rap Page 34 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

This year’s Wild-Card Game matchups are the best ever
“Get your popcorn ready,” ...

No wild-card chaos
Most seasons, on the last day, we hope for some kind of chaos to hit MLB’s playoff system. I think, deep down, it’s because people want to see the wild-card sham proven to be just that. Because having teams play a game just to play a game to get into the playoffs after 162 games and six months is pr...

Order out and settle in: Today is gonna be a really good baseball day (and night)
All of the games in Major League Baseball are scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, so that if and when playoff races come down to Game 162, nobody has an advantage of taking the field already knowing what their pennant race rivals have done....

Rays playing 5D chess up in here
Analytics have taken over the world of baseball. Depending on who you ask, you’ll get one of three responses:...

Massive regular-season win streaks mean nothing in the playoffs
The Cardinals’ team-record winning streak has gotten St. Louis into the playoffs, but the old saying in baseball is that momentum is only the next day’s starting pitcher, and as good as the Redbirds have been in September, bringing home a first World Series championship since 2011 remains a longshot...

Lighten up, Wainwright
I understand that every team in every sport is desperate to make the “only the guys in this room believed in us” the rallying cry of their team. It’s easier to think you’re the underdog, and when you’re a professional athlete you need anything and everything to drive through an interminable season. ...

Sue Bird shouldn’t retire, but WNBA would survive — and thrive — after she's gone
The Phoenix Mercury had just beaten Seattle 85-80 OT in the WNBA playoffs late Sunday afternoon when ESPN’s Holly Rowe brought Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi together on the court for the post-game interview. These two have been teammates and rivals for more than 20 years, and Bird quipped to Rowe that ...

MVP debates make my ass weary
I’ve come to the conclusion that a big part of being a member of the baseball media is just justifying your existence. Which is why they spend most of the time turning stuff into a debate that isn’t really a debate. Nothing is worse than individual awards, where distilling what “valuable” means has ...

Rooting for maximum chaos in the AL wild-card race
With just six days left in the MLB regular season, the AL wild card race is tighter than Batman’s tights. Five teams, all within four-and-a-half games. These are the types of races dreams are made of. We’ve even got a few series between the teams involved. It’s all lining up perfectly, just as Major...

Something stinks in Buffalo!
The Buffalo Bills want a new stadium, so part of their plan is to sell personal seat licenses....

Another Oakland A’s window is closing without much to show for it
Considering the constraints (some of them self-imposed, admittedly), it’s kind of amazing how often the A’s can reinvent themselves and put together a window of contention. The problem is those windows don’t tend to lead anywhere....

We are witnessing a multi-team choke for the ages
When August began, the Mets were in first place in the National League East, which was the fifth-best record in the Senior Circuit. The Padres were right ahead of them, holding the second wild-card position as the Giants and Dodgers battled at the top of the West. And the Reds, though seven and a ha...

Max Scherzer trade to Dodgers is one of the greatest deadline deals of all time
Where does Max Scherzer to the Dodgers rank among MLB’s best deadline deals?...

Or just give Robbie Ray the damn Cy Young already…
Slow night for news last night, so we’ll jump around a bit this morning. ...

Francisco Lindor earned his... whatever it is to be a Met
Mets fans finally got a Francisco Lindor game....

Chris Bosh brought evolution to the game, but was robbed of seeing it through
There’s a chance Chris Bosh could still be an active NBA player right now....

Screw Al Michaels and screw the Bucs
It took less than one full quarter for NBC’s Opening Night broadcasting team, helmed by Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, to demonstrate exactly how little they care for the women watching the game....

From Kap and Tiger to Herschel and Evander – Trump’s political career relies on using Black athletes
Donald Trump refuses to go away, which isn’t surprising. But, when an uninvited guest keeps showing up, at some point, discovering how they manage to get there becomes imperative. The former occupant of the White House discovered that using Black athletes for his benefit is the best vehicle....

Yo, UGA, you wanna rethink that whole ‘no masks, no vax required’ thing for the 93,000 fans headed to Sanford Saturday?
If COVID-19 was a college football team, it would be the USC Trojans from the early 2000s when they peeled off 34 straight wins between 2003 and 2005....

Just when you want in, they push you right back out
In early 2005, a California-based rock group named Audioslave released a song titled “Be Yourself,” which became the anthem that the band is perhaps most famous for many years later. ...