major Page 16 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Where are all the Bryce Harper haters now?
For sure, all the Bryce Harper bashers are in hiding today....

This is what it's all about
It’s not usually supposed to work like this in baseball. The quirk, some would say the beauty, of the game is that the big at-bats can fall to anyone. They don’t always fall to a team’s star player, and in fact, they rarely do. Opponents spell out a strategy most of the time to make sure they don’t....

Houston, we have a champagne problem
Champagne isn’t the only thing the Houston Astros are keeping on ice. ...

If ya can't beat 'em, hire 'em
If you can’t beat ‘em, hire the manager that beat you. Yeah! That’s the phrase. At least it is for the Texas Rangers, who successfully courted Bruce Bochy out of three-year retirement to become their new manager. Bochy is best known to Texas as the mafioso who picked them apart in the 2010 World Ser...

If you were to watch the NLCS instead of just complaining about it, you might like it
There’s no denying that the ALCS is a bigger draw than the NLCS this year. The Yankees always garner eyeballs, New York and Houston have a recent, contentious history, and there is no fence straddling when it comes to the Astros’ cheating scandal. Either they should have a postseason ban like a coll...

El Tráfico knows no laws
You’ve lived long enough to hear the phrase “throw the records out when these two meet.” It’s usually the last ditch of some production team trying to gloss up a rivalry game that’s no longer much of a rivalry. No, I’m not thinking of Bears-Packers, you charlatan! But it’s meant to convey some time ...

So it’s root, root, root for the Yankees
It has happened only once in recorded history....

Get good players, win good prizes
It obviously seems way too simple to distill the NLCS that kicks off tonight between the Phillies and Padres as two teams that just traded for or signed a bunch of good players. It’s a damning statement on where MLB is at the moment that this seems such a radical fucking idea. It’s the easiest thing...

If you need something to complain about, complain about MLB relievers
Having no love for the Dodgers (I was threatened with far too many stabbings in the Dodger Stadium upper deck at an impressionable age to get over it), I certainly am gleaning at least a modicum of joy over their fans’ wailing about seeing a 111-win team eat it at the first hurdle in the postseason....

It’s never been easy to win a World Series
The past 24 hours or so have been filled with shrieking referendums on the MLB playoffs and its structure. Not that this structure is really all that different from what came before. But the hope, expressed by yours truly as well, was that making the lower-seeded teams play one or two more games bef...

Thursday Night Football: Commanders visit Bears and all we’re asking for is a touchdown
This week is a real treat on Thursday Night Football, with the Washington Commanders and Chicago Bears squaring off in a battle of sub-.500 teams in prime time. It’s unclear what anybody did to deserve this, but here we are....

How should he be remembered?
On July 26 of this year, the Jackie Robinson Museum had its soft opening. The SoHo ribbon-cutting occurred 14 years after plans for the cathedral to honor the man who broke baseball’s color barrier and ended racial segregation of Black players relegated to the Negro Leagues were first announced. The...

Randy Johnson is one NFL photographer Davante Adams wouldn’t mess with
These days, Randy Johnson is still combining his two favorite interests, owning a bird’s eye view of the world beneath him, and photography. As a 6-foot-10 Hall of Fame pitcher, he towered over the field as the tallest player in Major League Baseball History. He’s also probably one of the few aces w...

Don’t be in such a rush to show your genius
When you come at the Houston Astros, you’d best not miss. ...

Let’s hope rest doesn’t matter much
Right at the top, I’ll admit this is all a forlorn hope. Whatever happens in the first season of baseball’s expanded playoffs isn’t going to cause too much of a ripple in how the sport looks and how teams are managed. I get that. But we can at least start here. ...

The Mets didn’t do anything wrong
Perhaps that’s what will kill their fans most. Then again, Mets fans have never needed much prodding to tell the world how miserable it is to be a Mets fan. They’ll certainly have the ammo now....

For its next trick, the Mariners will juggle orcas while unicycling over a volcano
It takes a lot for the sporting public to notice a Saturday highlight other than a football one in early October. It has to be especially good on a weekend when Alabama staves off an upset, but my god what the Seattle Mariners are doing is beyond good. ...

‘It could always be worse’ isn’t much solace to Mets’ fans at the moment
Every lower seed but Tampa won on the opening day of the 2022 MLB playoffs. The Guardians, Phillies, Mariners, and Padres all hold 1-0 advantages and could send their opponents fishing today with another W. ...

MLB Wild Card Series predictions: Rays-Guardians, Mariners-Blue Jays, Phillies-Cardinals, Padres-Mets
The MLB playoffs begin today, and with that, eight teams will battle for the chance to compete against the Dodgers, Braves, Astros, and Yankees. Yikes! What an awful prize that is, am I right?...

The Yankees should be stripped of the Evil Empire moniker if they let Aaron Judge walk
No one could’ve predicted that Aaron Judge’s contract season would feature 62 home runs and enough memories for Yankees fans to blubber on about for seven lifetimes. I’d be interested to see what the non-New York fan reaction would have been if Judge’s historic season came in a different uniform. ...