players Page 51 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

MLS is all grown up, on the verge of its very own work stoppage
Can you be a legitimate league in North America and not have a work stoppage? Apparently MLS doesn’t think so, as it is on the verge of careening into their first one in their 25 years of existence....

Masahiro Tanaka to return to Japan, why this Yankee fan is happy for him
It sucks that Masahiro Tanaka will no longer be a Yankee, but at least I don’t have to root against him on another MLB team....

Masahiro Tanaka won’t make it to Cooperstown, but — like hoops' Hall — there should be room for stories like his
In seven seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers, Arvydas Sabonis averaged 12 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. His biggest accomplishments were being the NBA’s Player of the Week at the end of March in 1996, and finishing 12th in the league in total rebounds in 1997-98....

Texans hire David Culley, hope he can beg Deshaun Watson to stay
Well, they know football soap operas in Texas....

Phillies forced to bring back J.T. Realmuto because they made a decade’s worth of mistakes
The Phillies acted as if the franchise — which has lost more games than any professional team in the world of sports since its inception — didn’t have to bring back J.T. Realmuto. However, the 138-year old organization with just two World Series championships to its credit, had no choice. After trad...

With A-Rod and Big Papi on ballot next year, gatekeepers of Cooperstown will face a reckoning
Just as most writers want, to get the affirmation they apparently crave by denying millionaires access to a club, no one will enter the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer. Once again, they have kept the sanctuary safe from the heathen of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as they see it. They won’t get t...

Curt Schilling’s putrid mouth continues to keep him out of Cooperstown…. good
The good news is that Curt Schilling isn’t going into the Hall of Fame this summer. In fact, no new players will be joining last year’s class of inductees this summer in Cooperstown after the results of the Baseball Writers Association of America’s balloting were announced Tuesday evening....

Just contract the Pirates already
I know how that sounds. Just another big market resident showing up just long enough, take a brief look around, turn my nose up, and declare Pittsburgh not worth the time. ...

Trevor Bauer’s inability to not be a jerk could cost him; Laine traded for Dubois
Trevor Bauer remains unsigned, and Ken Rosenthal reported on the Mets’ interest in the Cy Young winner on Friday night, including Bauer putting some spin on a big reason that a New York team would be reluctant to sign him, namely his own description of himself as being “good at two things in this wo...

The power and lasting impact of Hank Aaron's 44
Hank Aaron made the number 44 cool for power hitters in the MLB. There are a handful of greats that have donned the number in his wake, carrying the tradition forward, and they have done so for decades. ...

Time to put Bonds and Clemens in the Hall of Fame, because my ballot is about numbers, not punishment
The Baseball Hall of Fame punishment should come to an end....

The long, strange path of Brandon Graham, quietly one of the best players in Eagles history
It wasn’t quite Eagles fans booing Donovan McNabb at the podium for the crime of not being Rickey Williams at the 1999 draft, but no one was happy with the Eagles’ first selection in the 2010 Draft, either....

Biden/Harris Free-Tuition Plan Could Offer Athletes an Escape From NCAA Stranglehold
What happens when free tuition and free labor collide?...

Ex-Athlete U.S. Senators Tell Deadspin: College Bill of Rights Upends NCAA’s Imbalance of Power
When Senator Ron Wyden played basketball at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he got paid — just not on the court. ...

Hockey Culture Continues Its Destructive Path
It becomes harder and infinitely more tiring to pick out particular bits of shit as we crawl through this sewer of history, whether that’s sports or society in general. The next thing you see is hardly more surprising or shocking than the last. So Sportsnet’s Eric Engels’s thread today on how NHL pl...

Dan Carcillo’s Lawsuit Claims Junior Hockey is a Cesspool
Dan Carcillo, along with former Western Hockey League player Garrett Taylor, has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Canadian Hockey League that amounts to a smorgasbord of accusations to turn your stomach. Some of the worst include younger players being violated with hockey sticks, being force...

Josh Gibson and the Long Gone Summers That Should Have Been
The following is adapted from the podcast script for Stick to Pods Episode 11, “Josh Gibson,” which originally aired on April 12, 2018...

No, Baseball Does Not Have a Moral Imperative to Return This Year
It seems to be an affliction within any baseball writer above a certain age that baseball still has a special place in American culture or society. While media from all sports have tried to claim, at various times, that the sport they cover returning to action would “help” the country, it is far mor...

MLB'S Testing Plan Is Thorough, But Does It Pass The Doolittle Test?
While there are certainly many miles of financial sparring between MLB owners and players to get through before the league can return to play, issues rooted in the players’ concerns over safety. While a good portion, if not all, being the players’ anger over the owners reneging on a deal they made i...

Old Hockey Man Talks, Proving Again Why That Should Never Happen
Every so often, an old retired hockey player emerges from the haze and muck to provide a quote proving why they probably shouldn’t share their thoughts with the world....