sam Page 30 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Pep Guardiola is about to complete his masterpiece
My brother had a college friend who had an overarching theory of Led Zeppelin. This isn’t much of a surprise, as I assume college students for some 40 years all had their own theory of Led Zeppelin. I remember telling a friend that I had to have a serious talk with him, made it sound really grave, t...

So you traded the No. 1 pick — now what, Chicago?
The Chicago Bears failed in the most ideal way possible last season. They finished with the worst record in the NFL, and still found a way to unleash breathtaking athleticism from Justin Fields. ...

How did the Milwaukee Bucks ever win a title?
I won’t pretend to be any kind of basketball expert, and my brethren here will spend the day breaking down the Milwaukee Bucks coughing up a curd-ridden hairball in the first round to the Miami Heat. But I know a deer caught in headlights look when I see one, and Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer spent a...

How come the Padres don’t hit good?
“If he’s a good hitter how come he doesn’t hit good?”...

WWE invents new title that Cody Rhodes can win
Just imagine the heartwarming scene, the one fans have been clamoring for. It’s 2 in the afternoon, U.S. time, as thousands of miles away Cody Rhodes caresses the belt that was introduced to WWE a month prior, at a show drenched in blood money that has an incredible wrestling history of…Goldberg nea...

What's in the water in Tuscaloosa?
In the months leading up to the NCAA Tournament, the conversation around Alabama’s men’s basketball team was less about how good they were, and more about the drama they were involved in off the court. And while some have forgotten about the tragic death of Jamea Jonae Harris and what her friends an...

Let’s ban Minnesota sports teams from the playoffs
As you get older, all you really ask of sports is to keep you entertained and to provide something interesting to talk about from time to time. You want good teams playing a lively style, and you want them playing another team with perhaps a good story and some verve to them. At the very least, you ...

The Women’s World Cup is already a battle of attrition
The World Cup is always a measure of health and a team’s ability to deal with it. It comes at the end of a long season — unless you’ve fisted it into a desert, totalitarian country that makes you have it in the middle of the season — and players have logged the most possible miles before they play i...

The Devils go old school
Hockey looking back on its history is not usually a good thing. The game is better now, it’s faster now, there is more skill than ever before, and the sport is better off now that it’s moved out of its bar brawl past, even if Flyers fans still base their entire existence on thinking that’s how the g...

The worst is the villain — in this case Aaron Rodgers — getting away with it
We here on the shores of Lake Michigan have been eating it from our neighbors to the north, the Green Bay Packers, for 25 years or so. When it goes on that long, you really stop dreaming of revenge or the tables ever turning your way, and certainly of things evening out. But there’s always a faint e...

When did the NBA playoffs become the NHL playoffs?
The first round of the NBA playoffs usually isn’t all that good, which doesn’t stop people from complaining about it. The difference between the top seeds and lower seeds is large enough that those series should result in nothing more than dress rehearsals for the true powers and the later rounds. W...

US Soccer might have actually made a good decision
There is always a suspicion that US Soccer has fucked up. They’re too insular, too greedy, too cheap, and too weird to ever get out of their own way. Even when it looks like they’re taking a step forward, they’ll find a way to sabotage it. The Berhalter-Reyna mess is perhaps the perfect example of j...

The Grizzlies sure are some whiny villains
I wouldn’t have thought giving someone a vanilla nut-tap on national TV and in front of 18,000 was actually a media conspiracy. I’m glad Memphis’ Dillon Brooks taught me better. ...

The Maple Leafs won the game they should have lost, which they never do
It’s almost always futile to look for “signs” or “omens” in playoff hockey. The next bounce off someone’s ass doesn’t really care what happened before, and apparently, this season, neither will the next call the ref misses but still manages to leave your D-man maimed, and the opposing forward an ope...

Whether genuine, stunt, larf, documentary fodder, or indulgence, Wrexham delivered to those who matter
As I said in an initial review, Welcome To Wrexham, the show isn’t really for me and my ilk (nor should most anything be, really, we’re a broody bunch). It wasn’t meant for the diehard soccer fan, who already is at least somewhat familiar with promotion, and relegation, the football pyramid in Engla...

Could Trey Lance's 49ers career already be over?
At least the San Francisco 49ers appear to be attempting to keep all of their options open. That is the best way to describe the handling of their starting quarterback situation with Brock Purdy and Trey Lance both recovering from injury, and Jimmy G now in Las Vegas. ...

Just two breaks are all it takes
With all apologies to Dua Lipa, it takes more than one kiss (I feel like if I met Dua Lipa I’d have an overwhelming urge to apologize for a lot of things, BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED). ...

Great news — Rob Manfred has more ideas on how to 'fix' the game
Major League Baseball has certainly gotten its plaudits for the rule changes for the 2023 season, mostly because it’s sped up the game to well under three hours. Strikeouts and walks are still about where they’ve always been, but more grounders are getting through (strangely from right-handed hitter...

How’d giving away garbage bags full of draft picks work out for these NFL teams?
The NFL Draft is easily the second-most important event on the league’s annual calendar, with most teams that privately know they won’t be close to winning the Super Bowl prepping for the three-day event. Yet, there are still plenty of teams who don’t take an active role in the draft. In each of the...

It’s never enough for Rob Manfred and his greedy pig bosses
You’d think after negotiating a CBA, before which Rob Manfred got to live out his lifelong dream of canceling baseball games, where the owners got a new level of luxury tax penalties, didn’t really have to pay younger players all that much more than the pennies they already were, and certainly didn’...