si Page 640 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
How The World's Best Player Finally Won Over His Home Country
If there was one defining moment to memorialize what might be the tournament that solidifies Lionel Messi's place as the greatest soccer player of all time, it was the few seconds after he scored the game-winning goal in Argentina's first group stage match. The shot itself was a sign of what was t...
If you've been enjoying our excerpts and are in the New York area, tonight Dave Zirin will be discussing his book Brazil's Dance With The Devil as well as his time in Brazil during the World Cup during Gelf Magazine's Varsity Letters lecture series. Joining him will be basketball writer Roland Lazen...
Cruise Control: The Loopy Terror Of <em>Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol</em>
Tom Cruise is not like us. This was always pretty evident, but as recently detailed in this great Amy Nicholson L.A. Weekly story, it became inescapable fact around 2005, when he jumped on Oprah Winfrey's couch. That story is full of convincing evidence that the whole couch episode didn't happen t...
Argentine Player Hit In The Head, Stumbles And Falls, Stays In The Game
Argentina's Javier Mascherano couldn't even stand up after clashing heads with a Dutch player. He was taken off the pitch for only a couple moments—concussion protocol!—before returning. ...
Being Patient At The Plate Doesn't Correlate With Scoring More Runs
If you want a good baseball offense, you need to milk to pitch count. That's what it says in Moneyball, and it's been Red Sox gospel under Terry Francona. But as the graph above from The Hardball Times shows, it isn't significantly related to offensive production....
Showing Attractive Fans On TV? That Was One Man's Idea
Originally published on Slate....
Why Your World Cup Stadium Sucks: Estádio Nacional, Brasília
Estádio Nacional has the grim glory of being the most expensive stadium in Brazil, costing some $900m in public funds. (Now with more pictures!)...
World Cup Cuisine
George Zisiadis imagines the World Cup as a series of food mash-ups....
Alleged Murderer Has Cardinals And White Sox Logos Among His Face Tats
This Chicago man has been arrested and charged with murder after allegedly shooting and killing a man over the 4th of July weekend. Aside from being the kind of guy who allegedly shoots people and gets "Fuck The World" tattooed on his forehead, he also appears to be a fan of both the St. Louis Cardi...
How This Year's Home Run Derby Hitters Stack Up
The Home Run Derby rosters were just announced—or at least, most of them were—and ESPN Stats & Info put together some really nice graphics of how each team's in-game homers would look if they were hit at Target Field, site of this year's All Star Game....
Germany Smashed Brazil So Hard It's Good For America
Germany became the first team to score five goals in the first 29 minutes of any World Cup game in history. It ended 7-1, but if we can summon just a touch more jingoistic national sentiment, we say fuck it, cheer for the Germans. They scrubbed America off the wrong side of the record book. ...
Defending World Cup Champions Are Screwed if They're Old
With Spain out in the group stage this year, there will be no repeat champion in Brazil. Do any of the remaining four teams stand a good chance of repeating? The Economist compared the average ages of defending World Cup champions and found younger teams tend to do better. ...
Where Does David Ortiz Really Rank Among The All-Time Home Run Hitters?
David Ortiz hit his 450th home run late last month, moving him to 37th on the career home runs list. There's no doubt Ortiz has had a great career. But his are home runs in an era of home runs—and performance enhancers. He blends into his environment, that is to say. Since home runs were more in...
Sigh. Here Is Johnny Manziel Kind Of Doing The Nae Nae.
Well, we really boned ourselves here. Our non-exhaustive list of Johnny Manziel dirt that we will actually pay for included a $325 bounty for a video of Johnny Manziel doing the Nae Nae. (Why $325? Who the fuck knows.) Naturally, a tipster reached out to us with a video of Johnny Manziel doing the N...
Reminder: The LeBron Free Agency Circus Is The NBA's Fault
We're watching the rubber band snap on LeBron free agency coverage. We waited all year to see what would happen, and now that it's happening, there's... rather a lot of coverage, isn't there? But remember, whatever hysterics into which teams and Twitter and ESPN have been thrown were created by the ...
Here's Mark Jackson Doing Some Intense Sidewalk Preachin'
The other day, Mark Jackson went out to do some preachin' in Los Angeles, right over by the pawn shop and the check cashing joint. He's got a lot of energy, but I'm a little disappointed that he didn't find a way to work "Hand down, man down!" into his sermon....
Paramore's "Ain't It Fun" Is The Summer Jam Twitter Desperately Needs
It's a pleasantly sweaty June night at the bucolic, Live Nation-owned Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Mass., and Hayley Williams looks like she's ready for a fight. The lead singer of Paramore is sporting the kind of high-waisted shorts, knee braces, and white high-tops you might associate with a sparr...
No, Neymar Can't Come Back This World Cup. That Could Paralyze Him.
To the surprise of very many, when Neymar went down in the 86th minute against Colombia on Friday, the 22-year-old striker wasn't faking. After being kneed in the back by Colombia's Juan Zúñiga, Neymar was carried off the field and taken directly to a hospital, where doctors soon discovered that h...