slide Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Someone should look into this agreement Justin Verlander has with Father Time
If you’ve watched enough Justin Verlander starts, there’s always a feeling he has one last card to play when he absolutely needs it. That mostly comes from his habit of keeping his fastball velocity just low enough to be a tease early in his starts, and then somewhere later when he really needs it h...
The off-putting history of Spencer Strider, and the incredible weirdness of the NHL Awards
I won’t pretend what follows makes any sense. It is simply a matter of taste, and my tastes have warped and mutated often into a territory I can no longer explain. If you’re an Atlanta baseball fan, Spencer Strider is a titan walking among men. Cobb County probably has dubbed it “Strider Day,” a gam...
For the Houston Astros, it can be as simple as one pitch
I am guilty, as well as many others, of thinking of the Astros as the same Godzilla offense as they were in 2017, whatever means they used to get there. I hear Astros and think whatever batter they’re sending to the plate sends thousands of Tokyo residents scurrying for cover. And the Astros offense...
60 is such a round number
It was a number we didn’t even think about when we were kids. Only if you were born in a specific time, where you were an impressionable youth between 1998-2003, would 60 seem reasonable, or even reachable, or something to be expected to happen semi-regularly. It was never even talked about....
What could possibly go wrong going down a slide?
It’s a slide. Kids go down these things all the time. Bad things rarely ever happen, but only because they are kids, right? Surely, nothing bad would happen to big adult man David Vassegh. ...
Imagine if Josiah Gray develops an elite fastball
Coming into the 2022 season, Josiah Gray was Washington’s No. 3 prospect. He was a top-100 prospect throughout all of last season when he was dealt to the Nationals as part of the Trea Turner/Max Scherzer deal. In his limited time with the Dodgers and Nats last season, Gray showed flashes of excelle...
The baseball is deflated again
I’m cribbing heavily from Joe Sheehan’s newsletter again, but in his latest missive he points out that things keep getting better and better for pitchers. Thanks to technology and greater study, they discover new pitches or tweaks to existing ones as they keep throwing harder and harder. At the same...
I want to buy this Luka Modrić pass a top-shelf cocktail or six
The 2nd leg of Chelsea-Real Madrid will go down as an all-time classic, as Chelsea overcame a 3-1 first leg deficit to take a 4-3 aggregate lead, only to blow it and lose the tie in extra time to Real Madrid 5-4, even though they won the game 3-2. Chelsea were far and away the better team, with Thom...
Devil’s Advocate: Banning the shift shows that MLB is moving in the right direction
I’ve never had too strong an opinion on whether or not Major League Baseball should ban the shift....
Football at all levels needs to take a look at this
Pittsburgh Panthers quarterback Kenny Pickett had college football fans and the internet buzzing over his fake-QB slide and subsequent touchdown run in a 45-21 smashing of Wake Forest. Let’s be honest, in real-time, this might be one of the illest plays of the college or pro football season. But the...
Yes, the Fall Stars Game is a big deal
Since the game’s inception in 2006, the Fall Stars Game has been a showcase for upcoming Major League Baseball talent. Cody Bellinger, Pete Alonso, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Harrison Bader, and Ronald Acuna Jr. are just some of the great names who’ve come up to the big leagues and already made their mark a...
Step into the batters’ box against this guy… if you dare!
Would you step up to the plate in a Major League game if you knew there was a 10 percent chance you were about to get hit by one of the pitches? Maybe you’d put a foot in the box and stand in the corner and hope the pitcher had enough control this time, but every time that pitcher started his windup...
The AL Cy Young race is kinda trash
Now that we have a full baseball season again, after 2020’s season-in-a-can, we can get to choosing our award winners on normal calibrations. Thankfully, Shohei Ohtani made the AL MVP choice academic by having the most unique and unmatched individual season in baseball history. Pretty easy to hand h...
No, you cannot hit a 100 mph fastball
The incredibly stupid debate over whether it’s harder to hit a 100 mph fastball or hit a half-court shot has been on the internet for a while, because if there’s a stupid debate to be had, it’ll happen online at some point....
There’s no place like home: Arizona Diamondbacks Edition
At this point, I’m pretty sure the Arizona Diamondbacks have angered a higher being. Twenty-two straight losses on the road — tied for the longest such streak in MLB history. Starting with a loss to the Miami Marlins on May 4, the Diamondbacks have yet to win a single game away from Chase Field, and...
Carlos Ródon's near perfection and some good dealing going on in Chicago
Carlos Rodón of the White Sox twirled the second no-hitter of the MLB season, and narrowly missed out on a perfect game. Two outs short of the perfecto, he hit Roberto Perez on a misplaced slider. It would have been the White Sox’s fourth perfect game — setting and new record for a franchise — and f...
Moving back the mound, and other rules changes we can get behind
With MLB taking over Minor League Baseball, and apparently hitting small towns worse than the death of American manufacturing, one small benefit is MLB’s newfound ability to experiment with new rules in the lower leagues it now controls. It gives the big leagues a lab, as it were, to test the effect...
Hot Damn, Vlad Jr. Can <i>Slide</i>, Too
It was already well-known that Blue Jays rookie Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the complete package at the plate. After a slightly rough start to his career, Baby Vlad has been mashing the ball—since the All-Star Break, he’s hitting .319 and slugging .530. And in the first inning on Thursday against the R...
Francisco Cervelli Lands Flying Karate Kick On Base, Somehow Doesn't Get Hurt
Even relative to the brutal baseline of physical punishment that applies to big league catchers, Francisco Cervelli has been through a lot. When the Pittsburgh Pirates put him on release waivers last week, Cervelli was rehabilitating from what was at least the sixth concussion he’s suffered since 20...
![Tour de France Stage Abruptly Called Off Mid-Race After Landslide Ruins The Course [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/ikea52pjujhjmop7exzw.jpg)
Tour de France Stage Abruptly Called Off Mid-Race After Landslide Ruins The Course [Update]
Today’s Stage 19 of the Tour de France was set to be a decisive one, with a 13-kilometer ascent up the Col de l’Iseran, followed up by a winding descent into the Val d’Isere, and capped off with a summit finish into the town of Tignes. It would’ve made for great racing, and in fact it did, until the...