sports Page 117 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
A tribute to Terry Funk, an unsung wrestling god
Legendary wrestler Terry Funk died yesterday. He was 79. I am certainly nowhere near a talented enough writer to eulogize him properly. Nor have I been a fan long enough or deeply enough for long enough to try and encompass his whole career. The thing is, no one is, so it’s not a personal failing. F...
Trey Lance ends up behind Mr. Irrelevant, Jets draft bust on 49ers depth chart
Kyle Shanahan has been watching Trey Lance practice for three years. He knows a great deal more about the young man than I ever will. If Shanahan is willing to write off the loss of first-round draft picks in 2022 and 2023, and be done with Lance on the San Francisco 49ers, he must certainly have a ...
Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are hurt — how else would the Angels season end?
Neil Young told us that it was better to burn out than to fade away. In the same fashion, some things are just meant to divebomb so hard into the dirt that they cause a smoldering crater that affects all life on the planet rather than just saunter out to the woods to die in peace. That quickly appro...
Elly De La Cruz and Shohei Ohtani are the same fans we are
Most baseball players, and really most pro athletes, will tell you that they stopped being fans long ago. It is a job now, and any star on another team becomes an obstacle eventually. They’ll tell you they respect other guys in the league, and that’s probably true, but they don’t see them as anythin...
Mekhi Becton and Duane Brown are ready for action, and if the Jets want a title they had better stay that way
The New York Jets offensive line is beginning to take shape. They’re play has been so porous this summer that not even the Hard Knocks producers could gloss over it. Finally, reinforcements are on the way, specifically at offensive tackle. Duane Brown has been activated off of the PUP list, and Mekh...
Did Rogers Centre kill Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s power?
Whenever the post-mortem is compiled on this Toronto Blue Jays season — they’re still very much in the hunt for a wildcard spot — it won’t be hard to find culprits for how they didn’t quite manage to take the next step from a good team to a power that most in Ontario were expecting (feels like a the...
Steph Curry can’t stack up to Magic Johnson because he belongs in Kobe’s bracket
On the verge of embarking on his 15th season, Steph Curry is enjoying the last mile of his NBA prime. The ascendance of Curry was the NBA’s nuclear fission breakthrough. He is a player whose ability to knock down the 3-pointer with so much efficacy that he opened up our basketball brains beyond the ...
USWNT captain Lindsey Horan said the quiet part out loud
It started to percolate during the latest Summer Olympics, delayed a year to 2021 because of the pandemic. The United States women’s national team — the former two-time-defending World Cup champions — not only looked vulnerable, but they also appeared average. Not average for the Stars and Stripes —...
Skip Bayless’ reign may finally be coming to an end
Skip Bayless is viewed as the godfather of this “embrace debate” culture that has consumed sports media over the past 15 years. The FS1 Undisputed host has been around to lend his disconcerting commentary style to some of the most significant events in sports for the better part of five decades. How...
Alex Cora had himself a night
It’s starting to slip away from the Boston Red Sox. After an excellent July, the Carmines have run to nowhere in August with a 10-10 mark which has left them five games adrift of the last wildcard spot. Which isn’t a huge surprise, given that this team was built to basically win 84 games and give th...
Baker Mayfield’s whiteness keeps getting him NFL starting QB jobs
Baker Mayfield didn’t do anything wrong. The crime that keeps getting committed is done by the owners, general managers, and coaches who keep giving him endless opportunities. If Mayfield can keep being named a starter in the NFL, then Nathan Peterman will always have a shot at being on a team’s pay...
Just give Reggie Bush his Heisman Trophy back
The court of public opinion cleared Reggie Bush of any wrongdoing years ago, but that still doesn’t put the Heisman back in his hands. The long-retired running back is now planning to sue the NCAA and ESPN for defamation of character surrounding the reporting of the alleged improper benefits that le...
What if there was a Mendoza Line for other baseball stats?
Mario Mendoza put together nine nondescript major league seasons from 1974-1982 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, and Texas Rangers. He was good for -2.7 WAR and finished with a career .215 batting average....
Hard Knocks: New York Jets rookies are thoroughly unentertaining
I so badly wanted to focus this column on Robert Saleh’s competitor speech. If there are four different levels of competitors, one of those four levels cannot be titled “competitor.” By saying there are different levels of competitor means that no matter the level, everyone is a competitor. That spe...
If Michigan's Jim Harbaugh gambit works, it will be a horrible look for the NCAA
Michigan football won’t have Jim Harbaugh on the sidelines for its first three games of the season, and it’s only trio of nonconference contests of the year before a possible bowl game. Yawn. Like it’ll matter. It’s part of the school’s self-imposed penalty for Harbaugh’s alleged recruiting violatio...
The Kelce family fight club is now in full swing
Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce were such heartwarming stories during the Super Bowl. Their mom baked them cookies and presented the delectable desserts to them on opening night. The two host a podcast together, and in one episode they both cried when discussing Mama Kelce’s star turn during Super Bowl...
Cris Collinsworth says NBC would broadcast ‘17 Dallas Cowboys games’ if possible
The Dallas Cowboys are the most polarizing team in the NFL and possibly North America. How else would you explain the fascination with their brand? It doesn’t matter that they haven’t even made it to the final four of the NFL postseason in nearly 30 years. NBC Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Coli...
When did the New York Knicks become a franchise worth stealing ideas from?
Is the NBA truly a copycat league? And if so, what would the Toronto Raptors want with New York Knicks intel?...
Hopefully, the death of the running back takes fantasy football along with it
It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not talking about this being the week to bone up on your player rankings, figure out a draft or auction strategy, and get ready for another rousing rendition of fantasy football, but whether to do that at all. Ideally, one of the side effects of the running back...