top Page 83 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
TNT's Slow Zoom On Mitch Kupchak's Face In The Final Minutes Of The Lakers' Season Was Sadistic
Only true Lakers believers (or the truly blind) couldn't see the Lakers' season was nearing an end long before the horn sounded on last night's 106-90 series-seizing Thunder victory. Yet it seems the moment of truth for Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak came at a time that TNT producers jumped upon for max...
How Readable Are Bill Simmons, Jason Whitlock, Rick Reilly, And Other Sportswriters? Science Investigates
The last time we played around with sportswriter analytics, we wondered if we could algorithmically determine a column's author based on his favorite words. (We could!) For a followup, I decided to look at the readability of different writers. Reading level is a nebulous concept and hard to define p...
How A Career Ends: Ron Darling Celebrated His 35th Birthday By Getting Cut And Being Left Alone At Home
Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they knew their playing days were over. Today: Pitcher Ron Darling, one of 37 major leaguers in history born in Hawaii and the record holder, by far, for most major league seasons by a Yale University alum...
Rick Reilly Has Golf Jokes For You Because Rick Reilly Is Everything Horrible About ESPN
Do me a favor right now: Drive out to your local exurb. Now, find the nearest Cheesecake Factory in that exurb, walk up to the bar, and try and spot the 40-year-old fellow wearing pleated chinos, loafers, and a button-down shirt with his real-estate company's logo on it. You see that guy? THAT is Ri...
LeBron's Choice Of Pre-Game Reading Material? <em>The Hunger Games</em>
ABC showed a brief clip of LeBron James in the locker room before today's Heat-Pacers Game Four in Indianapolis, and surprise of surprises, he was reading Suzanne Collins's young adult novel The Hunger Games. We won't shame anybody for their choice of reading material—indeed, we'd love for more ro...
I'll Have Another Wins Preakness, Forcing All Of Us To Watch The Belmont Stakes In Three Weeks
I'll Have Another nosed out a Preakness Stakes victory over Bodemeister with a late surge, ruining plans of a million Americans who'd scheduled something other than watching horse racing on June 9th. ...
Dead Letters: You Crossed A Major Line This Week, Canine Hitler
Subject: Racism and Pit Bulls...
Will Smith Has Left And Gone Away
When did you first realize that the Fresh Prince could legitimately act? Like, in the big leagues? For once in my life, I was on the early part of the curve; my college newspaper assigned me, a green freshman, a review of Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare's adaptation of his own play about a fan...
Here's Kerry Wood's Emotional Exit From Baseball, After One Final Strikeout
We reported earlier today Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood is retiring from baseball, but the oft-injured hurler promised to make one last appearance before hanging up his cleats. That appearance came today, and it was in a legitimate spot; down 3-2 in the eighth, Wood relieved starter Jeff Samardzija and pr...
Cops Will Steal Your Girlfriend!
Welcome to Great Moments in Drunken Hookup Failure, where we showcase three heartwarming true stories of drunken love gone horribly awry. Off we go....
The Dadspin Guide To Feeding A Baby
I have a newborn son. He needs to be fed eight times a day. Each session of feeding him takes roughly 30 minutes, 20 if I'm lucky. I am usually not lucky. That's four hours of the day dedicated to sitting in a chair with a bottle, begging the baby to drink faster. A newborn's life is dedicated to sl...
What Boxing Writing Can Teach Us About Everything: A.J. Liebling On Moore-Marciano
Between the Victorian era and the Sixties, boxing was a regular and prominent feature of American life. Knowing something about the fights—being good with your hands, or maintaining an opinion about the welterweight division or fixed bouts or how to beat a southpaw—was a very common piece of equipme...
Better Know An Umpire: Gary Darling
Welcome to Better Know An Umpire, an effort to educate ourselves on the human elements who have ultimate decision-making power over some 2,500 Major League Baseball games a year. (All cumulative statistics are through the 2011 season, unless otherwise stated.)...
Kegasus, The Beer-Loving Mascot Of The Beer-Loving Preakness, Is Actually A Sober Phony
What's the saying? If you'll keg stand for something, you'll fall for anything? Promoters of the Preakness Stakes must believe it. Turns out that Kegasus, spokesbeast for the Preakness and the best mascot in all of sports, is a sham....
The Spunky Genius Of Twitter's @LAKings, The Second-Biggest Surprise Of The Playoffs
The Los Angeles Kings are 7-1 since we asked if anyone could stop them. They're steamrolling the Coyotes like they steamrolled the Blues and Canucks, and they're a good bet to steamroll whichever team wins the Port Authority Bus Terminal Series. They have unquestionably been the best thing about the...
You Will Eat 30 Bowls Of Cereal A Day (And 11 Other Things You Should Know Before Going To College)
I got this letter from Funbag reader Anthony, which seemed rather timely:...
Yes, Chicago's ABC Affiliate Identified Metta World Peace As "Lakers Idiot"
Last night the internets buzzed about the veracity of a photo showing the lower third graphic from a TV newscast identifying Lakers ne'er-do-well Metta World Peace as "Lakers Idiot." Our pals over at Busted Coverage asked this morning if it was real, and as the video above will show you, it is in...
<em>What To Expect When You're Expecting</em> Makes Me Want To Get A Vasectomy
My wife and I love kids—we just don't want to have any of our own. That shouldn't be a big deal, but sometimes other people sure act like it is. There have been a few too many instances when my wife and I have been around other folks' babies and the inevitable question comes up: "When are you two go...
Reconstructing The Most Exciting Day In The History Of Soccer (And Maybe Sports, Period)
The final day of the 2011 MLB regular season enchanted us with its insanity; its events became a video game montage and inspired its own tag here on Deadspin. That day, however, only determined which teams would gain entry to the playoffs. By comparison, Sunday's final day of the English Premier ...
Laurie Fine Goes To A Castle To Tell The World She Didn't Hump The Ball Boy (Among Other Things)
GENEVA, N.Y.—At 11 a.m. today, Laurie Fine stood outside of a castle about an hour west of the Syracuse University apartments in which, according to a former ball boy's testimony, she had sex with Syracuse men's basketball players. Here, flanked by the sun, the tweeting birds, and the rippling water...