rte Page 36 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

World Series X-Factors: Who needs to step up for Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies to win the title?
The World Series kicks off tomorrow night between two teams with wildly different expectations heading into the postseason. On one hand, the Astros were the top seed in the American League. Houston reached the World Series in three of the last five seasons and reached the ALCS in all five. Everyone ...

Westbrook definitely needs to be traded, but he’s far from the only reason Lakers are losing
Russell Westbrook was out Wednesday night with a hamstring injury as the Lakers were soundly defeated on the road against a Denver Nuggets squad missing Michael Porter Jr. and featuring a sub-100 percent Jamal Murray. Truthfully, the Lakers could have used Westbrook’s energy. Someone needed to stand...

Mullett Arena is somehow dumber than you’d imagine something called Mullett Arena could be
I’m one of many hockey observers that Coyotes fans, whoever they may be, claim to have an agenda at all times against the Yotes. And on some level, it’s fair, because it is hypocritical to talk often at length about the place teams have for fans in their lives and the public trust that they really a...

MLB needs to explain why Juan Soto is a Gold Glove finalist
A few days ago, Major League Baseball announced its finalists for the Rawlings Gold Glove Awards....

The way Aaron Rodgers tells it, he’s always right
The Green Bay Packers’ loss to the Washington Commanders was far from Aaron Rodgers’ fault. ...

Stop praising NFL coaches for adopting college football tactics
The NFL finally trying college offenses and mobile QBs after snubbing its nose at them for decades is like praising your child for going diaper-free at 25 years old. Not only was it long overdue, but the negligence is concerning. All of these NFL writers love to tout the innovation from this new gen...

The Yankees deserved this
“New York Yankees” and “inferiority complex” are two combinations of words that have probably never met in a sentence for over 100 years or so. This is the New York Yankees, the absolute biggest symbol of American exceptionalism, even when it’s a sport that no other place plays. They’re the Yankees,...

The NBA’s tanking problem is more perception than reality, and a relegation system won’t fix that
During NBA Commish Adam Silver’s apology tour session with beleaguered Phoenix Suns employees this weekend, he was confronted with another concern. In addition to apologizing for suspended team Governor Robert Sarver and his decades of misconduct, Silver was also besieged by a flood of questions abo...

The USWNT winning their World Cup group would go a long way
It shouldn’t matter which team completes Group E of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Anything less than a first-place finish in the quartet for the United States women’s national team will be a tremendous disappointment. It doesn’t matter that fellow global power the Netherlands is also in the group...

Jordan Brand keeps signing Duke guys because North Carolina can’t produce worthy candidates
Rivalries are all about tradition — and being petty....

For NBA MVP, the value bet is Zion, but who will actually win is obvious
It’s easily forgotten that NBA is actually an acronym that stands for National Basketball Association. For a casual observer that follows the league’s personalities and news breakers on social media, the league can be viewed as a multiplatform action/drama that sparks the audience’s adrenaline with ...

Kliff Kingsbury’s Big 12 offense ain’t flyin’
The Cardinals got scooped by a bigger bird when the Seattle Seahawks’ 32nd-ranked defense held Arizona out of the end zone. In Arizona’s 19-9 defeat, quarterback Kyler Murray threw for fewer than 300 yards for a third consecutive week. Murray’s contract extension has been the subject of endless scru...

Lamar Jackson being graded so harshly is a testament to his greatness
The criticisms against Lamar Jackson are exhausting at this point. The Ravens defeated the Bengals on Sunday Night Football, and like clockwork, Matt Hasselback was on SportsCenter afterward talking about how Jackson has to improve as a pocket passer. ...

The NBA’s Western Conference is going to be like bumper cars with all the movement this season
It’s October, so Halloween season is upon us, but it’s also time for the NBA to return. All the talk and some drama will be shoved aside as teams return to the court, hoping to do what the Golden State Warriors did last season in raising the Larry O’Brien NBA Finals trophy....

Tom Brady, LeBron James, Drew Brees, and Kevin Durant are all pickleball obsessed, which is why you shouldn’t be
With the growing number of Nirvana shirts I see young people wearing, I’m eagerly awaiting the angst to match the apparel. Kurt Cobain’s era-defining band became popular because it was part of a movement that was in direct contrast to heavy metal hair bands and ’80s glam epitomized by cocaine and Mi...

Is MTV Cribs-era fashion making a comeback?
The split jersey look usually serves a purpose. It’s for parents with kids playing against each other in a nationally televised sporting event, or for a young woman who has to support both her brother and her new boyfriend who would go on to become her husband and an NFL bust....

The USWNT better hope their frontline is good enough
Having worrying autumn friendlies is apparently contagious in the US National team program....

The NFL could easily make its unnecessary roughness penalties more tolerable for the masses
Penalties that turned all of social media into Atlanta Falcons fans and made the crowd at Arrowhead Stadium even angrier than when they booed Unity in 2020 are not new. It only feels like the illegal contact to/with-the-head penalties are a result of the NFL being forced to admit the long-term effec...

Victor Wembanyama is the NBA’s basketball comeuppance
Victor Wembanyama is the evolution of basketball personified. But evolution requires a catalyst. Sure Wembanyama’s genes play a significant part, but decades earlier he could have been Frédéric Weis. Weis was the first French center whose name was seared into the memories of American basketball fans...

Arsenal, Liverpool, and cycles
There’s always an urge, and sometimes a directive from websites and Twitter and whatever else, to attach meaning or statements to any match or result. Sometimes, two teams just play each other and the score is the score and that’s your story. It’s not an overarching comment on systems, managers, or ...