baseball Page 73 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Al Leiter’s kid Jack is a chip off the old ‘no-no’ block
The Yankees knew what they were doing when they drafted Jack Leiter in the 20th round two years ago. But they also couldn’t convince Al Leiter’s son to forego college. Pretty much everyone in college baseball outside of Vanderbilt wishes they had....

Urban Meyer might have a point about NFL free agency sucking (really)
Urban Meyer’s derision for the NFL’s free agency process seems like easy fodder, but there’s a lot of truth to his complaint about signing players without meeting them. It’s not good for the players, either, because they wind up making a critical decision about their career without having a full pic...

Derek Jeter won’t rest until the Marlins are as boring as he is
For a team that’s won two World Series, the Marlins existence has been rather unspectacular. Other than those wins, all they’re known for is trading players away. First in 1998, then Marcell Ozuna, Giancarlo Stanton, and Christian Yelich. Whatever happened in between has been covered by the sands of...

Damian Lillard was back on his… whatever voodoo that was… last night
If there’s one thing Twitter is good for, and it might not be, it’s alerting you when you might miss something. The Blazers were down 17 last night to the Pelicans with just six minutes to go. They won by one, thanks to a 25-7 run, in which Damian Lillard was involved in 18 of those points. He finis...

Swing and a miss … and a welt … as Yanks’ Darren O’Day gets a K on a HBP
Darren O’Day has been in the major leagues since 2008, he was an All-Star in 2015, and he’s been to the postseason with Texas, Baltimore, and Atlanta. The well-traveled and well-decorated righty reliever signed with the Yankees this offseason, and his role in the New York bullpen is clear....

A small school in Georgia is channeling the 1986 Mets in all the best ways
There’s a moment in 1986 Mets: A Year To Remember, the greatest sports year-in-review video ever made, when, as Ray Knight hits a walkoff homer to beat the Astros on July 3, Tim McCarver crows, “They’re spreading the news that they are right now the dominant team in this game — in either league!”...

Joel Embiid's knee woe is dumb fodder for new episode of 'When Meatheads Attack'
Joel Embiid needs an MRI on his hyperextended left knee when the 76ers get back home. This after he just got back from health-and-safety protocols and having to (getting to?) sit out of the All-Star Game....

$240K for a dunk highlight? Breaking down the NBA Top Shot craze
One of the most asked questions of the last few weeks have probably been: What the hell is an NBA Top Shot? ...

Let's see if we can make baseball better by exploiting loopholes in MLB’s rulebook
Major League Baseball’s takeover of the minor leagues has paved the way for the 2021 season to be one of experimentation on the farm, with different rules being tested at different levels in the developmental circuits....

On the anniversary of sports shutting down due to COVID-19, what have we learned about sports, the virus, and ourselves?
It’s been a year since NBA player Rudy Gobert smeared his hands on reporters’ microphones at a press conference and then tested positive for the coronavirus. A year of lockdowns and masking and handwashing and flouting mask-wearing protocols....

50 years ago a boxing match stopped the world, now the sport could barely stop traffic — could baseball be next?
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of “The Fight Of The Century,” the first of three Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali fights. Even though it took place a decade before I was born, anyone can glean the importance of it by listening to just about anyone who was alive at the time talk about it or even read a f...

Sky-high credit card fees are legal, yet predatory — just like Tom Wilson's game
Tom Wilson barely even took a week to lay another dirty hit after the last time he made headlines for laying a dirty hit....

Deadspin Wayback Machine: A look back at some of sports’ great relics
One of the great things about sports is the comfort that they provide. While the world is always changing, sometimes at a pace that’s hard to process, sports are largely static. If you watch a football game from 50 years ago, there certainly are differences in strategy and the size and speed of the ...

The MLBPA isn’t giving the owners a dime
You’d like to think that the rules for the upcoming baseball season would have been set, considering that spring training games are already being played. Seeing as how they went through an offseason and teams are already constructed for the most part, it would be ideal for everyone to know the param...

Didn't take long for Angel Hernandez to Angel Hernandez and show us all again why we need automatic strike zones
The return of spring training games is supposed to be some sign of hope. While it doesn’t signal the beginning of spring, it at least signals that spring will get here at some point. The sight of baseball being played in sunshine and people having cold beers on a warm day generally lets you know tha...

Sports uniforms are having a weekend
Red team, meet red team. And, no, neither ballclub includes the actual Reds....

Stop trying to make Nerds vs. Fun happen in the NBA, too
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: if your reaction to seeing Anthony Edwards’ dunk last week was to complain that it was “all over Twitter” but also note that he was 0-for-7 on three-pointers, you’re either an idiot, a serious killjoy, trolling for attention, or some combination of the thre...

Hey Angels, we've solved your Shohei Ohtani problem
Whatever team you’re a fan of, there’s always at least three “best shape of his life” stories in various forms that come out of Arizona or Florida. Whether it’s the vet who had a disappointing season or two, the reclamation project, or the prospect who never quite panned out. It’s boilerplate. Maybe...

Joe Maddon thinks David Fletcher is great, but shouldn’t be throwing others under the bus about it
David Fletcher is a nice, solid ballplayer. Since debuting with the Angels in 2018, he’s played all over the field and been above-average defensively wherever he goes, while posting a .292/.346/.386 line with 10 homers and 13 steals in 283 games....

This is it for Albert Pujols, whatever his wife might say
Not that it needed an announcement, but there was a brief period of time last night when Albert Pujols’ wife had declared this upcoming season the last of his illustrious career. She did her best to walk it back later, as that’s how these things tend to go....