mlb Page 76 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Tom Izzo, Michigan State cross advertising rubicon in a banner week for the NCAA
In the same week that the NCAA disclosed that they don’t really have a plan if anything goes sideways at their Indiana NCAA Tournament, and Les Miles and Jeff Long showed what kind of people are really in charge, Michigan State may have taken the cake. That is, if the cake were sponsored by Betty Cr...

On the anniversary of sports shutting down due to COVID-19, what have we learned about sports, the virus, and ourselves?
It’s been a year since NBA player Rudy Gobert smeared his hands on reporters’ microphones at a press conference and then tested positive for the coronavirus. A year of lockdowns and masking and handwashing and flouting mask-wearing protocols....

The day it all fell apart: Deadspin talks to journalists all over the sports world about what they remember when everything shut down
A year ago today was our last “normal” day. At least in the beginning. Only we didn’t know it....

The NCAA doesn’t know what it’s doing; also, see Connor McDavid's insane no-look pass
As the NCAA begins the process of sorting out their tribute-to-Hoosiers championship tournament, it’s becoming pretty obvious that they’re making it up as they go. Which we already knew, but it’s always a little jarring to see a multi-billion dollar “non-profit” give the shrug emoji to genuine quest...

ESPN rediscovers the NHL
For fans my age, the soundtrack of hockey, when we get wistful, can at times still be Steve Levy and Darren Pang calling yet another multiple overtime game. Or Bill Pidto hosting NHL 2night. It was eons ago now, but when ESPN launched ESPN2 “The Deuce,” one of its main tenets was that it was to show...

50 years ago a boxing match stopped the world, now the sport could barely stop traffic — could baseball be next?
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of “The Fight Of The Century,” the first of three Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali fights. Even though it took place a decade before I was born, anyone can glean the importance of it by listening to just about anyone who was alive at the time talk about it or even read a f...

Everybody loves to crawl up Trevor Bauer’s ass with him
There’s a memorable scene in Eight Men Out (a great baseball movie, with John Cusack before he became insufferable, and The One True Chicagoan Studs Terkel. Though John Mahoney, also in the film, would have taken that title if Studs weren’t around). Anyway, there’s a scene where Shoeless Joe Jackson...

When it comes to guys like Mickey Callaway, sports are the problem, can they be the solution?
I suppose the small flower growing out of the fertilizer of the way women are still treated in sports currently is that while organizations like MLB and the Angels dither about what should be done with Mickey Callaway, it only gives masterful reporters like Britt Ghiroli and Katie Strang, and the br...

Didn't take long for Angel Hernandez to Angel Hernandez and show us all again why we need automatic strike zones
The return of spring training games is supposed to be some sign of hope. While it doesn’t signal the beginning of spring, it at least signals that spring will get here at some point. The sight of baseball being played in sunshine and people having cold beers on a warm day generally lets you know tha...

Yankees first baseman Luke Voit continues MLB’s hot mic winning streak
It’s only day one of spring training games and the hot mics have yet to disappoint....

Sports uniforms are having a weekend
Red team, meet red team. And, no, neither ballclub includes the actual Reds....

Stop trying to make Nerds vs. Fun happen in the NBA, too
Let’s get this out of the way immediately: if your reaction to seeing Anthony Edwards’ dunk last week was to complain that it was “all over Twitter” but also note that he was 0-for-7 on three-pointers, you’re either an idiot, a serious killjoy, trolling for attention, or some combination of the thre...

31 of the top 100 MLB players are Latino, which needs to be embraced, not just celebrated
The American baseball fan’s median age as of last season was 57-years-old, or, as Dan Le Batard occasionally jokes, death. And it doesn’t require a Pulitzer-worthy investigative search to discern Major League Baseball’s whiteness. ...


MLB safety’s plan for 2021 has a major minor hole in it
For all the trouble that the NBA and NHL are having with their current seasons, it’s all the more remarkable what Major League Baseball was able to achieve outside of a bubble last year....

MLB’s sudden political awakening is transparent nonsense
Companies across the country are realizing that having had their money fund politicians who attempt to engage in a coup is bad for business, so for the past week, many have been cutting off their donations. Most notably, Hallmark asked lead insurrectionist senator Josh Hawley to return the company’s...

Alabama provides yet another COVID-era chalk title
With the added obstacle of a pandemic, you’d think we would be ripe for surprises. The greater protocols, disrupted or interrupted preparation schedules, the increased pressure based on not really being able to do anything else (not to mention the mental strain), the shortened seasons increasing the...

MLBPA is going to have to accept a salary cap to get a needed salary floor
While the swords remain sheathed at the moment between the MLBPA and the owners, there’s been enough saber-rattling about the length and shape of the 2021 season to know that there’s likely going to be another labor fight. Just like the one they had last summer in paring down to a 60-game season. An...

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

If ‘small-market’ teams like the Cubs can't make it, what hope is there?
If this is the reality of baseball, then something about the system needs to change. Trades of top talent for prospects are nothing new in the game, of course, but you don’t expect to see the teams giving up on frontline starting pitchers to be making those trades when they’re in the middle of a win...