regressing Page 16 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Tony Gwynn Was The Babe Ruth Of Not Striking Out
Since Tony Gwynn died Monday, many stories have been written about what a great player he was. But among all the mentions of his eight batting titles and 15 All-Star games, there's an extraordinary facet of his game that goes slightly underappreciated even as it's constantly mentioned—his incredible...
Berlin Residents Synchronized Their Pee Breaks During Germany-Portugal
Germany stomped Portugal 4-0 on Monday, and it seems as if the whole city of Berlin was watching intently. The chart above—from the city's public water utility—shows water usage from 6 p.m. on the day of the game to 6 a.m. In two dramatic spikes, coming at halftime and at the close of the game, wate...
Clayton Kershaw's No-Hitter Was Inexpressibly Ridiculous
Clayton Kershaw is the kind of pitcher who can win two National League Cy Young awards in three years for one of the most glamorous teams in baseball and still go a little underappreciated. Maybe it's because so much of the country sleeps through so many of his starts; maybe it's because he's not th...
How Baseball Batting Stats Have Changed In Every Era, In One Chart
Baseball loves to talk about itself in reference to specific eras, so it's probably useful to have a way to look at how offense has changed, all in one place. Analyze1.com mapped runs, home runs, RBI, batting average, and stolen bases in Major League Baseball dating back to 1880. ...
How Many Teams Could Your Favorite World Cup Star Have Played For?
Diego Costa's decision to play for Spain—even though he was born and raised in Brazil—didn't seem to help La Roja all that much on Friday, but FIFA's wisely broad nationality rules still piss off a lot of people. Those rules stipulate that players who haven't collected a senior-level international c...
The 2014 Heat Were Worse In The Finals Than LeBron's 2007 Cavs Team
At some point around the time Dwyane Wade was impaled, for the second time, on a doddering walkabout turnover in the paint, the wider basketball-viewing world realized that Dwyane Wade has been dead all this time, and was only now being told. But Wade was far from the only Heat carcass to wash up th...
The Spurs Were The Most Dominant NBA Finals Team Ever
With a 104-87 blowout in Game 5 last night, the Spurs became the most dominant NBA finals winners ever. ...
Does It Make A Difference If NBA Players Miss Their First Shot?
During the playoffs, broadcasters love to pull out fact-like objects based on incredibly small samples. Before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, for example, announcers pointed out that, in the playoffs, Roy Hibbert had shot significantly better after making his first field-goal attempt. The ...
Watch How MLB's Crazy Tracking System Saw Yasiel Puig's Diving Catch
When MLB Advanced Media showed off its new fielding-tracking system at Sloan, it looked pretty great. But now that we're seeing it in action, this is just fantastic. Here are the numbers on Yasiel Puig's diving catch at Citi Field last month. ...
Remember: Brazil Will Get A Shitload Of Fergie Time If It's Losing
Brazil are tied 1-1 in the second half against Croatia, and there is real danger of the home side dropping points. We ran down all the many ways that Brazil will have an advantage playing at home earlier today—culturally, by strength of schedule, and beyond—but given the situation, thought it was...
Brazil's Early Own Goal Scares Shit Out Of Betting Market
The bet trend on Croatia, as the match has progressed, is above. Check out that sad gray betting spike right before Neymar's equalizer....
Do NBA Teams With Whiter Fan Bases Have Whiter Rosters?
In the NBA of yesterday, an owner could be explicit about structuring his roster around the race of the players. "No team should be all white and no team should be all black, either," Cavs owner and legendary boob Ted Stepien told a reporter in 1980. And why not? "Blacks don't buy many tickets," he ...
How Big Is Brazil's Home-Field Advantage At The World Cup?
Santos da casa não fazem milagres. At home, saints do not perform miracles. —Brazilian proverb...
Everyone Named Their Kid After Maradona During The 1986 World Cup
Diego Maradona in 1986 was essentially an archangel, razing down everything but Argentina on the way to winning the World Cup. This sparked any number of legacies, from a merchandising empire based chiefly on t-shirts with his and Che Guerva's face on them, to, it seems, thousands and thousands of k...
Here's What The Top Prediction Models Say About The World Cup
The World Cup kicks off in a few hours, which means the results of the many, many prediction models that have popped up in the last few weeks will finally be tested. Below are some of the best examples; this is a good time to remind you that betting markets are usually the strongest predictors of al...
Here Are Some Fun Ways To Lose Money Betting On The World Cup
The FIFA World Cup is Earth's single greatest sporting event. It also happens to be Earth's best excuse to gamble at noon on a weekday for no reason passing degeneracy. And given that the World Cup is the rest of the world's Super Bowl, and any Super Bowl-level event is at its heart a chance to make...
Why A Great General Manager Might Be Worth More Than Mike Trout
Baseball is a strange market, forever correcting itself in strange ways. For a long time, the most obviously central ability for a hitter—getting on base—was overlooked, until suddenly it wasn't, and it occurred to teams that there were probably all sorts of other valuable skills they were neglectin...