fr Page 118 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It's 4:20 on 4/20, let's fire one up for the sports heroes who smoke weed
With every 4/20 that goes by, sports leagues seem to care less and less about weed. As they should....

LaMelo Ball could return by May, and Hornets could sting from playoff play-in position
We weren’t sure if LaMelo Ball would play again this season, but it looks like he will....

Aldon Smith wanted for allegedly choking person unconscious in coffee shop
It’s not every day that you see an NFL player on a wanted poster. The freshly-signed-by-the-Seahawks Aldon Smith is wanted for a second-degree battery from an incident that happened on the evening of April 17, 2021....

Shane Bieber is on one again
That’s probably not fair, as Shane Bieber isn’t really doing anything he didn’t do last year. We just didn’t notice all that much because it was a 60-game season in the middle of a pandemic and most of it happened in Cleveland....

Let’s all enjoy the Yankees being ass
I fell into the trap, too. The return to a 162-game season lent a feeling of the Yankees being inevitable in the AL East. After all, the Red Sox simply declined to compete again (though no one seems to have told their players yet), the Blue Jays fel about a year away, and the Orioles smell like a sm...

Joey Votto almost pulled off the incredibly rare unassisted triple play
Carlos Rodón came oh-so-close to a perfect game on Wednesday night, settling instead for a no-hitter after he hit Cleveland catcher Roberto Perez with a pitch in the ninth inning, two outs away from what would have been the first perfecto in the majors since Félix Hernández’s in on August 15, 2012....

Weigh-in leads to a lot of ‘Dad Bod’ jokes, but Ben Askren is coming to save the world from Jake Paul
On an actual boxing card with actual legitimate boxers, Jake Paul is once again boxing a non-boxer. ...

Everything is going great in the Bronx, except for the numbskull fans and very not good Yankees baseball
For everyone who’s ever said the Yankees are the worst, today is your day....

Tatis returns and Padres-Dodgers give us a look at what could be an epic summer
Fernando Tatis Jr. returned to the Padres’ lineup on Friday night, 10 days after all of baseball got its stomach tied up in knots seeing the 22-year-old star suffer a partially dislocated left shoulder....

MLS is back, and I’m really going to try this time
MLS returns this weekend, and unlike most of the big soccer leagues in the world, it can do so in front of some fans. We won’t hear the sheer wall of noise we would usually get in Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, and Orlando, or in more and more places these days, just yet. But it will be a relief to hea...

Jackie Robinson would be condemning police terror and white America were he alive today
Yesterday was April 15th, Jackie Robinson Day, baseball’s annual event of empty tributes to cover up the fact that 90 percent of teams refuse to hire Black or Hispanic executives or managers despite Jackie’s dying wishes. ...

How well did<em> MLB: The Show</em> choose cover athletes? We rank all 15 player performances that season
One month later than usual, MLB: The Show is finally releasing their 2021 installment. Although the game itself doesn’t fully come out until Tuesday, April 20, today begins the early access release period, meaning if you pre-ordered the game, you’re probably playing it right now....

Jeremy Lin deserves a roster spot, but the NBA is drunk on bare-minimum contracts
Much like Isaiah Thomas signing a 10-day contract on April 3 with the Pelicans, Jeremy Lin is just looking for one more chance in the NBA. Based on his G League production this past season, he’s earned it. As I said last week, the league has a problem with its veterans being cast aside in favor of y...

Ronald Acuña has transformed into Superman
The best player in baseball resides in Atlanta. This was always something of the forecast for Ronald Acuña Jr. when he came up through the Braves system. It just wasn’t believed his rise to the top would be quite so ruthlessly achieved. ...

Anthony Edwards not knowing A-Rod is proof that MLB has failed with young Black people
I have an honest question. ...

Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme screwed the Mets for years, dies in prison
Bernie Madoff tried to get clemency from Donald Trump in 2019, and last year asked to be released from prison because of kidney disease. He didn’t get the presidential get-out-of-jail-free card, and didn’t get the compassionate release, but Madoff is now off the hook for the remaining 138 years of h...

Joe West wins suit vs. Paul Lo Duca in a story with no heroes
They say justice is blind, which means that’s one thing justice has in common with Joe West....

Taking a look at QB-heavy draft classes, and why the best isn't always the guy who goes highest
In a quarterback league, this year’s NFL Draft looks like one of the most quarterback-rich talent pools in history. We know that Trevor Lawrence will be the No. 1 pick for the Jaguars, and after him, it’s likely that the Jets and 49ers will select signal callers, making this the first draft with qua...

The NHL trade deadline, and the Maple Leafs in particular, continue to be really weird
There’s nothing like the NHL trade deadline to warp what you thought you knew about teams’ priorities and how players are valued. GMs alternate between desperation to chase the Cup and desperation to get anything for players who can’t wait to high-tail it out of town at the season’s end. The process...

The griping of one Black small biz owner is not a legit beef against MLB All-Star Game move
There may be a good-faith argument to be had about the efficacy of MLB moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia. While moving the Super Bowl helped press Arizona to recognize Martin Luther King Day as a holiday, and the NBA’s retraction of its All-Star Game from Charlotte played a role in getting par...