pie Page 29 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Funeral At Fenway
Our man Charlie Pierce is in fine form over at Grantland writing about the 2013 Red Sox:...

Roger Angell: A Baseball Companion
On Saturday in Cooperstown, Roger Angell was given the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the baseball Hall of Fame's writing writing honor. His sports writing career is a happy accident that began in 1962 when Angell went to spring training to write about New York's new team, the Mets. He was a 41-year-old...

Bulldog Mascots Are Doomed, Flatulent, And Beloved
Excerpted from Travels With Casey: My Journey Through Our Dog-Crazy Country....

What Are New York City's Most Popular Dog Names?
What's the typical New York dog? Is it a yippy little terrier named Lucky leaving little brown obstacles for Upper East Side pedestrians? Is it a retriever named Bella tolerating the demon children of Park Slope? Is it a shih tzu named Gizmo humping joggers' legs in Van Cortlandt Park? We took a l...

Happy Golf Dog Should Be Atop The Open Leaderboard
Who's a good doggy? Who? Who? Not you! Because you...are a great doggy....

Drake Serenades Side Pieces With Brian McKnight, Takes On Donald Sterling
So, the ESPYS took kind of a dark turn tonight. It started off innocently enough with Drake performing a medley interlude, starting with a song about the athletes who have never won anything—taking playful jabs at Dan Marino, Danica Patrick, and others—and then he started singing about side pieces. ...

Mike Aviles Makes Marvelous Throw To Gun Down Conor Gillaspie At First
Cleveland infielder Mike Aviles has only played a handful of games in left field in his career, but today's start gave him the chance to show off his arm in the second inning against the White Sox....

Anze Kopitar And His Dog Enjoy Stanley Cup Breakfasts
Los Angeles Kings center Anze Kopitar celebrated his day with the Stanley Cup yesterday in his home country of Slovenia. Kopitar started his morning right by eating breakfast out of the cup with his dog, Gustl. For hygienic reasons, Gustl ate from his own mini trophy. Still adorable....

Play With Your Puppy Today, For Toby
Claire Smith posted this photo today, a sign posted above a tub of tennis balls urging passersby to grab one to play with their dogs. It's just what Toby would have wanted....

Red Sox DFA A.J. Pierzynski, Smear Him On His Way Out
The Red Sox let A.J. Pierzynski go yesterday, barely halfway through his one-year, $8.25 million deal. It is the second least-surprising thing in the world that he reportedly rubbed teammates the wrong way by being a loner, ignoring his pitchers, and generally being a prick. (The first least-surpris...

The Grierson & Leitch Top 12 Movies Of The First Half Of 2014
As of today, we are halfway through 2014. Most of your "prestige" movies aren't out yet—only a third of our top 10s last year were from the first half of 2013 —but that doesn't mean this year's first six months didn't have its delights. Surprisingly, many of the standouts were bigger-budgeted studio...

LeBron James Is The NBA's Invisible Hand
When the Miami Heat traded up two spots to select former UConn guard Shabazz Napier with the 24th overall pick in last night's NBA draft, the motivation seemed immediately clear, at least to those of us staring at goat entrails: Miami is doing everything it can to convince LeBron James to stay....

Bill Simmons Reacts To Miami Acquiring Shabazz Napier
The Hornets drafted Shabazz Napier, promising to unite the UConn star with fellow Huskies alum Kemba Walker. Alas, Napier was quickly traded to the Miami Heat. This is Bill Simmons reacting to the trade, stating that he's "tired of teams helping Miami."...

Lana Del Rey Thinkpieces, Ranked
Lana Del Rey is a successful pop singer with a carefully crafted persona who sings about The Way We Live Now. For reasons no one is quite clear on, music writers find the idea of a pop singer with a carefully crafted persona novel and interesting and enjoy writing pieces that attempt to explain what...

Do NBA Teams With Whiter Fan Bases Have Whiter Rosters?
In the NBA of yesterday, an owner could be explicit about structuring his roster around the race of the players. "No team should be all white and no team should be all black, either," Cavs owner and legendary boob Ted Stepien told a reporter in 1980. And why not? "Blacks don't buy many tickets," he ...

Sheepherding Dog Is Very Bad At Herding Sheep, Still Very Cute
Meet Dexter. He's out here trying to herd these sheep, but he can't quite figure out the best way to get the job done. The sheep are just over here like, "What's going on with my man Dexter? Is he OK?"...

Dog Destroys Man With Perfect Tackle
This dog is an incredible athlete but also super, super terrifying. Basically, this is the Ray Lewis of dogs....

Shaq: The Next Superstar
From our pal Charlie Pierce, check out this 1992 profile of Shaquille O'Neal:...

Nic Batum's Dog Is A Very Good Sports Dog
If there's an upside to Nic Batum's Blazers having been eliminated from the NBA playoffs, it's that he now gets to spend much more time playing one-on-one games with his doggie. Based on this clip, his doggie is a very good doggie....