port Page 331 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
So when is it Tony La Russa’s turn?
With the firings of Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon just in the past week, MLB teams have shown that they’re willing to drop even the most accomplished managers early in their tenure if they don’t meet lofty expectations. So it begs the question, how much longer can the White Sox struggle before it’s con...
Roving pack of feral dogs ate all of the Suns’ homework
Having a season end the way it did for the Suns — finishing with the best record in the NBA and failing to make it out of the second round — will leave any organization aimlessly ambling around the neighborhood asking their dog where it all went wrong. The latest bit of Sean Maguire-ian “It’s not yo...
The waiting is the hardest part
The Colorado Avalanche are waiting. And waiting for a Stanley Cup Finals opponent hasn’t treated those favorably in returning from mini-vacations in the past. We’re finishing up the 35th NHL postseason in which first-round games are contested as a best of seven, starting in 1987 and featured every y...
Top candidates fit to manage Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani
Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Angels were on top of the world. They had the best record in the AL West. Mike Trout was healthy and playing at the level we’ve come to expect. Shohei Ohtani had gotten off to a rocky start on the mound, but he’d lowered his ERA to an incredible 2.82 after his May 18 s...
EA Sports had better not push these kids away from Madden
The Madden franchise in recent years has shown the necessity of true competition for capitalism to function properly. Madden hasn’t competed with another NFL video game franchise since NFL 2K5. Some people have fond memories of that game, though personally I believe that’s the wannabe hipster crowd ...
What’s it like to root for Draymond Green?
Being a Warriors fan must be relatively easy, at least compared to most other teams in any other sport. You already have three championships in the bag. The greatest regular season ever. Quite probably the greatest team ever in whichever iteration with Kevin Durant you choose. Back in the Finals aft...
Long Live the LIV?
The LIV Invitational Golf Series has been a drag on a PGA Tour that was already flailing to find its next superstar. LIV, which is funded by blood money from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has sparked a mini-exodus of several PGA stars. By offering boatloads of cash for appearance fees, LIV ha...
The Celtics can win the title, but won’t if they continue to allow these 3rd quarter runs
The first two games of the NBA Finals have been much more evenly played than the final scores show. The teams alternated two-point halftime leads, but a couple of second-half runs put the game out of reach for both the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 and the Boston Celtics in Game 2. However, the te...
Who’s going to win (lose?) the Rudy Gobert trade extravaganza?
Rudy Gobert is this offseason’s CJ McCollum in that every GM is going to call about the star player and get counteroffered with the secondary player. Yes, we know you called about Donovan, but for the low price of a couple draft picks and a salary dump, you can have Rudy at $38 million to $46 millio...
LeBron James wants to play with Steph Curry
This year’s NBA postseason has been pretty good, minus all the injuries, even with the absence of LeBron James. While the era of James playing into June every year is over, that doesn’t mean we won’t hear from the King during the playoffs and especially once the NBA Finals roll around. And one thing...
The Tampa Bay Lightning have channeled Admiral Ackbar to get back into the series
Perhaps the biggest sign that a team has entered its own class in the NHL is that it can play any way it has to, or wants to, to win. Whatever you ask of them, they have an answer. Some pretenders like the Hurricanes, once you take away their preferred style — in the case of the Canes it’s dump it i...
Stop comparing viewership numbers for the NFL and NBA
Viewership for the 2022 NBA Finals is up 37 percent from last year and its ratings are the highest they’ve been since the last time the Warriors were in the Finals in 2019. That said, there are some worrisome figures. For one, while viewership is up from 2020 and 2021, Game 1 of these Finals were th...
The Trail Blazers' offseason is a high-wire balancing act
This is the most important summer of Damian Lillard’s reign in Portland. For the past decade, the Portland Trail Blazers have been the Warriors’ little brother. Think Seth Curry and Steph Curry, but in franchise terms....
Jackie Robinson: His Life and Career in Pictures
When Jackie Robinson started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, he not only integrated Major League Baseball. He was signaling to the nation—on one of its biggest stages—that Black Americans would no longer accept second-class status. ...
6 Decades Before Jackie Robinson, This Man Broke Baseball's Color Barrier
Sixty-three years before Jackie Robinson became the first African American in the modern era to play in a Major League Baseball game, Moses Fleetwood Walker debuted in the league on May 1, 1884 with the Toledo Blue Stockings in a 5-1 loss against the Louisville Eclipse. Walker, a 26-year-old African...
4 Black Baseball Players Who Followed Jackie Robinson's Lead in 1947
Jackie Robinson wasn’t the only Black baseball player to suit up in the big leagues in 1947. After he broke the color line and became the first Black baseball player to play in the American major leagues during the 20th century, four other players of color soon followed in his footsteps....
The odd construction around Shohei Ohtani certainly didn’t help Joe Maddon
With every passing year, the pressure on the Angels ratchets up just a little more as Mike Trout ages. It’s now common thought that the Angels have basically wasted the career of perhaps the best player of all time, and there’s a breaking point somewhere in the future but getting bigger on the horiz...