bu Page 96 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
George Pickens is becoming this generation's human highlight reel
Dominique Wilkins will forever be known as the human highlight film, but a Gen-Z version of that nickname needs to be invented for George Pickens. He dazzled in his first training camp, preseason, and also during the regular season. Pickens is picking up right where he left off, drawing oohs and aah...
The Lionel Messi train keeps rolling, and the Reds certainly don’t need pitching
It is a little annoying to keep seeing “Messi dominates MLS” headlines since his arrival because technically Lionel Messi hasn’t played an MLS match yet. The league is currently on pause for the first-ever Leagues Cup with Liga MX teams, a different competition. That doesn’t mean Messi and Inter Mia...
Playing football at Northwestern University haunts me to this day: Ex-Wildcat lineman
Ramon Diaz hasn’t watched a football game in more than 10 years, since he abruptly left Northwestern University’s football team in 2008. Wednesday morning, standing in a room of reporters, Diaz, a former offensive lineman, detailed why he didn’t return for his fifth season, why he snuck into the loc...
World Cup Day 14: New kids on the block
As the group stage nears its close, we got some more surprises going through, and an old favorite calling it a career at this level. We also got some hilarity, which the last group games always promise but don’t always deliver. Let’s spin this right round!...
The Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds are cowards
The MLB trade deadline passes, with perhaps the most major deal being the Astros acquiring Justin Verlander. And really, who doesn’t want to relive 2017 except everybody? The Mets clearly have punted on next season too, considering the money they’re kicking to Houston to cover an option year that Ve...
IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Everyone is dumb and/or evil
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! Ugh!...
Former USWNT star Carli Lloyd is never hesitant to remind everyone she was the star
The bane of sports analysis, especially when it comes to soccer in a nation that has become too mature in its fandom of the sport to accept this kind of drivel, is to default to claiming something unquantifiable as the reason a team won and a team lost. “Wanted it more” is a phrase you hear all too ...
Doris Burke, Mike Breen, and Doc Rivers are a match made in…something
Weeks after ESPN split up the NBA’s quirkiest broadcast TRIO by inexplicably laying off Jeff Van Gundy, the suits in Bristol had a high bar to reach for the new three-man-weave in its NEXT lead broadcast team. Mike Breen was a certified starter as the voice of the Worldwide Leader’s play-by-play NBA...
World Cup Day 12: Speed kills, and so does a lack of it
We had our clash of teams that have looked most dominant so far, and we can pare that list down to “one team that’s looked dominant so far.” And in something of a surprise, Canada got their leaden asses booted back to the Great White North. Let’s get in. ...
The Rangers better know what they’re getting with Max Scherzer; and ESPN cleared out their staff for this putz?
The Rangers haven’t spent all this time operating like tomorrow is coming, so there’s no reason to stop now. Two winters ago it was Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, which went well. Last winter it was Jacob deGrom, which…well, not so much. You keep letting it ride, sometimes you lose. But that doesn’...
World Cup Diary Day 11: Give them an inch…
We’ve gotten to the business end of the Group Stage, with Group A finishing up their schedule and sending a host home before the knockouts for the first time. But that was overshadowed by possibly the biggest upset of the tournament so far that blows up the draw a bit. Let’s run it through....
OK, now imagine if the Mets had signed Carlos Correa
It feels like just yesterday that the New York Mets had orchestrated a coup, signing Carlos Correa, and putting the other 29 clubs on notice that there’s a new titan of spending in the Northeastern Corridor. Then Correa failed his physical, the deal went belly up, the season started, and the Mets re...
This is what an Ohio pro sports renaissance looks like: Joe Burrow carted off the field
At some point on Thursday, before seeing the news that Joe Burrow was carted off the practice field, I was running over some story ideas in my head as one does in late July when very few sports are in season. The half-baked concept I was playing around with was: Are we in the middle of an Ohio pro s...
NBA needs to up the ante with its international game slate
What happens when a seventh seed and a 13th seed meet on a basketball court in a country that doesn’t have an NBA franchise? Who knows, but we’re going to find out....
ESPN trolls James Harden for loading up on Trill Burgers
In the era of social media, everyone has jokes. Apps like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok have made most things and people easily accessible. Sometimes you’ve got jokes rattling around inside that noggin that you have to get off. This leaves all participants open for trolling, especially pro athletes...
It’s fair to ask Nick Saban about Alabama’s racist politics
Kay Ivey — the Republican Governor of Alabama — doesn’t have more juice than Nick Saban. That’s how things work in the South, especially when you’ve won seven national championships as a head coach in the SEC. And since people are more familiar with Saban than Ivey, it’s fair to ask him about a ruli...
You have to marvel at the wretchedness of the Chicago White Sox
There are certainly a host of disappointing teams in MLB this year. More so than usual it feels like, with the Mets, Padres, and Cardinals face down in a muck they never considered being in back in the spring. You can throw the Mariners on there if you’re feeling truly dispirited and want to take it...
World Cup Day 4: Not much more than a feeling
If the story of the first three days of the World Cup was that the tournament favorites were kind of inching their way through their first matches, nothing changed on Day 4. Sweden, Holland, and especially France all had an air of trying to figure out what all the buttons do and what the lights mean...
ESPN Cleveland radio host goes off on low expectations for Browns
Success for the Cleveland Browns has been limited over the past few decades. Since 1990, the Browns have advanced to the postseason three times. The last won a division title in ‘89 in the old AFC Central. Needless to say, there aren’t too many Browns believers outside city limits. That’s what has E...