major Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Stop asking Yadier Molina to walk through that door
The St. Louis Cardinals have had a barely held-together beater vibe to them for a while. The only thing keeping the bumper attached is duct tape, two of the four-door handles work/are still attached, the windows are immovable, the muffler rusted off in a dorm parking lot years ago, and of course, th...
The Gang Enters The Soccer Tournament
This is a fever dream for soccer, or a fever nightmare depending on what team you root for. The Soccer Tournament, or TST for short, was announced this week as a 32-team showcase taking place in early June in North Carolina. Based on The Basketball Tournament, it’s a winner-take-all, 7-on-7, $1 mill...
You have never been as excited about anything as Naples was about the Scudetto yesterday
Napoli clinched the Scudetto yesterday afternoon with a 1-1 draw away to Udinese. How might you have been able to discern that if you lived in Naples and weren’t watching the match? Definitely had to look closely:...
America’s darling Wrexham A.F.C. would get creamed in Major League Soccer
There truly hasn’t been a team to carve out their own slice of Americana in quite the way Wrexham A.F.C. has. Three years ago, if you’d heard of Wrexham and you didn’t live in the United Kingdom or have any family lineage in Wales, I’ll brand you a liar. The former-fifth-division side in the UK just...
We said the Pirates would be interesting
Guess who has the second-best record in baseball. No, really, go on. Maybe you watch a ton of baseball and you already know. But if you’ve been distracted by NHL and NBA playoffs, the answer may surprise you. It’s a certain team that a certain charming and handsome writer not so long ago said very w...
Jerry Reinsdorf, why don’t you stop talkin’ for a while?
We can’t be far from sports teams and organizations banning any of their management team from speaking at any kind of conference or forum. It’s what started the whole Gregg Berhalter fiasco, even if he thought it was a private, closed event. Jerry Reinsdorf pulled the same trick yesterday, and with ...
Weston McKennie is not having a good time
Soccer moves fast, and it moves faster in the January transfer window. All the things Weston McKennie had to consider when a move to Leeds United from Juventus was probably thrown at him in a matter of days, if not hours. Questions of role, money, future, and the allure of moving to a country where ...
Let's check in with the Chicago White Sox
It’s rare to find a single image, GIF, snippet of video, or audio clip that perfectly sums up the way a team is playing at any given moment, but when it comes to the Chicago White Sox, Twitter has gifted us exactly that. ...
This week in bad omens: Aaron Judge injures hip on 31st birthday
Unfortunately, the ethical standards of journalism prevent me from accepting any contributions, or gifts as a thank you for my work, so for those of you looking to Venmo me some beer money for my part in the New York Yankees overpaying Aaron Judge, all I ask is that you make a donation to a charity ...
How come the Padres don’t hit good?
“If he’s a good hitter how come he doesn’t hit good?”...
A Major League Baseball team in Utah is a terrible idea
At a time in which it appears that Major League Baseball is seemingly doing all it can to keep African-Americans from being on Big League rosters, a group in Salt Lake, Utah is throwing its hat in the ring to land a franchise in the coming years. Remember this the next time MLB Commissioner Rob Manf...
Is the Cubs hot start a mirage? Will the Astros remain under .500? Let's examine
It’s about 20 games into the MLB regular season. It’s a small sample size, but no longer so small that we can completely dismiss it. Just like every year, there are some teams that are over-performing and underperforming expectations, but which of these surprising records are actually telling the tr...
Tell me you want out of Oakland without telling me you want out of Oakland
One city’s trash is Las Vegas’ treasure. The Oakland Coliseum has been a steaming pile of a ballpark for decades. After numerous skirmishes with the city over Byzantine budgets, funding, public subsidies, and potential sites for a new Oakland-area stadium, the Athletics announced the purchase of 49 ...
Great news — Rob Manfred has more ideas on how to 'fix' the game
Major League Baseball has certainly gotten its plaudits for the rule changes for the 2023 season, mostly because it’s sped up the game to well under three hours. Strikeouts and walks are still about where they’ve always been, but more grounders are getting through (strangely from right-handed hitter...
Another notch in Clayton Kershaw's belt
We already know Clayton Kershaw is headed to Cooperstown, but the Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher just hit a nice milestone en route....
It’s never enough for Rob Manfred and his greedy pig bosses
You’d think after negotiating a CBA, before which Rob Manfred got to live out his lifelong dream of canceling baseball games, where the owners got a new level of luxury tax penalties, didn’t really have to pay younger players all that much more than the pennies they already were, and certainly didn’...
Death, taxes, and James Harden disappearing during the playoffs
James Harden’s sunsetting in the playoffs is a reliable annual trend. Similar to Punxsutawney Phil emerging as a sign spring has sprung, but with darker clouds in the forecast. For what feels like a decade, Harden has disappeared into his shell once the best-of-seven portion of the schedule begins. ...
Ump gives us Idiot of the Month-able moment during Dodgers-Cubs game
One would think that with MLB seriously considering a switch to robot umps, the humans currently doing the job would show a little urgency and at least try to display why they’re better suited than a machine. Case in point, Friday night at Dodger Stadium when Cody Bellinger was given a standing ovat...
Javier Báez is already in some kind of form, but it’s not ‘midseason’
We’re 12 games into the MLB season, so no good team should panic, and no bad team is too far gone — one would think. The Detroit Tigers were projected to be especially awful, but you’d hope to at least get through *checks calendar* April 14 without the manager having to intervene like A.J. Hinch did...