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ESPN Hack Lynn Hoppes Copies Press Releases, Too
It's not hard to spot the biggest hacks in any newsroom. The biggest hacks are the reporters who rewrite press releases. Emphasis on the word "rewrite," since the laziest, most unimaginative journalist can typically muster the energy and self-respect to tweak a predicate or two. Even hacks don't wan...

Shea Weber's Massive Flyers Offer Sheet Is A CBA-Beating Masterpiece
The Predators have been poking around for weeks, looking to see what they could get in a trade for star defenseman Shea Weber, who's a restricted free agent. The fruitless talks have been maddening for Weber, and for all the teams waiting on Nashville, and last night the Flyers put an end to it all....

The Iron Sheik Tries To Cut The Line At The Atlanta Olympics: More Wrestler Run-Ins
Inspired by the saga of "Wrestling Superstar Virgil," we continue with readers' encounters with the titans of the squared circle. If you've had your own run-in with wrestlers past or present, e-mail us, subject line "Virgilbag."...

Bruce Wanes. <em>The Dark Knight Rises</em>, Reviewed.
1. The first two Batman films from director Christopher Nolan were so transcendent, so ambitious and challenging and grand, that The Dark Knight Rises feels like more of a disappointment than it should. The first two movies, especially The Dark Knight, were miracles, an impossible combination of uni...

Disenfranchise Mode: The Exhausting, Infuriating, Totally Addictive Baseball Simulation Game That Imitates Life Too Well
The summer after my freshman year of college, I told somebody's mother that I wouldn't be attending her son's funeral. I remember the moment, if not the conversation, with great clarity. I was working in my dad's shop, filling orders for spare bike rack parts, when my phone rang. My hands were stick...

Whoa, We're Halfway There: The Grierson & Leitch Top 12 Movies Of The First Half of 2012
Shockingly, we are more than halfway through 2012. (It's a backloaded year: Olympics, election, total global catastrophe—all stacked up from late July on.) As always, the best, most "prestigious" movies won't be released until November or December, because the people who vote on the Oscars are senil...

Bleacher Report Has Stiffer Penalties For Plagiarism Than ESPN Does
We uncovered more than a dozen of examples of ESPN senior writer Lynn Hoppes copy-and-pasting from Wikipedia and he was not fired. Instead ESPN gave him a slap on the wrist, and he hasn't written anything since—maybe he was suspended, or told to keep a low profile for a little while....

POTUS And FLOTUS Showed Some PDA To Team USA
President Obama brought the family to watch Team USA's exhibition against Brazil, one that ended up being a lot more interesting than expected as the American squad found itself in an early hole only to pull out an 80-69 victory....

Why Your Team Sucks 2012: Oakland Raiders
Some people are fans of the Oakland Raiders. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Oakland Raiders. This 2012 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read the other Why Your Team Sucks 2012 previews here....

Bud Selig Is Not Against Change, Just Change That Matters
We've had a busy week around here and things were bound to fall through the cracks. So, I hope you don't mind if we take a spin in the Wayback Machine to Tuesday last so we can talk about your favorite doofus uncle, Bud Selig. Great, thanks....

ESPN Says Lynn Hoppes's Wikipedia Problem "Was A Case Of Journalistic Laziness, And We've Addressed It"
We told you on Wednesday about ESPN's senior pizza correspondent, Lynn Hoppes, and his persistent habit of pulling material from Wikipedia....

Need To Get In Shape? Ray Lewis Has A Deck Of Cards That Can Be Yours For $75.
That's right: All you need to work out the Ray Lewis Way are some hand weights, a jump rope, 52 days of your time, and that deck of cards you see right there. According to the Baltimore Sun, Lewis is hocking the deck on his website for $75, though there's a promotional offer available today that wil...

Christopher Nolan Is A Summer-Movie Superhero
Loving big summer movies as an adult can be a sad and lonely thing. When you're a kid, any action blockbuster that you watch is epic. You haven't seen enough to compare. But then you get older, and you realize that they follow certain formulas and attract a certain audience, which is a lot younger t...

John Terry Found Not Guilty Of Using "Fucking Black Cunt" In A Racial Sense
Go ahead, try out your lipreading: What does Chelsea's John Terry say to QPR's Anton Ferdinand in this video from back in October? If you see anything but "fucking black cunt," you're wrong, because that's totally what he said. He even cops to it....

Doink The Clown Has The Shits: More Wrestler Run-Ins
Inspired by the saga of "Wrestling Superstar Virgil," we continue with readers' encounters with the titans of the squared circle. If you've had your own run-in with wrestlers past or present, e-mail us, subject line "Virgilbag."...

Lynn Hoppes Fails To Copy Quote
Last night, Pat Summitt received the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at the ESPYs. Our hero Lynn Hoppes was on the scene, dutifully transcribing every detail as ESPN Playbook's lead entertainment reporter....

The Life Cycle Of NBA Point Guards During Free Agency
Goran Dragic leaves Houston to sign with the Suns. Steve Nash leaves Phoenix and signs with the Lakers. Ramon Sessions, who opted out of his Lakers deal, signs with Charlotte. Charlotte withdraws its qualifying offer to D.J. Augustin, who signs with the Pacers, who had just renounced their rights to...

The ESPYs Nokia PreParty Is Awesome, But Its Publicist Is Sort Of Lazy
All your favorite athletes are chillin' at the ESPYs Nokia PreParty. I hear it's awesome. Almost as awesome as this social media PR fail. First, an accidental DeSean Jackson tweet, and then a flurry of other athletes tweeting that precise line. Most of them, at least, remembered to take out the publ...

WWE Reenacted Chael Sonnen's Failed Spinning Backfist
On Saturday at UFC 14, Chael Sonnen attempted a spinning backfist that was ducked by Anderson Silva. Sonnen tripped, took a knee to the grill, and the fat lady started singing. Two days later on WWE Raw, CM Punk paid a bit of tribute to one of the more theatrical MMA endings in recent memory: he mis...

Outside Man: Why Is Spike Lee So Underrated?
Spike Lee celebrated his 55th birthday in March. I still can't believe it. When he turned 40 in 1997, I remember being astonished that a man so youthful and vital could possibly be that old. (I was 22 and clearly very naive.) In my mind, the filmmaker of Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X would always...