, by the numbers, the sort of player that a team absolutely needs to squeeze into the lineup unless things have gone terribly wrong. This isn’t yet true for the middling Toronto Blue Jays, who ...
Joel Embiid Keeps Showing Up At My Neighborhood Playground To Dunk On Civilians
There was a time when Seger Park had some of the best basketball courts in Philadelphia. They were easily accessible—they’re in Center City and just a short walk from both of Philadelphia’s subway lines—and they attracted good players from around the city. (You could see Prep Charter’s Rodney Green ...
Conference USA Is Completely Revamping Its Conference Schedule Setup And It's Just Brilliant
Tired of low seeds and early exits from the NCAA tournament, Conference USA is ready to try something different....
Listen To Rudy Giuliani<em></em> Get Booed By Thousands Of Yankees Fans On His Birthday
Rudy Giuliani celebrated his 74th birthday by attending yesterday’s Yankees game, and reports from the scene indicated that he was booed heartily by the fans in attendance when his birthday was announced by the public address announcer. Now, thankfully, we have video of the moment for all to enjoy:...
The Rockets Missed 27 Straight Threes Because Sometimes Shit Happens<em></em>
Thirty-six point two. That’s the percentage of the 3,470 three-point shots attempted by the Houston Rockets in the regular season that went through the hoop. It’s the number that should have lifted the Rockets, a team that spent the entire season building a 65-win monument to the power and truth of ...
The Warriors Bulldoze Their Way Back To The NBA Finals
For the second game in a row, the Chris Paul-less Houston Rockets held the upper hand against the Warriors after one half of play. And for the second game in a row, Golden State took away all the Rockets had over a commanding final two quarters. Not even a raucous home crowd could save Houston from ...
Rudy Giuliani Celebrates 74th Birthday By Getting Booed By Yankees Fans
Today is Rudy Giuliani’s birthday. The former New York City mayor and lifelong buffoon and current lawyer to Donald Trump decided to put on a Yankees cap and a World Series ring and head on down to the Bronx to celebrate the big 7-4 by taking in an Astros-Yankees afternoon game. So how’d it go? ...
This Jackie Bradley Jr. Over-The-Shoulder Circus Catch Is Totally Unfair
In the top of the sixth inning of today’s Blue Jays-Red Sox game in Boston, Kendrys Morales crushed a long fly ball to the deepest part of Fenway, in straightaway center. This was a double, for sure, except that Red Sox center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. is a comic book superhero:...
Is There Nothing That Pablo Sandoval Cannot Do?
Pablo Sandoval made his first career start at second base Sunday night, against the Chicago Cubs. Evan Longoria has supplanted him at third, but Giants manager Bruce Bochy apparently wanted Sandoval’s bat in the lineup with Buster Posey hurt, and the opening was at second base, where regular starter...
Runners Advance On Umpire's Armpit Catch
Weird stuff happens in baseball. Maybe it’s that there are so many games, and so many repetitions of the same process, that the timeline for seeing every possible outcome is condensed by sheer volume. At any rate, you have probably never seen this one before:...
Jayson Tatum Is Already A Monster
Jayson Tatum’s best highlight from Game 7 was a savage, driving, one-handed dunk directly over LeBron James, in the fourth quarter, when the Celtics needed a spark. This was certainly one way of doing it!...
Even Gassed LeBron Is Too Much LeBron
There was a point, relatively early in the second quarter of Game 7, where Terry Rozier peeled off Kyle Korver in the short corner to double-team LeBron James in the high post. It looked like an improvisation by Rozier—I can’t imagine Brad Stevens would ever script an action that leaves one of the N...
Get A Load Of This Sausage Child Wiping Out
They let the young sausages participate in the sausage race in Milwaukee today. Always a dicey proposition. Check out this little fellow, who eats it right at the very start of the race:...
Oh No, Call The Cops, Someone Is Having Fun Playing Baseball Again
Rays right fielder Carlos Gomez tracked down a shallow fly in foul territory in the top of the sixth inning today, and made a fantastic sliding catch. But that is no excuse at all for what happened next: Gomez gave a visible indication that he was enjoying himself, instead of solemnly trotting to th...
Young Braves Stud Ronald Acuña's Leg Bends Horribly On Infield Single
Braves super-prospect Ronald Acuña Jr. beat out an infield single in the top of the 7th inning against the Red Sox Sunday. Shortly after crossing first base, while signaling to the umpire, Acuña took a bad step with his left leg and something very ugly and unnatural happened in the area of his knee:...
It Is Time For The Cavaliers To Unleash, Uhh, Jeff Green
Tyronn Lue announced during Cleveland’s Sunday shootaround that Jeff Green will start in place of the injured Kevin Love. This was sort of a foregone conclusion—the only other options on the roster are Rodney Hood and Cedi Osman; Hood hasn’t touched the floor since Game 2, aside from a couple minute...
There Is No Nicer Pitch Than This 69-MPH Quick Pitch
Sometimes a batter is in there stretching out like he owns the place, and gets fooled by a quick pitch. That’s pretty fun. Baseball should have lots of those. But Saturday’s Mets-Brewers game featured an entirely different kind of quick pitch—a slow as hell one, thrown almost by accident....
Mike Trout Reduces The Yankees To Cannon Fodder
Unbelievably, Saturday morning there were things Mike Trout had not accomplished in a game of baseball. For example, he had never bunted for a home run, nor had he ever killed a dragon with a baseball bat. It turns out he had also never had a five hit game. You can now scratch that last one off the ...
The Rockets Had A Hell Of A Chance, And Then The Warriors Woke Up
It feels weird to say this about a team that lost a road playoff game by 29 points, but, man, the Rockets blew it. Or, anyway, that’s the glass-is-half-empty take: Even without Chris Paul, even on the road, even going against an unbelievably loaded Warriors team desperate to stave off elimination, t...
Hey, Quick Pitches Sure Seem To Speed Up The Pace Of Play
In the top of the ninth inning of a lopsided Pirates victory over the vile St. Louis Cardinals Friday, Pirates reliever Kyle Crick quick-pitched Cardinals pinch hitter Harrison Bader on an 0-2 count, drawing a delightfully meager and pointless little swinging bunt from Bader:...