br Page 426 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Gabriel Benitez Slammed Humberto Bandenay Straight To Hell<em></em>
The UFC held its first event in Chile on Saturday, and while the only Chilean fighter on the card lost and the main event was a a real stinker, fans who arrived reasonably early at least got to see a spectacular finish. Gabriel Benitez met Humberto Bandenay in the fourth fight of the evening, and th...
José Bautista Shifts Into The "Too Crummy Even To Play Third Base For The Atlanta Braves" Stage Of His Career
José Bautista’s unexpected and endlessly depressing stint as a third-baseman for the Atlanta Braves, kicked-off ominously with a one-year minor league contract in mid-April, has not produced the way anyone involved might’ve hoped: Bautista is hitting a putrid .143 with an alarming .593 OPS in 40 pla...
The Rays Are Making History With Strange New Pitching Strategies
The Rays announced last week an extremely unusual, cosmic-brain plan for the immediate future of their pitching rotation: rather than the traditional approach of deploying a starting pitcher to work through the opposing lineup a few times before yielding to the bullpen, manager Kevin Cash decided to...
LeBron In Full Must-Win Mode Is An Unsolvable Problem
The Cavs opened Game 3 with a huge 22-6 run, and that was more or less that. This was not a case of the winning team grabbing an early lead behind a fluky start and nursing it cautiously until the final buzzer—the Cavs were forceful and decisive early, and did some cool and different things to chall...
Benches Clear In Cubs-Reds After Bold Pitcher Stare-Down
Reds reliever Amir Garrett punctuated an inning-ending strikeout of Javier Baez in the seventh inning Saturday with a triumphant shout, loud enough to be audible over the television broadcast, followed by an aggressive stare-down of his vanquished foe. Unwritten rules and athlete egos being what the...
Johnny Manziel Signs Contract To Play In Canadian Football League
Johnny Manziel, a prolific college quarterback whose career was put on hold for two years of mandatory service in the Cleveland Browns organization, will finally experience what it means to play for a professional football team: ...
The Lightning Power Play Is A Thing To Behold
The numbers are intimidating. The Tampa Bay Lightning had the league’s third best power play during the regular season, at 23.9 percent. They have the best power play of any team left alive, at 30.8 percent. They are 6-of-14 on the power play against the Capitals. They have scored a power-play goal ...
Bill Bradley Had Some Dumb Thoughts About The Legalization Of Sports Gambling
Sports gambling is going to be a disaster for some. The widespread legalization of sports gambling in the United States, for which the Supreme Court paved the way with a ruling earlier this week, will lead to some people gambling all their money away. It will not lead to a renaissance in Atlantic Ci...
Maybe, Just Maybe, The Knicks Might Have A Functional Defense
The Knicks did not luck out, which is basically an evergreen sentence. Their lottery pick did not leap into the top three, which had only a six percent chance of occurring last night. It instead landed at nine, as expected. I feel a little good about this. ...
Uh Oh, The Cavs Might Actually Be In Trouble<em></em>
An all-timer of a first quarter from LeBron James, in which he scored 21 of his team’s 27 points, and a 42-point triple-double for the entire game all went to waste in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, as the Boston Celtics took down the Cleveland LeBrons, 107-94....
The Braves Suddenly Own The Best Record In The National League
On Sunday night, the Nationals completed their four-game sweep of the Diamondbacks in a primetime thriller that featured a freeze-the-outfielder smash from Bryce Harper, two Mark Reynolds dingers (?), and the third solid start in a row from Jeremy Hellickson (??). This all means exactly as much as a...
Jay Bruce Apparently Celebrated Being Traded Away From The Mets By Conceiving A Child<em></em>
The New York Mets, a team that began the season 11-1, lost their ninth game of their last 11 in Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon. Ace Noah Syndergaard, who was scheduled to start Saturday’s rained-out game against the Phillies, was skipped for reasons vague enough to be weird. Less-hairy co-ace Jaco...
LeBron James Held To 15 Points In Game 1 Loss, Still Finds A Way To Remind Us He's The GOAT
There aren’t many players in the world that can hijack a Game 1 blowout loss simply by flexing their steel trap of a memory. Then again, there aren’t many folks out there like LeBron James....
Cavs Comprehensively Wrecked By Scrappy Celtics
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals was never close. The Celtics went on a 17-0 run in the first quarter, and that was that. The central question of this series is whether Boston’s impressive team defense will be able to slow down a Cavs offense that ranked number one in the NBA in offensive eff...
Brooks Koepka Drops In A Ridiculous 208-Yard Albatross
Brooks Koepka shot a course-record-tying 63 today in the final round of The Players, which was good enough to bring him into the top five of the leaderboard. Lots of good stuff in a 63, but the true highlight of his day was an amazing 208-yard approach shot on the par-5 16th hole. Check this shit ou...
Ben Zobrist Calls Out MLB For Threatening Punishment Over Black Cleats
Cubs second-baseman Ben Zobrist likes to wear all-black cleats to home games. To hear him tell it, that’s no random fashion statement—it’s done to commemorate a time in baseball’s past when all-black cleats were the norm. But baseball has collectively-bargained uniform standards, just like every oth...
Brett Brown: 76ers "Need Help" To Win A Championship
However disappointed the Sixers and their fans may feel about a five-game series loss to the depleted Celtics, their season was an enormous success. They won a playoff series, and were the favorites to win another, and they certainly look closer to championship contention than all but maybe two or t...
LeBron James Just Got The Coach Of The Year Fired
Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey was voted by his peers as the NBA’s coach of the year two days ago. He received this award for coaching his team to a 59-23 record and the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Today, Casey lost his job. This is because LeBron James exists, and happens to play ba...
Jayson Tatum Gave The Celtics Everything They Needed
As the Celtics dispatched the Sixers with shocking ease, observers were quick to point to Al Horford’s defensive heroics and Terry Rozier’s sudden emergence as instrumental in Boston’s unexpected conference finals appearance. After all, Boston needed to stymie Joel Embiid (which the supposedly stout...
The Philadelphia 76ers Should Blow Up The Team And Not Worry About The Short-Term Consequences
After half a decade under head coach Brett Brown and four years and two contracts into the career of star center Joel Embiid—the team’s only All-Star—the Philadelphia 76ers and their fans face a moment of reckoning. It’s a painful one, but it won’t get any less painful if we ignore it. The facts are...