tldr Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
It Shouldn't Be So Hard To Enjoy The Red Sox's Glory Days
Entering its 24th year of existence, the Baseball Prospectus Annual contains over 2,000 player profiles, advanced statistics and projections, as well as thirty team essays. One of those pieces, an exemplary one written by Boston Globe columnist Chad Finn, is provided here as a sample of the prose an...
Not Even A Baseball Strike Could Stop Cleveland From Hosting The All-Star Game. Sort Of.
When Cleveland was awarded the 1981 MLB All-Star Game, it was a city in dire need of a boost....
Mikaela Shiffrin Rules The World By Knowing What She Can't Do
It’d be almost exhausting if it weren’t so preposterous: Mikaela Shiffrin has done it again. With the close of the World Ski Championships in Åre, Sweden, she’s broken another record. Hit another personal best. She’s still just 23 years old. And she’s done it with an approach to her craft, and her c...
What It Was Like To Be A Sex Worker During The Super Bowl<em></em>
ATLANTA — Kara* drove 248 miles from Nashville to Atlanta for Super Bowl weekend. She wasn’t there to watch the game. A 25-year-old sex worker based in Oakland, Kara anticipated she’d get at least five to 10 clients. She stayed with a family member and placed ads online, and waited for the texts and...
Daniel Bryan's War On Vince McMahon And The Boomers Isn't Just For Show
The high point of Daniel Bryan’s still-young heel turn came a couple weeks ago. More specifically, it came when he delivered a blistering rant about climate change, capitalism, consumerism, and the ethical failure inherent in eating meat. He did this right there on television where everyone could se...
Who's Killing The Soul Of Sneaker Culture?
PITTSBURGH — In East Liberty sits a store that never looks open. While nobody would ever admit it, it’s possible that this is a deliberate move. Tinted windows obscure the inside of the store until you’re up close, and those windows are adorned with decorative oak bars all giving the impression of a...
How Baylor Happened
WACO, Texas — There’s not much to recommend spending four years in Waco. Driving into town up Interstate 35 from the south, the endless stretch of Texas nothing fills out slowly. It’s flat in the way you think Texas is flat. Empty fields give way to John Deere dealerships, then fast-food chains. On ...
MLB's Luxury Tax Became A Salary Cap Because Of Decades Of Failures
Major League Baseball’s luxury tax was introduced as a compromise during collective bargaining in the late 1990s as a way to avoid implementing a salary cap, which had been one of the major points of conflict that led to the 1994 strike by the Major League Baseball Players Association. In the years ...
<i>Madden</i> Is As Full Of Anonymous Players As The NFL Itself
It’s hardly a selling point, but this year’s edition of Madden has the real Kyle Lauletta. The game’s rendering of the Giants’ rookie quarterback—who stepped into a blowout win against Washington in Week 13 to throw five incompletions and a pick and then meekly returned to clipboard and donut-gofer ...
What Story Does The Baseball Hall Of Fame Want To Tell?
The National Baseball Hall of Fame is a museum commemorating a particular professional iteration of an old American game; the long room of bronze plaques featuring the ballplayers that various groups of voters have decided over the years have sufficient “fame” is a part of it, but also something ver...
Ronnie O'Sullivan Is About To Become The Man Of A Thousand Centuries
A colossal milestone is about to be smashed in the world of billiards. Five-time world snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, fresh off winning his 19th triple crown event at this year’s UK Championship, is on the verge of making 1000 century breaks in competition. He has three already in early UK Mast...
Can Los Angeles Ever Love The Chargers?
CARSON, Calif. — I had been in Los Angeles for less than 12 hours, and the first indication I got that the Chargers even existed was when two dudes at a breakfast diner overheard me talking to a server about why I was in town, which was to write a story about the Chargers....
The Ball Family Circus Comes To Ohio
There isn’t a whole lot going on in Vermilion, Ohio, in the winter....
The Strange Career Of Jeff Monson, American MMA Fighter Turned Russian Politician
On September 9, 2018, American mixed martial arts fighter Jeff Monson became a government official in the Russian Federation. The former UFC title challenger, who was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin less than four months earlier, was elected to a council of deputies in the ci...
Deadspin's Best Long Stories Of 2018
Perhaps you need something to read on the plane home, or something to distract you while you avoid your in-laws. Here are the most compelling long features and essays we published this year so you can catch up before we do it all again in 2019....
Zion Williamson's Duke Is At Least Slightly Less Sanctimonious
Nick Richards had the right idea. After setting a screen on the right side of the arc, the Kentucky forward rolled toward the lane and found himself open as two defenders converged on ball-handler Keldon Johnson. Richards received the pass and turned toward the hoop, where he had a good look at a la...
It's No Fun To Get Stuck Between Superstars<em></em>
This excerpt from Sam Anderson’s new book Boom Town, a book on the rapid rise of Oklahoma City and its NBA franchise, joins the team at home for Game 46 of the 2012-13 season, and considers the least-heralded member of what looked at the time like a rising dynasty....
American Soccer Is Fine
Zack Steffen, an American soccer player who currently plies his trade on U.S. soil, is set to join the English Premier League’s reigning champions. The Columbus Crew have announced that the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year will be moved to Manchester City Football Club next summer for an undisclosed trans...
Baseball's Hall Of Fame Was Busted Long Before Harold Baines Got In
It was terribly unfair of the “Today’s Game Era Committee” of the Baseball Hall of Fame to put Harold Baines in this position. When they elected Baines to the Hall on Dec. 9, the TGEC did him an honor, but also made him the foremost case study for the knowledge gap between those who control the Hall...
An American Surfer Goes Rogue To Claim The Baltic Sea's "Last Wave"
BERLIN — There’s this picture of Ira Mowen that pretty much sums up the quest he’s been on for seven years. In it, he’s standing mid-frame, gazing into the lens of the camera – or the phone, whatever. He looks like he’s just waking up, or he’s stoned, or he’s recovering from a sneeze, because he’s g...