jr Page 11 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The continuing adventures of Angel Hernandez, Leo Messi is doing that thing again, and charter flights in women’s sports rears its ugly head
If you haven’t been following the touring artist exhibition that is Angel Hernandez attempting to call balls and strikes, or simply trying to disprove the utility of rules and conventions in society at all, in various Major League parks this summer, you’re missing one of the truly great examples of ...

Do you know just how bad the Colorado Rockies have been?
It’s a baseball axiom that the Colorado Rockies are clueless, helpless, directionless. They don’t have any stars, they don’t have any prospects, and they don’t have any idea how to get or produce either. Their ballpark presents a unique set of problems, but the Rockies are certainly not the organiza...

After the ESPN shakeup, we still have Hubie Brown to keep teaching us basketball
Following its highest-rated NBA Playoff in two decades, ESPN decided to take a hatchet to its game coverage of the league. Gone from the network entirely are Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy. Replacing them on the No. 1 commentator team alongside Mike Breen are Doris Burke and Doc Rivers. Ryan Ruocco...

Who’s more exciting: Shohei Ohtani or Elly De La Cruz?
This is not an argument about who’s the better player: Shohei Ohtani, or Elly De La Cruz. Ohtani is probably the best two-way player in baseball history, and De La Cruz has 55 games to his name. The discussion is about excitement, about who’s highlight you’re watching first, about throwing a complet...

Who’s up for a non-NBA pro athlete slam dunk contest?
Everyone loves a good slam dunk contest. It doesn’t matter if it involves NBA players, college athletes, or dudes from the neighborhood. If those involved are talented, creative highflyers, folks will gather around to enjoy the festivities. Obviously, the NBA owns the crown when it comes to spectacu...

Nikola Jokić might be the most boring top-rated player ever in <em>NBA 2K24</em>
The player most deserving of the highest rating in NBA 2K24 is Nikola Jokić. Whether he is actually the best player in the NBA is irrelevant to him earning that distinction. The way that he bulldozed his opposition while leading the Denver Nuggets to their first NBA Championship, no other player sho...

Be naivete or something else, Blazers' Scoot Henderson guarantees Rookie of the Year
Scoot Henderson set the bar for his first NBA season, and career, in a recent interview, telling Playmaker HQ that he will win rookie of the year, and hopes to be the “best point guard to ever play in the game.” So with that said, there’s not much else to talk about, right? I think hoops fans collec...

Zay Flowers might already be the best wide receiver in Ravens history
The Baltimore Ravens have been one of the NFL’s most consistent franchises since their relocation to the mid-Atlantic in 1996. They have made the playoffs 14 times, secured six division championships, and won two Super Bowls. A superb 27-season run by any metric, and they have been able to maintain ...

Don’t sleep on the men’s team that America is sending to the FIBA World Cup
Since NBA players have been permitted to play in international competition, the United States has never sent over a unit like the one they are sending to Asia later this month for the FIBA World Cup. Not a single player on this roster has made an All-NBA team — a first since American pros were allow...

Jake Paul and Nate Diaz set boxing back at least a week, probably more
The only reason to watch Jake Paul box is to see a YouTube personality get hit in the face. Like that Twitch star who started a riot in Union Square this week; get him in a pair of gloves and let a New Yorker of equal stature go a few rounds. On Saturday night in Dallas, Nate Diaz, a 37-year-old UFC...

George Pickens is becoming this generation's human highlight reel
Dominique Wilkins will forever be known as the human highlight film, but a Gen-Z version of that nickname needs to be invented for George Pickens. He dazzled in his first training camp, preseason, and also during the regular season. Pickens is picking up right where he left off, drawing oohs and aah...
![Disney-sponsored Orlando Magic say $50k donation to Ron DeSantis' PAC came before presidential bid [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/b3603fb90aecd1832bb1a38e66b05618.jpg)
Disney-sponsored Orlando Magic say $50k donation to Ron DeSantis' PAC came before presidential bid [Update]
Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been engaged in a blood feud for more than a year. On Tuesday DeSantis’ self-appointed governing board of the Walt Disney World district in Orlando dismantled all of the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in it. In February, Disney decided to canc...

Doris Burke, Mike Breen, and Doc Rivers are a match made in…something
Weeks after ESPN split up the NBA’s quirkiest broadcast TRIO by inexplicably laying off Jeff Van Gundy, the suits in Bristol had a high bar to reach for the new three-man-weave in its NEXT lead broadcast team. Mike Breen was a certified starter as the voice of the Worldwide Leader’s play-by-play NBA...

World Cup Diary Day 11: Give them an inch…
We’ve gotten to the business end of the Group Stage, with Group A finishing up their schedule and sending a host home before the knockouts for the first time. But that was overshadowed by possibly the biggest upset of the tournament so far that blows up the draw a bit. Let’s run it through....

Crawford-Spence was an all-timer — just not in the way fans expected
The only ruling necessary after Terence Crawford’s TKO of Errol Spence Jr. was whether Saturday’s fight at the T Mobile Center in Las Vegas met the hype. It was one-sided throughout, as Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) put Spence (28-1, 22 KOS) on the canvas in the second round for the first time in Spence’s...

Where did the American heavyweight boxing champions go?
Errol Spence and Terence Crawford’s highly-anticipated welterweight Fight of the Year doubles as a ring showdown for the pound-for-pound crown that boxing aficionados have been counting down to for years....

The Oakland A’s might not even be the worst team this year, let alone all time
Coming into the 2023 season, many thought that the Oakland A’s had the potential to be not just the worst team in baseball this year, but the worst of all time....

Northwestern’s decision to keep Pat Fitzgerald’s assistants is proof that Northwestern isn’t a serious place
The “intellectual elite” are failing in Evanston. In the same week in which we discovered that Northwestern’s head football coach Pat Fitzgerald’s laughable two-week suspension should have led to his eventual firing for running a program that’s “allegedly” allowed hazing and racism to run rampant fo...

The NFL’s most dysfunctional team operates out of 345 Park Avenue
For years, Dan Snyder caused maximum chaos for the Washington Commanders, and months after agreeing to sell his team, he’s still a reliable source of drama. If the NFL can’t convince its franchises to willingly submit to HBO’s Hard Knocks anymore, maybe the league needs to open its own kimono. Trans...

The Braves and the White Sox were supposed to both have bright futures
Now that the MLB has reached the midsummer classic portion of its schedule, it gives me time to reflect. This period of deep thought has taken me back to a time when the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves had the two best farm systems in MLB....