ty Page 296 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow — the NL East
We’ve come to the last of our offseason previews, where all eyes are basically on one team and everyone might react off of that. It’s time for the NL East, or as it may be known from now on, Days of Our Steven Cohen....

The UVA shooting, and why sports can’t be America’s savior while also being a target
The University of Virginia’s athletic department shouldn’t be dominating headlines for something like this....

The problem with the 1972 Dolphins is you can’t win
It happens every season, and maybe if no one mentioned it or paid attention maybe it would cease to be a tradition of an NFL season. The last undefeated team loses its first game, and the 1972 Dolphins are all over your timeline and whichever ones are left alive and haven’t filled their diapers with...

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow — AL East
The GM Meetings are in the books, the Winter Meetings aren’t in the distant future, and the rumors are beginning to fly. You can be sure your favorite team is talking to agents for players! Does that mean anything? Nope, sure doesn’t! But you’ll take anything at this point, and they know that. So we...

Three University of Virginia football players shot and killed on campus
Three members of the University of Virginia football team were gunned down on the Charlottesville campus late Sunday night and two more were injured, according to police and university officials....

Heartbreak haunts Buffalo again in sickening overtime loss to Minnesota
The Buffalo Bills continue to find more excruciating ways to break their fans’ hearts by losing. This time they did it in the closing seconds and overtime of their Week 10 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings. ...

Coming off the bench has brought back some semblance of vintage Russell Westbrook
Russell Westbrook’s first season in L.A. was an unmitigated failure. He was plugged into a lineup of non-shooters including LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and a confusing mix of ill-fitting pieces. Of Rob Pelinka’s misfit toys, though, nobody took last season’s debacle harder on the chin than Westbroo...

Have the Mets learned nothing from Bobby Bonilla?
A few days ago, the New York Mets officially re-signed closer Edwin Díaz to a five-year deal worth $102 million, the largest contract ever for a reliever, by a wide margin. The details of Díaz’s contract are as follows:...

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: NL Central
It’s officially the offseason now, as we’ve gotten Scott Boras’s Fozzy Bear-in-the-college-dorm act at the GM Meetings. So let’s keep this record spinning right round and move to the NL Central, which I don’t feel personally about at all....

UNSUNG GENIUS: Dissecting Dusty Baker's bullpen brilliance for his sabermetric critics
Dusty Baker “ought to be part of the conversation around MLB’s best-ever managers,” concluded Neil Paine from FiveThirtyEight after studying the most overachieving managers, and “shouldn’t need a ring to validate his career.” Agreed. Let’s go further....

Why are the Warriors looking so shaky this year?
The Golden State Warriors are far from the only team in the NBA that’s surprisingly struggling. Hell, there are surprises all over the league. The Utah Jazz gutted their team and have the best record in the Western Conference....

Tua Tagovailoa is the real deal
Prior to the season, the NFL world was conflicted on Miami Dolphins starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s viability as a franchise quarterback. Even after his six-touchdown performance in Week 2, the world was still divided. Maybe it was just a fluke game. Hell, even I pointed out that bad quarterba...

Here's the USMNT's roster for the 2022 World Cup
Well, it’s official. Here’s the merry band of men that will head to the deserts of Qatar…unless they get hurt this weekend and have to be replaced. But let’s be positive. After eight years, we now have an actual World Cup squad to debate! Get to know them and love them before you curse their name wh...

The US Midterm elections explained to NFL fans
U.S. midterm elections are similar to the midpoint of the NFL season in that everyone is under the impression that it’s all rigged when, in fact, it’s merely a complex, shambolic set of systems from state to state that are sometimes overburdened and can fall victim to the occasional human error. The...

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: AL Central
We continue our whip around the baseball offseason by looking at the American League’s worst division, which was won by a team that wasn’t even trying to win, the AL Central....

Who will be stepping into the limelight this NBA season?
When a new wave of players becomes NBA relevant, it usually happens over time, never all at once. It’s a gradual increase in relevance, sometimes under the radar, because it’s guys who reach their potential in small markets and losing situations. When a lottery pick hits early and fast, like Paolo B...

Chris Ballard ruined the Colts, not Alec Pierce
During the Colts’ Monday press conference announcing former All-Pro center Jeff Saturday as their interim head coach, GM Chris Ballard expressed dissatisfaction with several parts of the team, particularly the offensive line....

Steph Curry is keeping Golden State upright, but for how long?
Golden State’s 4-7 record has been jarring to witness. A five-game road losing streak during a road trip that rolled through Charlotte (3-8), Detroit (3-8), Miami (4-7), Orlando (2-9), and New Orleans (5-5) had the alarms blaring. Despite the final result, the Warriors 116-113 win over the Sacrament...

The warm glow of MLB’s Hot Stove warming glow — NL West
Everywhere except Houston, it’s time for teams and fans to try and get to where Houston is. Or it will be in January or February instead of November and December, like it used to be. Anyway, we run through what teams might need and what they might do, for most of them these things don’t line up, and...
