damn Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Marcell Ozuna Ends The Game With A Perfect Laser To Home Plate
This Marcell Ozuna highlight is from Friday night, but it's still awesome enough to post now....
Yoenis Cespedes Made Another Awesome Throw To Get A Baserunner Out
For the second time in two games, Athletics outfielder Yoenis Cespedes gunned down a baserunner in spectacular fashion....
The Myth Of The Myth Of The Hot Hand
Adapted from the new book, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking....
The Deceptive Math Behind The Seahawks' Pitch To Undrafted Free Agents
As soon as the NFL draft ends, the mad scramble to sign the best undrafted players begins. To get an edge, the Seattle Seahawks have distributed this data-heavy deck to NFL agents, a move that caught the eye of NFL.com's Ian Rapoport....
Behold, The Most Useless Graphic Of The NBA Playoffs
The map above—from TNT last night—is one of those "who's getting the most buzz" graphics that are as ubiquitous as they are useless. Unfortunately, Houston and Portland both wear red, a nuance lost on whatever computer program generated this image. Better luck next time, computer program!...
Holy Shit, The Marlins And Braves Cannot Stop Striking Each Other Out
Remember last night, when the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins combined to strike out 28 times, a thing that had never before occurred in the modern era? Well, those crazy free-swingers went and did the exact same thing today, and they didn't even need a full nine innings to do it this time. ...
The Greatest Season In NBA History*, Brought To You By DeAndre Liggins
The play above—what looks like an afterthought in LeBron James's 61-point outburst against the Bobcats—represents the sole meaningful play of #14 DeAndre Liggins's season. Spending most of the year in D-League, Liggins was signed by Miami late in February and released in mid-March, appearing in just...
Andre Iguodala Ruins Quincy Miller's Life With Incredible Crossover
This is just mean. Poor Quincy Miller thought he was playing smart, heads-up basketball by pressuring the ball-handler, and then Andre Iguodala just goes ahead and turns him into a marionette without strings....
Which NCAA Scorekeepers Give Out The Most Assists?
Over on FiveThirtyEight, Carl Bialik has an interesting article on how NCAA assist rates vary from court to court, since scorekeepers are given considerable leeway in deciding what counts as an assist and what doesn't. Ken Pomeroy tackled the same subject back in 2007, and both identified Sam Housto...
So Close, ESPN Data Team
You usually can't calculate free throw percentages in your head, but 680/1,000 is pretty easy. There are plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for why this happened—maybe the counting and rate stats update at different speeds?—but still, whoops....
When England's Greatest Genius Took Over England's Best Team
If there's one sports novel you should read, it's probably The Damned Utd, David Peace's 2006 account of Brian Clough's disastrous 44-day tenure with a Leeds United side that detested him as much as he detested them. On one level it works as a meticulous, if fictional, reconstruction of a crucial pe...
The Dadspin Guide To The American Snow Day
It's snowing. Again. I live in an area where the arrival of half a snowflake results in the absolute cessation of all business and public transport and hospital respirators, so school is closed. For the 90th fucking time. At this rate, my children will learn to read sometime around 2085....
Cherrypick Your Way Through 143 Years Of Baseball Stats
Did you know that Curt Schilling led the league in complete games from 1992-2001? That Tim Raines led the league in hits from 1981-87? That Fred McGriff led the league in home runs from 1987-95? All great stats to argue for your favorite player's HOF admission, made possible by the magic of cherrypi...
The 49ers-Packers Wild Card Game Is Going To Be So Damn Cold
It looks like this Sunday's Wild Card game between the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers is going to be one of the coldest games in NFL history. How cold is it going to be? Really damn cold....
ESPN Says The Ravens (Who Won) Had A Sub-Zero Chance Of Winning
The graph above, tweeted out by ESPN Stats & Info last night, shows the win probability for the Ravens and Vikings over the fourth quarter of their ridiculous Sunday game, which saw five lead changes in the final two minutes....
Off-Broadway Joe: The Song And Dance Of A Playboy Nearing Middle Age
Originally published in the July 1981 issue of Inside Sports. Reprinted here with the author's permission. For more on Namath, check out this reprint of a frank Playboy interview from 1969....
White Lines: I'm Not Worth A Damn
How cocaine ruined Don Reese's career (John Underwood, SI, 1982):...
The Yankees Are So Evil They Sued For The Exclusive Right To Call Themselves Evil
Evil Enterprises Inc., owners of a website with the URL baseballsevilempire.com which currently will not load due to a malware warning—probably Yankee tampering—recently filed a trademark claim for the term "Baseballs Evil Empire," which was sniffed out and promptly disputed by the lawyers employed ...
The U.S. Just Won Another Gold Medal At The 2004 Olympics
This is maybe not news: Four Eastern European field athletes at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens have been stripped of their medals after testing positive for PEDs. IOC rules allow samples to be frozen for eight years, then re-tested, since the technology now allows for identification of substance...
Here's How God Helped The NCAA Totally Screw Baylor Off The Tournament Bubble
Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a story about Baylor freshman forward Perry Jones III. Detailing his eighth-grade verbal commitment — "[H]e never wavered, even as coaches from more-traditional college-basketball powers, including Kansas and U.C.L.A., sent letters to his home" — it painted...