nl Page 142 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Anti-<em>Gravity</em>. <em>All Is Lost</em>, Reviewed.
1. I never got to write about Gravity in this space—Grierson took that for us—but I found it as terrific as most people did. Dizzying, awesome, disorienting, terrifying: It's earned all the praise it has received. But I couldn't get past one thing: Didn't the Sandra Bullock character's backstory se...
Will Ferrell Introduces The Dodgers Before Game 5 Of The NLCS
For what could be their final home game of the season, the Dodgers pulled out all the stops and had Will Ferrell handle today's player introductions. As one might expect, it was very Will Ferrell-y....
20 Minutes At Rucker Park
Nice piece by Flinder Boyd over at SB Nation Longform. ...
Charts: How Do You Build A Championship Baseball Team?
This season, the A's, Rays, and Pirates used front office wiles to build playoff-bound squads despite having minimal financial resources. Even with these feel-good stories eliminated, though, the four remaining teams still demonstrate that there are many good ways to build a competitive organization...
The Basepaths Are Where Nick Punto's Scrappiness Goes To Die
Last night, Nick Punto killed the last shot the Dodgers had at rallying back for a Game 4 win when he got caught leaning and was picked off at second base the seventh inning. It was precisely the kind of blunder that a veteran player like Punto is supposed to be immune to, and so the weight of his m...
Cruelty Unchained. <em>Twelve Years A Slave</em>, Reviewed.
1. Twelve Years a Slave is a devastating movie experience, one that will leave you shaking with anger. This is not an attempt to shed new light on the shame of slavery, or, heaven forbid, a winky postmodern re-imagining of slavery as a self-referential cinematic revenge fantasy. (After seeing Twelve...
Why Don't The St. Louis Cardinals Respect The Game?
After last night's loss to the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLCS, a few Cardinals players expressed dismay at some of the exuberance that was displayed by a few Dodgers players. "Mickey Mouse stuff," one called it. We at Deadspin share the Cardinals' concern for the soul of baseball. We want to see the ...
Yadier Molina Is Transfixed By The Dancing Bear
If there isn't a Gary Wright song running through Yadier Molina's head at this moment, then he is truly dead inside. ...
Yasiel Puig Flips Bat After Home Run—<i>Oh Shit, It's Staying In The Park</i>
Yasiel Puig thought he connected on a two-run home run, awesomely flipped his bat and broke into his home-run trot only to realize the ball might not actually leave the park. So then he dialed the awesome up a notch....
Carlos Beltran Beats The Dodgers, Takes One Game Lead In NLCS
This is your signature play of the NLCS, if there can be a signature play one game in. It's got everything though, athleticism, grit and the human element. All combined for a fascinating play that resulted in just one crummy out....
The Los Angeles Dodgers Are Just A Group Of Hard-Nosed Overachievers
Without characters and storylines, baseball is just a bunch of idiots running around wielding sticks, so of course baseball writers were going to contrive a narrative for a seven-game series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals that doesn’t really feature a natural one. You co...
Zinsser Remembers The New York Herald Tribune
Dig this most excellent essay on the old New York Herald Tribune by William Zinsser (who wrote a helpful book about writing):...
Glum Pittsburgh Pirates Fans Still Grateful For Not-Awful Season
The Pittsburgh Pirates got bounced Wednesday from their first postseason trip in approximately forever, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals by a score of who gives a flying crap to you knew they'd find a way to piss this one away. Not like the Cardinals have won two World Series in the past seven year...
Contained Space: <em>Captain Phillips,</em> Reviewed.
1. There's a moment in Paul Greengrass' United 93, one of the best films of the last decade, in which we are invited not to sympathize with the hijackers of Flight 93, exactly, but at least take a look at them as humans, if just for a moment. They're monsters, but they're people, on that plane, too,...
Here's Vin Scully Calling Don Larsen's Perfect Game 57 Years Ago Today
On Oct. 8, 1956, in Game 5 of the World Series, Don Larsen took the mound at Yankee Stadium against the Brooklyn Dodgers and threw what remains the only perfect game in MLB postseason history. Behind the microphone in the broadcast booth that day was 28-year-old Vin Scully, already in his seventh se...
Sir Bam Bam
There are 23 large iron lamps affixed to the ceiling. The tints of neon light they throw down into the indoor batting cage, a concrete room tucked deep into the guts of Yankee Stadium, vary according to when they were last smashed out by errant balls and replaced. Under these lights, largely out of ...
Report: Braves Players Boycotted Chipper Jones's First Pitch
Christ, could the Atlanta Braves get any more annoying? Baseball's fun police reportedly added another name to their "People Who Don't Respect The Game And/Or The Atlanta Braves And All That They Stand For" list, and that name happens to belong to Braves legend Chipper Jones....
Here's Kevin Love Making A No-Look Behind-The-Back Bounce Pass
The NBA isn't quiiiite back, but preseason is well enough underway to watch Kevin Love make this nice little no-look, halfway-behind-the-back bounce pass to Kevin Martin for an assist against CSKA Moscow last night. CSKA won in overtime, but man, Timberwolves look like so much fun. ...