mad Page 28 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Beer-breath mask is real: My trip to MSG shows what it’s really like at indoor sports events during COVID
Deciding to attend the first live sports event in New York City with fans in just under a year, indoors at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, had me very much channeling Sméagol/Gollum in The Lord of the Rings....

Joe Maddon thinks David Fletcher is great, but shouldn’t be throwing others under the bus about it
David Fletcher is a nice, solid ballplayer. Since debuting with the Angels in 2018, he’s played all over the field and been above-average defensively wherever he goes, while posting a .292/.346/.386 line with 10 homers and 13 steals in 283 games....

Romelu Lukaku is the best striker in the world
Few fixtures suffer from the lack of fans more than the Milan derby, especially this latest iteration. A split stadium, 80,000 fans baying for blood and justice, tifos galore, all in service to a top of the table contest, it would have been an epic occasion. Inter Milan came into this leading Serie ...

The Miami Heat aren’t out of it yet, but they badly need to start winning
The Miami Heat can’t keep losing like this....

The Champions League returns this week... all over the place
One of the rites of...well, not spring exactly, but a rite of reminding you that spring might actually arrive at some point before the light within you has completely extinguished, is the knockout stage of the Champions League. It drops into the sporting scene at the end of February, right after you...

Remembering Leon Spinks’ forgotten upset over Ali 42 years ago
Leon Spinks passed away on February 5 due to prostate cancer at the age of 67. On February 15, 42 years ago, he starred in one of sports’ larger-than-life upsets over one of the most unforgettable boxers to have ever stepped into a ring. If you compile your own Tale of the Tape retrospective, withou...

Who could grace the cover of Madden 2022?
With the Super Bowl over, it’s time to begin arguing about this year’s Madden cover....

De’Aaron Fox is totally right about pointless All-Star Game, which should be virtual like Pro Bowl
De’Aaron Fox, following a 26-point, 11-assist performance in a loss to the Celts Wednesday night, said during his postgame Zoom conference that the NBA’s lust for an All-Star Game this season falls a bit shy of sagacious. ...

The Miami Heat are victims of circumstance
It’s easy to eyeball the defending Eastern Conference champions through the prism of disappointment without absorbing the nuance plaguing their dispiriting season. ...

Boom! Madden predicts Chiefs Super Bowl victory, and history says they’ll probably be right
For 17 years, EA Sports has simulated the Super Bowl, beginning in Madden 2004 — featuring the infamous Michael Vick and his 95 speed on the cover — in which the New England Patriots defeated the Carolina Panthers 32-29. Though Madden has only nailed the exact score in one instance — the Patriots sl...

Please turn this Pro Bowl Madden stream into a regular thing
No, this isn’t a case to keep the Pro Bowl in a virtual setting forever. Hopefully, someday soon, we’ll get to travel normally so the players who’ve earned it could make the trip to Orlando. But the NFL Madden Stream worked, as far as quality content goes....

The GameStop revolution <i>probably</i> won’t sink Steve Cohen and the Mets, but
The hope for the little guy, which all of us are, is that one day hell would come to breakfast for the hedge-fund tools that are pretty close to ruining baseball, the country, and the globe. And at that point, through some inexplicable force that could only be karma, they would all have to work at W...

Will Clint Capela’s historic four-game fantasy stretch continue against Brooklyn?
Sometimes your targets are so far below your price range that you laugh at how easily you’ll take them. And in other instances, the bookkeepers raise their value so much, causing you to contemplate reevaluating your choices. That happened to some degree here, but still, I’m sticking to it. FanDuel i...

Madden Pro Bowl might be the NFL’s smartest move in years
ESPN reports that the NFL Pro Bowl will not only forego their annual Orlando festivities due to COVID-19, but that the event itself will be held virtually and air on television in place of the in-person game....

Men’s March Madness tournament to be played exclusively in an Indiana sorta bubble
March Madness was always going to happen. Now we know where....

Saints will need to fight for NFC bye slot without Kamara, who has coronavirus
The Saints come into the final day of the NFL regular season with an outside shot at the top seed in the NFC and the bye next week that comes with it. It would take a win over the Panthers, the Packers losing in Chicago, and the Seahawks beating the 49ers in Arizona to create a three-way tie at 12-4...

The sports figures we've lost in 2021
Here’s a look at the athletes and sports figures we’ve lost in 2021....

Your degenerate Christmas Day NBA Daily Fantasy picks are in!
Merry Christmas, my fellow degenerates. ...

AN OPEN LETTER TO NEW YORK KNICKS FANS: Take the train to Brooklyn ... ASAP
Dear Knicks fans,...

Canceling the Pinstripe Bowl for public safety is an outrage that may be NYC's ruin
They closed the subways at night in New York City, and that was fine, because the subways are, and have been, crime-infested hell holes....