red Page 145 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Expanded Playoffs Suck, But Here’s a Way to Fix It
Rob Manfred says this season’s expanded baseball playoffs are likely to remain in place for 2021 and beyond, and everybody hates it....

Players Breathe Toxic Air as West Coast Burns: What the Hell Is Wrong With Baseball? UPDATE: M's Postponed
Update: Amid western wildfires and hazardous air quality, the MLB and NFL continued to play on Monday night, but on Tuesday, sanity was restore....

Fans Being Racist Is Nothing New
For as long as we can remember, sports fans have been on the wrong side of history....

Spoiled Rich Kid Jared Kushner Needs to Keep His Silver-Spooned Yap Shut
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand...
![Fox Sports Fires Thom Brennaman Day After Homophobic Slur, He Wants Us to Believe He Didn't Know its History [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/uaqhsykm54cacliwjady.jpg)
Fox Sports Fires Thom Brennaman Day After Homophobic Slur, He Wants Us to Believe He Didn't Know its History [UPDATED]
Wednesday night, after a hot mic caught him using a homophobic slur, Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman didn’t know if he’d ever be putting on headphones for Fox Sports again....
![Reds Suspend Broadcaster Thom Brennaman for On-Air Homophobic Slur [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/xc5bttkg3c5xwjgaejfn.png)
Reds Suspend Broadcaster Thom Brennaman for On-Air Homophobic Slur [UPDATED]
Early on in their careers, all broadcasters get the same sage advice: Don’t say anything OFF the air you wouldn’t say ON the air. You never know when a mic is hot....
![School is Not Safe for Students - But of Course, It’s Safe for Athletes [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/ujguyz6qc2paswokgyoy.jpg)
School is Not Safe for Students - But of Course, It’s Safe for Athletes [UPDATED]
The pandemic continues to expose the glaring dysfunction in our society. This time in college sports....
![Notre Dame and Brian Kelly Perfectly Happy to Put Kids in Harm's Way [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/a4ioridyqnhblcikrjfv.jpg)
Notre Dame and Brian Kelly Perfectly Happy to Put Kids in Harm's Way [UPDATED]
UPDATE: Notre Dame announced it will switch to online classes for the next two weeks....

The Gross Racism that Cheated the Legacy of Dick Allen
Dick Allen was a seven-time All-Star, the 1964 National League Rookie of the Year, and the 1972 American League MVP. He won two home run titles, led his league in on-base percentage twice and OPS four times....

MLB Takes COVID Seriously Starting . . . Now
There’s a serious implication in the headline on USA Today’s report about Major League Baseball’s increased safety measures to try to get through the rest of this shortened season without further coronavirus interruptions....

The Mourning After: Moonshots Galore
- No league can like it when, every time their commissioner opens his mouth, it immediately becomes a jenkem distillery (go ahead and Urban Dictionary THAT, I dare ya!), but that’s where MLB finds itself. Rob Manfred ran to the press, stood on the bucket he carries so we could see more than his fore...

Unite Us? Heal Us? Spare Us. MLB Should Hand Over Mantle of America's Pastime & Abort Disastrous 'Season'
I’ve been in a very similar mindset as our own Jesse Spector about this whole baseball thing in 2020 …...
![This Season Is Already a Disaster [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/Image_Not_Found_1x_qjofp8.png)
This Season Is Already a Disaster [UPDATED]
This story has been updated....

Rob Manfred is in Over His Head, And He Knows it
If baseball is a symbol or microcosm of our nation at large, as baseball writers like to constantly tell us while finishing their Weetabix, then it scans that both of those entities are lacking leadership at this moment. Rob Manfred has no clue what to do, because his only directive — making sure th...

NWSL Restart a COVID-Free Success as Houston Dash Win Challenge Cup
As strange as it may sound, maybe because good news is rarer these days than adamantium, the NWSL Challenge Cup wrapped up today and would have to go down as a success. At the top of the “reasons why” list: after the Orlando Pride pulled out before even arriving in Utah, the tournament saw no positi...

Hey, NBA, Spice Up Your Dull Bubble Games With Live Mics
We got our first look at games in the NBA’s makeshift “bubble” on Wednesday when eight different teams competed in live scrimmages in Orlando. ...

With Micro-Season, Dodgers Fans Need Only Wait 2 Months for Inevitable Choke
We know what the paper says....

Bryce, the Braves, and a Buffalo World Series? Our MLB Roundtable Predicts a Wild Season
It is, somehow, about to be baseball season, so Deadspin’s elite crew of people who have been tasked with making predictions about the 2020 MLB season, Chris Baud, Sam Fels, Julie DiCaro, and Jesse Spector, are here to make predictions about the 2020 MLB season. Everyone recognizes that this is a te...

2020 NL Central Preview
The NL Central is the rare occurrence in modern-day Major League Baseball where an argument could be made for four teams to win it. Or, to put it more accurately in today’s context, only one team has actively given up and merely exists to siphon off revenue-sharing and BAMTech money while causing it...

2020 AL East Preview
At least two teams from the American League East have made the playoffs in each of the past five seasons, and as strange as a shortened 2020 season figures to be, the division figures to continue that streak with two of the elite teams in the majors — the Yankees and Rays — heading up the division....