fl Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The NBA Offseason Doesn't Get Better Than This. Unfortunately.
And now, the longer view on the Russell Westbrook–Chris Paul deal that you haven’t seen yet:...
Jim Bouton Woke Up America
In 1969 and 1970, two books were published that demystified two of the most hidebound American institutions—presidential campaigns and major-league baseball. By and large, both were exercises controlled at their very top by Penis-Americans who were so white that they barely cast a shadow. They were ...
Nothing's Happening Today
This is the worst time of the year, but not for the reason you think. It’s because everyone in sports media all the way down to a three-watt radio station in Cow Skull, Saskatchewan, tells you it’s the worst time of the year. “Nothing’s happening,” “Nothing’s going on,” “We’re so bored,” and “I know...
Waiting For The Revolution At Soccer Analytics Bootcamp
When the 2019 Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham kicked off, I wasn’t jammed into a sports bar downing beers with hundreds of other soccer-mad Americans, as I had originally planned to be. Instead, I was dead sober, watching the game in a lecture hall situated on the Columbia Uni...
Does Rob Manfred Even <i>Like</i> Baseball?
Baseball giveth, and baseball taketh away. In these perilous times when every little moment is a referendum on whether the game will survive until Christmas, and every act of untrammeled joy comes with two asterisks that scream, “Yeah, but they’ll screw it up because it’s baseball and only old peopl...
When The Allies Wanted A German Nuclear Scientist Dead, They Sent A Ballplayer To Kill Him
The following is an excerpt from The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb, by Sam Kean. The book is out today and can be purchased here....
How Concrete And Steel Built Baseball
The opening of Yankee Stadium on April 14, 1923, was a triumph for baseball....
Treat The Knicks Like What They Are
Kevin Durant could have chosen better than to make Brooklyn the new center of the universe. For example, he could have joined Kawhi Leonard in Toronto and taken on the entire National Hockey League at its very core by making basketball Canada’s new national pastime. I mean, it’s one thing to kick th...
The Man Who Walked His Life Away
George Wilson stepped out into the medieval-walled prison yard and began to walk. He was 47 years old, beaten-down, and half-starved. His squat frame and stubby legs hardly suggested athletic excellence. But Wilson was well-known as a perambulator, a peregrinator, and a master of “leg-ology.” He was...
Let's Fix All The Bird Logos In Pro Sports
There are 12 teams across the Big Four leagues named after birds, and to be honest, it’s a pretty raw deal for the birds. The teams get, for free: an entire graphic identity based around attractive and charismatic wildlife to put on shirts and hats and stuff to sell for a ton of money. The birds, ea...
Does Pro Wrestling's Merchant Of Secrets Have Any Left To Sell?
Wayne Farris, better known as The Honky Tonk Man, demanded Seagram’s Extra Smooth Vodka. It was 2007, and the man who made his name touring the wrestling territories and eventually the WWE with an indestructibly greasy pompadour, a Memphis jumpsuit, and a frequently weaponized acoustic guitar was ge...
Get Excited For Free Agency, A Delightful Graveyard Of Best-Laid Plans
According to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer, who got his number from someone else, there is around $474 million in available cap space to be flung about the NBA this summer, more than the last two seasons combined, and his conclusion from the resultant analysis is that the most important thing a team ...
James Harden Gave The NBA Too Much Of What It Wanted
What happened to James Harden and the Houston Rockets? This time last year, Harden was receiving his coronation as the league’s MVP and the Rockets were seen as the only real challengers to the Warriors’ dynasty, which they very nearly ended through an almost religious adherence to what we’ve devoti...
Almost Every Penalty Kick Save Ever Is Illegal Now And It's A Mess
The idea, which is not an unreasonable one on its face, is to “get it right.” The less inspiring extension of that is “to avoid something horribly embarrassing.” There are examples that spring to mind when it comes to justifying VAR’s existence—the people in charge are probably thinking of moments ...
How Playing In The NFL Ruined Me For Life On The Outside
Some NFL players will tell you the league is like prison—prison with paychecks. Each well-paid inmate has a reputation for violence, and every day on the yard, someone gets shanked. Every week, a few guys get released and a few guppies show up. The guys who leave feel a sense of relief, but they soo...
In Andy Ruiz Jr.'s Hometown, Boxing And Border Patrol Are All Part Of The Scenery
IMPERIAL, Calif. — On Andy Ruiz Jr. Day in Imperial, the temperature had already climbed past 90 degrees by 9 a.m. The cooler wind that had been blowing earlier in the morning had retreated back to the Laguna Mountains to the west, whose peaks were now shrouded in a marine layer that refused to push...
All NBA Draft Grades Are Useless. Here Are My NBA Draft Grades
Now that the mock drafts are dead, the fashion show is done, all the crying parents have come and gone and Woj and Shams are back in the holster for a few hours, let us see what Postseason Advent has wrought:...
Too Much Of The World Cup Is Just Soccer Failing To Get Out Of Its Own Way
Ideally, this would be a story about the best saves of the group stage from the group stage of the 2019 World Cup. The field for this eighth run of the women’s tournament is deeper and more talented than ever, and there have already been a number of highlight-worthy stops to match. I would love to u...
The UFC's Pride Month Shirts Can't Hide How It Really Feels
Shortly following the start of Pride Month in June, the UFC joined in the grand tradition of brands glomming onto the LGBTQ+ rights movement in order to enhance their profiles:...
Getting A Medal From Donald Trump Fits Jerry West All Too Well
Have you ever seen Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, The Lonely Island’s 2016 mockumentary about a very specific kind of post-Obama cultural success? It’s a good movie. Funny gags, and some insight into the sort of of-this-moment famous person who is transparently drowning in narcissism but also d...