st Page 795 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Please don’t be an illusion, Daryl Dike
It’s been a few weeks of conflicting emotions for USMNT fans. Which I suppose is a slight improvement on just total dread, sorrow, and Cure makeup, the usual state in which we find ourselves. Take our victories where we can find them, I guess....

After another sensational two weeks, the NCAA women’s tournament broadcast package needs to level up
When people talk about investing more resources into the women’s game, it goes far beyond any monetary value....

Alex Rodriguez and ESPN’s <em>Sunday Night Baseball</em> are Can’t Stomach TV
Shohei Ohtani’s remarkable mound/plate performance last night helped mask what otherwise was a turgid, if not torturous, ESPN broadcast. The network’s Sunday Night Baseball show has been a bane to fans for pretty much its entire existence, spawning the one site that’s basically responsible for all t...

Your guide to the most interesting MLB walk-up music, then and now
You can tell a lot about a person by what music they listen to....

Carter Hart looks good in return, but the Flyers still suck
Carter Hart made his return to the net after an eight-game “reset” for the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, and no, let’s not go with any rising from the dead analogies, but he was looked to as the savior of the franchise....

Charles Barkley thinks politicians, not hateful white people, are the reason racism succeeds
Charles Barkley is trying his best to be the next Jason Whitlock — the overweight and jovial Black man with a larger-than-life personality, whom you can always count on to say something to make white Americans feel good about themselves while demonizing and belittling his own people....

UCLA vs. Gonzaga might have been the best college game ever played
That was the best college basketball game I have ever seen in my lifetime. ...

'Bama fan’s COVID-19 related death following Men’s March Madness visit prompts Indiana health investigation
Luke Ratliff was an Alabama student and men’s basketball superfan known around campus as “Fluffopotamus.” Last week, he made the trip to Indianapolis to watch the Tide in the Sweet 16. Ratliff was in Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse on Sunday for the game. After UCLA pulled off the upset that night, he re...

Ty Buttrey’s heart wasn’t in it, so he walked away — and good for him
Optioned to the minors by the Angels last week, a few days before his 28th birthday, Ty Buttrey decided that he was done with baseball. He’d accomplished his goal to “prove to every motherf***** who didn’t believe in me and doubted my ability to become an MLB player, that I could do it.”...

Could ‘Coors Cat’ find itself going from the alley to the front office?
Rockies fans have been looking for something to be excited about since the Nolan Arenado trade, and now they have it....

MLB umps play Keystone Kops in punishing wrong guy in bench-clearing non-brawl
Nicholas Castellanos was angry about being hit by a pitch from Cardinals right-hander Jake Woodford, so when the Reds’ right fielder came in to score on a Woodford wild pitch, sliding into Woodford in the process, he made his feelings known....

Grant Hill named director of USA Men’s National Basketball Team
You could go so far as to say Grant Hill was always meant for this. ...

Francisco (not Frankie) Lindor, Roberto (not Bobby) Clemente, and the unintentional disrespect of Americanizing Latin names
Nicknames are endearing, but they’re not always respectful. ...

Once again the Atlanta Baseball Team proves itself a shrieking fraud on caring about Black people
You mean to say that a baseball franchise with a racially insensitive name, which does all it can to harm any argument that their name isn’t just insensitive, but outright racist, by encouraging its fans to do racist chants; which moved out of team’s location name’s urban core and into another count...

McDonald lifts Arizona over UConn, will face Stanford in all-PAC-12 Final
Stanford vs. Arizona will be the matchup for the women’s national title, and the Pac-12 will have its first national champion since 1992, when the Cardinal — then, as now, coached by Tara VanDerveer — won its second title....

Which team played the villain role best?
With the Houston Astros now wearing the crown as the most hated team in professional sports — as indicated by the chorus of boos and piercing screams of “CHEATER!” that rang through the Oakland Coliseum (whatever ridiculous name it has today) last night on Opening Day (ahh… welcome back baseball, an...

The players we’d most like to see in the Big 3’s new season
According to a report from Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, the Big3 is returning after their 2020 cancelation due to COVID....

Moving All-Star Game out of Georgia is surprisingly right move by MLB
Major League Baseball is not generally an organization that you’d think of as progressive, but Rob Manfred made a big move on Friday, stripping this year’s All-Star Game (something Rob Parker called for Deadspin on Monday) and draft from Atlanta in protest of the state of Georgia’s new voting rights...

Headbutts and failed theatrical delays: Sunderland rallies for zany win over Oxford
Sunderland took another step in its quest to get out of England’s League One and back to the Championship on Friday, but the Black Cats’ 3-1 win over Oxford United wasn’t without controversy....

On Opening Day, the signs of how much we’ve lost were everywhere
After getting the coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, I was pretty out of it on Thursday, which meant that Opening Day was a different experience than usual. I woke up in the morning, had breakfast and walked the dog, then went right back to sleep, setting an alarm to be able to watch the first inning...