reads Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Your NFL Sunday Open Thread
The lights are low, the shades are drawn, we're eating sriracha-based chili: let's watch some football. Big 'ol slate of early games and then soft landing in the afternoon, where you're more or less stuck with the Jets-Patriots game, unless your one of the country's many overzealous Jags fans. Fort...

Your College Football Open Thread
Some pretty excellent options on the first weekend post-BCS rankings: noon brings LSU at Texas A&M in College Station, while the afternoon has a good-ish match-up between Texas Tech and TCU (the match-up there being, of course, between technology and Christianity), the battle of the University and t...

Your College Football Open Thread
Hey, they didn't save all the good stuff for the night games this week. The Big 12 has a Big Afternoon coming up, highlighted by Kansas at Kansas State (a grudge match made all the better by Charlie Weis taking impotent shots at the KU student newspaper) and Oklahoma at Texas Tech. At 12, Northweste...

Your College Football Open Thread
Our game of the morning is probably Baylor at West Virginia, though our shame expert (aren't we all, in some sense, shame experts?) told us to be on the lookout for a potential "DOUBLE trap game" in the N.C. State vs. U. of Miami game. Also look out for Penn State at Illinois, because Illinois may h...

Your College Football Open Thread
Early games—I don't know, maybe Virginia at TCU has potential? West Virginia will probably curb stomp Maryland and that could be fun. Don't forget Northwestern Oklahoma State at UT-San Antionio, which you can watch on Nowhere via your handheld Nothing, at 2 p.m....

Your Belated Week Two NFL Open Thread
Whoops! Hope you didn't have any thoughts during the first, oh, 80 minutes football this weekend. Luckily the games are flying fast and furious, so everyone was probably too discombobulated to think of anything witty. Right? Yak here and we'll link back throughout the day. Here's the best gif ever, ...

Your Home Run Derby Open Thread
Do you want to know the terrifying truth, and see All-Stars sock a few dingers? The Home Run Derby is on ESPN now, right now, and it's going to be Bermanly unbearable, and also fun to watch because it's fricking home runs, you Communist. Matt Kemp captains the Senior Circuit, Robinson Cano the Arcad...

Finance Guy Keeps Incredibly Detailed, Incredibly Creepy Spreadsheet Of His Match.com Prospects
Let's call this guy, oh, "Dave." Dave is a financial services employee in New York. Dave goes on Match.com, and meets women, and sometimes goes on dates with them. Then Dave goes home and enters all sorts of information into an Excel sheet, to keep track of everyone....

The Battle For Jim Thorpe's Final Resting Place
The Washington Post has a great profile on Jim Thorpe and highlights the legal battle being waged over his burial....

Just Like Us: A-Rod Apparently Likes To Read Gossip Magazines On Airplanes
Reader Carl snapped this photo (click to enlarge) of Alex Rodriguez around 8 a.m. this morning at the airport in Miami. He sent it along because he couldn't help but notice the magazine in A-Rod's left hand was Us Weekly. Here's Carl's take on the situation:...

Josh McDaniels Is Back With The Patriots
The Patriots are going to need an offensive coordinator next year since the chinhole-y Bill O'Brien will be leaving for Penn State. Rather than wait to fill that void, the Patriots will reportedly welcome the asshole-y Josh McDaniels back into the fold....

10 Stories Of 2011 That Didn't Suck: A SportsFeat List
Max Linsky is the editor of Longform and SportsFeat....

Gifts For People Who Read Books
When we have time, we at Deadspin like to read (and also sometimes write) books. These are the books we read and wrote this year that we think would make a great, last-minute gift for any literate people you might know, or even as a special treat for yourself....

The Tobacco Farmer With The "Ol' Soupbone" And The Baseball Achievement That Will Last Forever
SI's Chris Ballard and Kotaku's Owen Good have teamed up to tell the story of minor-league pitcher Jack Swift, whose last-chance season and remarkable feats from 60 years ago are only now becoming known. You should go read it. [Sports Illustrated]...

Grantland Republished David Foster Wallace's Epic 2006 Essay on Roger Federer, And You Should Go Read It Now
The late author's profile, written for the now-defunct Play, "constituted a dream pairing of writer and subject" that "still stands as one of the most stirring, illuminating essays ever written about the beauty of sport at its highest level," according to the Grantland introduction provided by Mich...

Stories That Don’t Suck: SportsFeat's Guide To Sports Exile
Plaxico Burress is catching TDs for the Jets. The U may never play football again. Terrelle Pryor, who was ready to sit for a year, just finished his first NFL practice. With exiles starting, ending, and being averted, here are some great reads about players and coaches on the outs with the game tha...

Stories That Don't Suck: SportsFeat's Guide To Funny People (And Chris Farley)
Every Friday, SportsFeat picks a few great weekend reads for Deadspin. This week we're chipping in with our favorite long-form writing about comedians....

Stories That Don't Suck: SportsFeat's Guide To Life, Death, And Sex On Skis
Every Friday, SportsFeat picks a few great weekend reads for Deadspin. With things sweltering outside, we went looking for stories that might remind us of what it feels like to be cold. We found these instead....

An Appreciation Of Kevin Manning, DC's Resident Boozy, One-Armed Tennis Prankster
Our man at the Washington City Paper, Dave McKenna, has written an appreciation of Kevin Manning, a DC-area tennis character who passed away from cancer earlier this year....

Stories That Don't Suck: SportsFeat's Guide To Hoops In A Foreign Land
Every week, SportsFeat picks a few great reads for Deadspin. Thanks to Yao Ming's retirement and Deron Williams's Turkish tour, here are some classics on the foreign wanderings of professional basketball players. Enjoy....