rap Page 33 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Dusty Baker is heading back to the World Series, as Astros beat Red Sox
The one good thing about the Astros returning to the World Series, which they’ll do after wrapping up the American League pennant with a 5-0 win over the Red Sox in Game 6 on Friday night, is that Dusty Baker will get his chance to finally manage his way to a World Series ring....

Even without Ben Simmons, 76ers’ collapse shows why they need to trade Ben Simmons
The second game of the season is hardly time to panic, so the 76ers shouldn’t. They’ve got a really good team, the Ben Simmons drama will eventually work itself out with either a trade or a return to the lineup and eventual “but what about the playoffs?” storyline (that would grate on everyone until...

Trae Young feels disrespected — and that’s a good thing
The Atlanta Hawks blasted the Dallas Mavericks in their season opener, 113-87, with Trae Young racking up 14 assists and Deandre Hunter holding Luka to 18 points on almost as many attempts (17). Afterward, Young had a message for the haters:...

Carlton Fisk kept it fair, but Keith Olbermann’s attempt to sell historic ball is foul
This is not about ripping Keith Olbermann. If you want to do that, you can start with “Why I Think Trump Is Finished (And My Work Is Done),” from November 28, 2017, a time at which Trump was far from finished. You can go forward or backward from there, it doesn’t really matter, and he’d admit himsel...

Red Sox thumpin’ grand slams at a historic rate
Kyle Schwarber’s second-inning grand slam put the Astros into an early 6-0 deficit that they would never get the chance to overcome, as the Red Sox piled on the homers in Fenway Park during a rowdy ALCS Game 3 on Monday night. The early clout was a morale boost at home — on top of the four runs it d...

The WNBA just finished a legendary season — now they have to address the drama the Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury created
What if I told you that a hometown kid would come home and help deliver a championship to their city — for a franchise that has never won a championship — against the very same team that prevented that hometown team from winning a title seven years ago?...

Tennessee fans act like toddlers, get away with it
Tennessee fans were so out of control on Saturday night, that they were warned if their behavior continued, the Volunteers would forfeit. ...

There is no escape from the Astros
The longer the Astros stick around, the more baseball fans complain and bring out the tired jokes about their cheating. Maybe more opponents get suspicious, as Chisox pitcher Ryan Tepera did after Game 3. This is obviously the price the Astros have to pay for 2017’s scandal, and the only price they...

32 teams need to hear this: There is no pitching formula for the playoffs
Many years ago now, baseball pundits and fans tried to come up with a “secret sauce” for success in the playoffs. It can be pretty infuriating to simply accept that the sport’s biggest prize is handed out at the conclusion of a tournament that is essentially random. There had to be a reason these th...

Stop venerating men who care about nothing but football
Back in 2016, Bleacher Report wrote this in a profile of former Raiders head coach Jon Gruden:...

100-win Rays come up short again, which is where this is all heading
The Red Sox kneecapped the Rays, 6-5, in the bottom of the ninth last night — another walkoff — and the ending of a series usually launches a 1,000 ships carrying annoying narratives. The big one from this one is that the Rays’ way of doing things, with their positionless pitching staff, essentially...

How can I root for Dusty Baker, and not these Ass-tros?
MLB America has a real dilemma....

This doesn’t feel like the first time the Dodgers and Giants have met in the playoffs
Tonight will be the first time in MLB history we see the Dodgers and Giants compete in the postseason. For such a storied rivalry, it’s crazy to think that in the year 2021, there’s still something new for these franchises to experience with one another. Sure, there are some discrepancies like the 1...

The Brooklyn Nets’ massive star power may be their saving grace due to Kyrie Irving’s vaccination dilemma
Kyrie Irving ain’t walking through that door…tonight....

Women's soccer players protested sexual harassment and were cheered — great… but that rarely happens when athletes protest racism
Protesting is American as capitalism. However, the support your protest will — or won’t — receive in this country is always determined by the race and gender of the protesters....

It’s not the Green Monster’s fault the Yanks lost
Believe it or not, it was actually the Yankees’ fault. Though, if you were on Bombers Twitter last night, you might’ve thought The Green Monster, that renowned 37-foot-high, left-field wall at Fenway, bribed the umpires, stole signs for the Sawx, and ran over Geritt Cole’s hamstring with a Honda Acc...

What <i>are</i> the Yankees now?
I suppose one of the things that makes me feel old, one of the many things, is how I would perceive the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry versus someone who is 30 or under. I lived long enough in the era of the Yankees pissing all over the Sox to still have some base inkling toward that whenever these two lin...

Aaron Judge finally lives up to expectations
For years, many believed that Aaron Judge had everything to be a real superstar, the face of MLB....

A few MLB postseason storylines you might not know
As the baseball playoffs begin, you already know the big storylines....

The last playoffs
A few years ago, I was in a bar and got into an argument with a semi-regular (who I didn’t much care for) about which sport has the best postseason. He was a real #PleaseLikeMySport hockey fan, and I had felt (and still do) that the MLB playoffs had surpassed the NHL playoffs as the most enjoyable. ...