classic Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The fans Rob Manfred is trying to service are prudes

This year’s MLB Opening Day feels different than recent iterations because the media doesn’t have (most of) its usual talking points to complain about. The rule changes are going to shorten the games, discontinue the dialog about shifts, and provide baserunners with throw pillows to slide into. Yay!...

The Angels will make the playoffs...or at least let’s figure out a way they can

As badass as the moment was of seeing Shohei Ohtani face Mike Trout with the World Baseball Classic on the line last night, you could forgive Los Angeles Angels fans if they were rubbing their temples a bit during it. The cry whenever either or both of those names come up in conversation has been, “...

Meaningless baseball continues to thrill millions

I think maybe what I might take most out of the World Baseball Classic is its insistence on portraying the entire scope of the best moments, what makes baseball the most artful game. ...

No, Keith Olbermann, we should not 'kill' the WBC

If you ever wonder why much of the world views Americans as arrogant and uninterested in anything that happens outside the United States’ borders, look no further than Keith Olbermann’s recent tweets about the World Baseball Classic....

Stop bitching about the World Baseball Classic

We tend not to appreciate things that don’t matter as much to us as it does others. If there’s anything more American than “I got mine,” I don’t know what that would be. That seems to be the trouble with the World Baseball Classic, even though with every iteration it seems to pick up more steam. The...

Keith Olbermann has a scorching bad take on the World Baseball Classic

When there’s a way to have a trash take on sports, enter Keith Olbermann. This time, it’s about the World Baseball Classic, because what matters most to Mr. Olbermann is the Major League Baseball season, as the yearly league is much more important to those who don’t see value in the global tournamen...

The most Mets thing ever? [Updated]

If I asked you, before the WBC, which team might have a player seriously injured not just during the World Baseball Classic, but doing something non-play involved during the WBC that feels like the baseball gods got loaded and said, “Hey watch this!”, there would only be one answer, right? You could...

Baseball is getting increasingly liberal with the term ‘perfect game’

There was a perfect game in the World Baseball Classic on Monday. The Puerto Rico pitching staff, led by a perfect 5.2 innings from journeyman José De León, didn’t surrender a baserunner to Israel. Normally, that’d be pretty amazing, even by modern-day pitching standards. But — and I definitely fore...

The World Baseball Classic tiebreaker system is what?

With every new addition, it seems at least a few more people are enjoying the World Baseball Classic. It’s got a bit of everything for the baseball freak, starting off with #WeirdBaseball and overnight starts in Taiwan and Tokyo. Then we get the noise and sights whenever the Dominican Republic, Vene...

Team USA loses exhibition to 3-9 San Francisco Giants

Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, Nolan Arenado, Pete Alonso, Paul Goldschmidt, Kyle Schwarber. With a roster like that, you’d expect Team USA Baseball to dominate every game they play. They’re totally going to destroy Great Britain this Saturday in their first game of the World Baseball Classi...

LIV Golf’s CW premiere was so bad it couldn't even beat out <i>World's Funniest Animals</i>

Last week, sports outlets spent an inordinate amount of words on the NBA All-Star Game’s poor ratings. The telecast came in with 4.39 million viewers, a sizable drop from 2022 when 6.28 million people tuned in. Well, LIV Golf’s TV debut on the CW drew 291,000 fans on Sunday, which was 5,000 better t...

How could you root against the Czech Republic's World Baseball Classic team?

March 7 marks the beginning of the World Baseball Classic as the best players from around the world compete in what is essentially baseball’s Olympics. Yes, baseball was an Olympic event in 2020, but let’s be real, that was a bigger joke than anything Marvel has put in its movie scripts recently. Th...

After TCU, who is the next longshot to make the College Football Playoff?

To show how unlikely TCU’s run to the College Football Playoff was, at 200-1 odds to begin the season, it’s worth a look at which teams currently have those same chances to be 60 minutes from lifting a national championship a year from now. According to BetOnline.ag, six teams have +20000 chances to...

Five best landing spots for Carlos Correa [Updated]

Previously, Deadspin said Philly was the most likely landing spot, but now someone else will land the two-time All-Star...

One, two, three … balks, you’re out?

Is Marlins’ reliever Richard Bleier the first Jewish pitcher to be called for a balk on Rosh Hashanah? I don’t know. What is a stone-cold fact is coming into Tuesday’s game against the Mets, Bleier had made 572 professional baseball appearances over the course of 15 years — never in his seven big le...

Here's what you missed from college football while watching Alabama-Texas

To begin the Saturday marathon of college football most of us were watching the shitshow in Austin that turned into an early Heisman resume builder for defending-award recipient Bryce Young. Plenty of other weird stuff went down in the early window of intercollegiate gridiron. Aside from Alabama, th...

Serena Williams calls it a career

I’d wreck my Subaru to be on the Patriots, too

In the barren wasteland that is sports in August, there are only baseball and speculative NFL stories to write about. And since we just wrote about Aaron Judge and he didn’t hit a dinger Friday night, we’ve got football chatter for you. Today’s anecdote comes from former New England Patriot offensiv...

WWE Royal Rumble predictions: Return of Ronda Rousey?

No matter how down you are on WWE, and Eric and I certainly are somewhere around ankle-level, there’s still something special about the Royal Rumble. It’s still the only of its kind. It signals the beginning of the build to WrestleMania, but mostly it’s because it’s still the only event on the calen...

MLB teams want a 2021 Platinum Glove winner to change positions?

Stop the free agent talk! The lockout has commenced and with it there will be no more free agent signings until MLB and the MLB Players’ Association agree on a new CBA for the next five years. That being said, there are still several big-name free agents who remained unsigned through the Wednesday C...