tales Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
TBS sets new standard for cringiest promo of all time during Game 1 of the ALDS
One of the less glamorous parts of being a professional play-by-play commentator is being handed a cringy script and being told to act enthusiastic about a show you don’t watch or a product you don’t use just so you can appeal to your boss and finally get back to calling the game. It’s such a forced...
Of Course Tyreek Hill Got A Contract Extension
When news broke that the Kansas City Chiefs signed wide receiver Tyreek Hill to a contract extension earlier today, NFL reporters confirmed what everyone following the sport should have suspected for some time. The team did what professional sports teams do with such news, issuing a press release pa...
Tyreek Hill Says Punching His Three-Year-Old Son In The Chest Was Just Boxing Lessons
Tyreek Hill spoke to assembled media Sunday at Chiefs training camp, his first public comments in several months. The criminal investigation into Crystal Espinal’s allegation that Hill broke his son’s arm is inactive; the NFL’s parallel investigation could not determine whether Hill had violated th...
The New Tyreek Hill Audio Doesn't Contain Any Answers
On Monday, 610 AM in Kansas City published a fuller version of audio first obtained and reported by KCTV-5, in which Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill can be heard telling his fiancée, Crystal Espinal, “You need to be terrified of me too, bitch.” The extended audio, to my ears, wasn’t newsworthy. It ...
The Bitter Life Of A Shattered Jockey: A Mostly True Story
The 1973 Philadelphia Sports Writers Association Awards banquet wasn’t lacking for starpower. Flyers legend Bobby Clarke, who became only the ninth player in NHL history to score 100 points with his 104-point 1972-73 campaign, was one of the honorees. So too was Penn State running back and newly-min...
All The Things Tyreek Hill's Lawyer Left Out Of The Letter To The NFL
Lawyers for Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill sent a letter to the NFL today, and in short order reporters obtained and got it out to the public. The letter addresses audio acquired over the weekend by KCTV in Kansas City in which Crystal Espinal, Hill’s fiancée and mother of his son, con...
Chiefs Suspend Tyreek Hill After Audio Leaks Of Him Threatening Fiancée
The Kansas City Chiefs announced last night that star wide receiver Tyreek Hill would be suspended indefinitely from all team activities. The team made their announcement shortly after Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV5 released an audio recording of Hill being confronted by his fiancée Crystal Espinal...
Tyreek Hill To Fiancée, Crystal Espinal: "You Need To Be Terrified Of Me, Too, Bitch"
Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV5 released audio of a conversation between Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill and his fiancée, Crystal Espinal, on Thursday. The conversation features Espinal confronting Hill about the details of what happened that led to their son getting a broken arm, Espinal bringing up pr...
The Winter Olympics Feature 2,951 Of The World’s Greatest Athletes, And Also This Woman<em></em><em></em>
There’s a premise built into the structure of the Olympics that pretty much every single Olympian, even those far down the standings, are elite athletes at the top of their game performing at a level most fans could only dream of. Freestyle skier Elizabeth Swaney is an affront to this notion, and he...
An Attempt At Untangling The Legend Of Madison Bumgarner Dating A Girl Named Madison Bumgarner
Madison Bumgarner, the larger-than-life ace of the San Francisco Giants, carries the backstory of the hero in a tall tale. He began chewing tobacco in the fifth grade; he got married in blue jeans; he chopped up a rattlesnake with an axe and saved the two baby bunnies he found inside. But one story ...
Now Here's A Mystery For All You Sea Sleuths Out There
Now here’s an item of interest. I don’t make the claim that every piece of news rises to the level of a matter of national importance, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get a kick out of hearing some of the odd things that happen across our nation. ...
Charlie Manson's Home On The Range
Over at the Daily Beast, I curated Gay Talese's 1970 Esquire story, "Charlie Manson's Home on the Range":...
Tell Us Your Horrifying Animal Tales
Today in Deadspin's staff chatroom, a discussion of bad encounters with animals led to Gawker Art Director Jim Cooke sharing a truly horrifying animal story. The transcript is below. Please be warned that it is approximately 500 times more upsetting than when the little dinosaur chases the mom-s...
Either Chael Sonnen Is The Toughest Man Alive, Or TSN Is Full Of Shit
TSN Off The Record host Michael Landsberg appears to have just broken one of the great sports stories of the year, a stirring tale of the triumph of the human spirit that doubles as a horrifying scandal, unless he didn't. It was definitely one or the other. Probably....
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold: Annotated
Over at the Neiman Storyboard, Elon Green talks to Gay Talese about Talese's classic Esquire story, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold." ...
Patterson and Talese: A Good Combination
Kip Stratton edited a collection of Grover Lewis' journalism and wrote a book of poetry about Sam Peckinpah. He also wrote a good biography of Floyd Patterson, who we covered here recently. I interviewed Kip last summer and he talked about Patterson and Gay Talese:...
The Loser: The Most Honest Sports Story Ever Written
Originally published in the March 1964 issue of Esquire. Reprinted here with the author's permission....
The Yankee Bullshitters: What Joe D, Yogi, And Mickey Were Really Like
Last week gave a short post on the late, great Lenny Shecter. Now, for a real taste of his no-bullshit style, here's an excerpt from "The Flower of America" chapter of his 1969 book of essays, The Jocks....
Cool Hand Joe
If you've never read Gay Talese's seminal Esquire magazine story on Joe DiMaggio, do yourself a favor and check out "The Silent Season of a Hero."...
Beer Of The Week: Hoptimus Prime
The further we get from the '80s, the less defensible the hero-toys look. G.I. Joes might've delivered creepily timed PSAs - oh, don't mind Doc hanging around outside your bathroom window, kiddos - but in setting up a reflexively force-oriented response to terroristic threats probably helped set the...