open Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Our national nightmare is over, the San Diego Padres won a game in extra innings
What gets to the heart of baseball, and to the heart of a baseball season, is that 162 games is supposed to be enough for any anomaly or bit of screwiness a long enough timeline to flatten out. Anyone can get hot, but no one can get unreasonably hot for 162 games and six months. Every team is going ...
The NY Post and Phil Mushnick sink to a new low
No matter who you are, getting people to read your writing is tough. Ever since the internet was invented, beat reporters and columnists have all manner of competition for the audience’s eye. To combat the fire hose of content available to readers, journalists have employed all sorts of tactics to d...
Novak Djokovic is tennis' unquestioned GOAT. Is there anyone who could catch up to him?
It isn’t a question as to who the male tennis GOAT is anymore. In recent years Novak Djokovic’s almost-robotic dominance as he continues to age has pushed him ahead of his contemporaries and predecessors. One of Djokovic’s greatest challengers to the crown conceded the throne recently when Rafael Na...
Dustin Johnson needs to stop whining and reap what he's sown
You reap what you sow. And Dustin Johnson has no one to blame but himself for not making the United States Ryder Cup team. Once he sold out to Saudi-backed LIV Golf last year for a reported $125 million, his margin for error to make golf’s premier team event became razor-thin. And it shouldn’t be a ...
Djokovic and Gauff were machines at the US Open
There are a lot of ways to win in tennis. Novak Djokovic has found all of them. Coco Gauff may yet one day, though she found the one for this US Open. While Djokovic has had to vary his game at various points to overcome various challenges, at the base of it all remains the same truth as the day he ...
Where are all the women in NFL studios?
This hasn’t been a great weekend for women in sports. Disgraced Baylor coach Art Briles somehow made his way onto the field of an Oklahoma game to celebrate a win with his son-in-law, Sooners’ offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby. Lebby then had the nerve to get indignant when asked why Briles was on th...
Coco Gauff will write her own story
When Coco Gauff beat Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, a flood of expectations followed considering she was 15, American, Black, and had just ousted tennis royalty. The talent and potential was obvious enough, yet there are too many variables and unknowns to account for that calling anything a fo...
It's one franchise QB, how much could it cost? $10?
Sports has reached a level of spending that makes Joe Burrow’s record contract look cute. The Cincinnati Bengal quarterback’s $275 million deal is laughable if it wasn’t all too real. English Premier League clubs spent $2.97 billion in the most recent transfer window. Tiger Woods was reportedly offe...
Anti-fossil fuel protestors disrupt Coco Gauff U.S. Open semifinal
There were some folks in the stands during Coco Gauff and Karolína Muchovás semifinal showdown at the U.S. Open who were quite concerned about climate change....
The US Open has been a tough watch the past few days
The US Open used to bill itself as “The World’s Toughest Tennis.” It’s New York, which has to bill anything having to do with itself as the “biggest and toughest” or the city will collapse in on itself. But the Open was on hardcourt, it was at the end of summer so it was hot, and they used to make p...
Salute to Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, the show that sports fans needed
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel has been on the air for 29 seasons. Unfortunately, it will not make it to 30. Gumbel has decided to step away from the show and there will be no replacement. According to the Los Angeles Times, HBO has decided to end Real Sports, and no reason was provided....
Ben Shelton's moment has arrived
I went to the US Open last night. First time inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and on the grounds in Flushing. It was also my first professional tennis event since attending the semifinals of the 2003 Legg Mason Tennis Classic and watching Andre Agassi lose in a third-set tiebreaker. The US Open dangles be...
Coco Gauff is proof that tennis is wack without Black women
They used to not want Althea Gibson’s “kind” around. Now we don’t know where tennis would be without them. That’s how you ace an opportunity....
Ben Shelton feels limitless
There’s been a lament, until recently, that on the men’s side American tennis just had a ceiling. And that ceiling wasn’t anywhere close to winning a Grand Slam. Which is a little unfair to Andy Roddick, who without the existence of Roger Federer would have been a multi-Wimbledon champion and probab...
You know you’re cooked when Woody Allen comes to your defense
Whenever Luis Rubiales’s case ends, and it’ll hopefully be soon, he’ll know that Woody Allen voicing his opinion on the side of Rubiales was the death knell. There’s no coming back from Allen thinking he’s your ally. If Rudy Guiliani calls soon, he’ll know it’s very much over. ...
If you’re not watching Coco Gauff, you’ve got Spectrum
After a week of US Open coverage, two things are apparent: You need to see Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz in person to really appreciate them, and for some tennis fans, that might be the only option. A carriage dispute between Charter Communications and Disney led to the Mouse pulling all its channel...
After 30 years (!!), it is finally time for Venus Williams to call it a career
Unlike at this time last year, the central figure of the US Open isn’t a Williams sister. Serena’s matches were all appointment television, maybe because of the known stakes, being one of tennis’ all-time great’s last event. And Flushing lost its luster after Serena’s third-round exit, until the sta...
Maria Sakkari didn’t complain about the smell of weed at the U.S. Open, she simply noted its presence
This is how marijuana gets a bad rap. A tennis player says she could smell weed during her match, and goes out of her way to say it didn’t affect her whatsoever, yet media outlets still take it out of context. During a changeover, Maria Sakkari informed the chair official that she detected a hint of...
Luis Rubiales can't tarnish Spain's World Cup victory
It’s been a disgusting turtle race, as we all knew where this would end and just had to watch a lumbering body make its way there painfully slowly and stupidly (please do not email me with corrections about how smart turtles are). After attempting everything from outright denial to victim-blaming to...
There is a reason Lionel Messi is tearing apart MLS
It might be hard for most to believe, but Lionel Messi played in his first MLS game Saturday night. I know, I know, you’ve been seeing the highlights and stats before now, but his first steps into the North American game have come in the Leagues Cup, a tournament invented by MLS and Liga MX this yea...