dor Page 19 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Let them play!
A ban from the FIFA World Cup didn’t stop any needless aggression from Russia in its brutal war on Ukraine. Even those Russians brave enough to speak out against Vladimir Putin’s needless invasion have felt the consequences of the barbaric actions of the Russian army, like Fedor Smolov. As another h...

Can we please get an LS-U <em>30 for 30</em> already?
It’s hard to quantify what makes a thing charismatic. I recently went to New Orleans for the first time, and before I arrived, I was a little skeptical because often when people can’t shut up about how great something is, the expectation is set so high that anything but perfection is going to be a l...

The Brian Kelly-Notre Dame breakup gets even messier
We’ve got a new rivalry on our hands — the tension has been brewing all off-season between LSU and Notre Dame, and it escalated this week when former Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron was photographed observing a spring practice in South Bend. ...

Narrative Ball: Tom Murphy
Welcome to Narrative Ball, a series dedicated to pointing out some lesser known players and changing the narrative surrounding them in an effort to put them in the same class as some of the best players in baseball. This is not just an attempt to shine a light on someone worthy of more praise than t...

Yes, a pitcher can be the best player in baseball, especially if he also hits 40 HRs
Quarterback is the most important position in football because a quarterback has the ball in their hands for nearly half of the game. They control the game’s pace of play, the efficiency of the passing attack, and although it’s not done nearly as much nowadays, they can even call their team’s plays....

After Kansas and North Carolina’s thriller it’s official: Transfers are in and one-and-dones are out
College basketball is full of rituals, and one of them is that the day after the season ends a host of publications will release their “way-too-early” preseason rankings, as more attention will be focused on mock drafts and the upcoming NBA Draft....

Winning Time: ‘Piece of a Man’ explores Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s relationship with Islam
What makes Winning Time’s tapestry of stories enthralling is how it reflects the chaotic jazz of our lives. Every character is at odds against the world and themselves. Magic, Jerry Buss, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, each man is fighting a private war. For many of them, it’s a war of the spirit against the ...

Can the Mets still compete with deGrom sidelined?
Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher in baseball when healthy. That’s indisputable at this point. Since the start of 2018, deGrom has posted a 1.94 ERA, 205 ERA+, 12.0 K/9 rate, and 0.881 WHIP across 581 innings pitched. No one else even comes close to those figures. The problem has been deGrom’s inabil...

The White Sox are getting to their proper level of cantankerous
The term “White Sox” in baseball basically means anger. Or at least a heavy pinch of it to go with however else it might be defined. There is always an undercurrent of seething with the White Sox and their fans. It’s part of their identity. The White Sox are a symbol of their part of Chicago, the So...

Be patient, but more importantly, not cheap, Chicago
If Zach LaVine and Demar DeRozan thought backup was coming in the form of Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, or Patrick Williams, they might want to try buddy-copping their way out of the jam Chicago is in now. Fake argue like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, or mix karate with charisma like Chris Tucker and J...

What milestones might we see in baseball this year?
The coronavirus pandemic is going to wreak havoc on long-term baseball achievements for years to come. Obviously, anyone chasing career records took a hit from the 60-game season in 2020, and a lot of players were in and out of the lineup last season due to the virus. That also means interruptions t...

The Phillies OF should probably wear their helmets in the field, too
When in the NL East, and having designs on competing to win it, the natural conclusion is that you’ll have to score a lot of runs to do so. Fair enough. The Braves are still here, Ronald Acuña Jr. is going to be healthy (enough), A team also can’t expect Francisco Lindor to be in a constant state of...

The Rockies don’t make any sense
As infuriating, or disappointing, or occasionally exciting as baseball teams can be these days, you can generally figure out their direction and aims pretty quickly. As well as where they are on said arc. You don’t need a Watson to figure out what the Reds and A’s are doing. Nor do you for the Mets ...

MLB free agency predictions - who will go where?
With over 200 names still facing free agency and less than one month to go before the start of the MLB season, we are in for an absolute flurry of moves. There are still dozens of big names on the table for any team looking to make a game-changing acquisition. Those teams that were right on the bord...

Baseball is back, but the DH is everywhere, and that’s awful
There’s only one bad thing about the MLB lockout being over: The game is changing forever....

Roman Abramovich is getting out of Dodge and he’s going to leave Chelsea behind
Remember when NCAA programs, basketball or football, would impose sanctions on themselves in the hopes it would keep the NCAA’s great wandering eye from looking at them too closely? And then if that didn’t work, the coach would have to fall on his sword? That’s sort of what’s happening with Roman Ab...

NBA players who shone during their NCAA tournament runs
Welcome to March! Selection Sunday inches closer. The upsets, heart-racing moments and brilliant individual performances are also near. We’re looking at ten of the best individual NCAA Tournament performers of all-time, with one big qualifier — their teams actually won the national title....

Oh, damn, MLS started this weekend
Part of it was due to still being on vacation, and the other part was my general obliviousness. But I only realized at the last minute that MLS started its season this weekend, about 12 minutes after the last one ended with NYCFC’s manager in his undies in the rain in Portland, thanks to having to w...

Klitschko brothers, HOF boxers from Ukraine, plan to fight for country
The scenes coming out of Ukraine are intense, surreal, and incredibly concerning. “World War 3” also trended on Twitter on Thursday, and the impact of the conflict continued to reach across the sports world. ...