west Page 18 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Here is what we kind of learned from the USMNT’s week
As we and many others stress, international friendlies are weird. Especially when everyone has to fly over from Europe for two games that don’t count for anything while trying to not get hurt. And for the USMNT, there weren’t really too many players trying to carve out a role, or a bigger role, with...
The Los Angeles Lakers' offseason moves are 2 years too late
The Los Angeles Lakers were able to successfully pivot away from Russell Westbrook, because this roster never really needed Russ. While the intention was right in looking for a third star, the only way adding one would’ve helped is if the team didn’t have to give up a bunch to get one, or if that pl...
The ACC is the least powerful Power 4 Conference — even with Cal, Stanford, SMU
It’s better to be proactive than reactive, right? Unless you consider what the Atlantic Coast Conference is already doing to be reactive, scraping up the leftovers from the Pac-12 Conference instead of having enough power in the college athletics landscape to attract more lucrative schools of their ...
From Northwestern to San Diego, college football hazing isn’t going away
From the billion-dollar Big Ten to the “mighty” Pioneer Football League, hazing is allegedly alive and well in college football....
Texas Rangers' current slide is tanking their chances at postseason redemption
How the tables have turned. On Aug. 15, the Texas Rangers were riding high, 24 games over .500, and in cruise control to the playoffs, if not an American League West title. Aug. 15 now happens to be the last time Bruce Bochy’s team has won. The Rangers are on a seven-game losing streak, including an...
A tribute to Terry Funk, an unsung wrestling god
Legendary wrestler Terry Funk died yesterday. He was 79. I am certainly nowhere near a talented enough writer to eulogize him properly. Nor have I been a fan long enough or deeply enough for long enough to try and encompass his whole career. The thing is, no one is, so it’s not a personal failing. F...
Steph Curry can’t stack up to Magic Johnson because he belongs in Kobe’s bracket
On the verge of embarking on his 15th season, Steph Curry is enjoying the last mile of his NBA prime. The ascendance of Curry was the NBA’s nuclear fission breakthrough. He is a player whose ability to knock down the 3-pointer with so much efficacy that he opened up our basketball brains beyond the ...
Aaron Rodgers and the familiar NFL faces in new places
After silly season, and training camps around the country are well underway, most of the big moves of the NFL year have already taken place. Those who hoped for greener pastures found what they believe is an upgrade from their last situation, despite no proof to the contrary, yet. Some of the bigges...
10 NFL teams everyone thinks will be good this season, but won't be
Every team had a great offseason. All those gaping, even-the-blind-can-see problems your favorite team had no longer exist. Here’s where a path to greatness starts. Of course for most, that won’t be true. The heavy hitters didn’t go away and until your favorite players get hit in the mouth, all the ...
It shouldn’t be horrible for the next American to suit up with Chelsea
How American soccer players are treated in the Premier League has always been an interesting conundrum. Unless you’re a goalkeeper or somehow wind up at Fulham, heightened levels of scrutiny are at your doorstep that don’t appear in other top leagues around the world. There have been a few other saf...
Who’s up for a non-NBA pro athlete slam dunk contest?
Everyone loves a good slam dunk contest. It doesn’t matter if it involves NBA players, college athletes, or dudes from the neighborhood. If those involved are talented, creative highflyers, folks will gather around to enjoy the festivities. Obviously, the NBA owns the crown when it comes to spectacu...
Holdover Northwestern football coaches play the victim with regrettable T-shirts
The reasons phrases turn into cliches is because they’re true and also widely applicable. Take “the root of the problem” for example. It’s a way of saying an issue is deeper than the surface level, and that the only way to solve it is by a complete excavation. A real world illustration of this is th...
You better be Travis Kelce if you're gonna start a training camp fight
A crude trait most human beings possess is that we enjoy watching people fight. It’s the reason that football is the most popular sport in America, and prize fights generate millions in pay-per-view sales all over the world. In a controlled setting governed by bells and whistles, physical confrontat...
Playing football at Northwestern University haunts me to this day: Ex-Wildcat lineman
Ramon Diaz hasn’t watched a football game in more than 10 years, since he abruptly left Northwestern University’s football team in 2008. Wednesday morning, standing in a room of reporters, Diaz, a former offensive lineman, detailed why he didn’t return for his fifth season, why he snuck into the loc...
The Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds are cowards
The MLB trade deadline passes, with perhaps the most major deal being the Astros acquiring Justin Verlander. And really, who doesn’t want to relive 2017 except everybody? The Mets clearly have punted on next season too, considering the money they’re kicking to Houston to cover an option year that Ve...
IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Everyone is dumb and/or evil
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! Ugh!...
Rangers, Astros, and Angels, oh my!
At 40-20, the Texas Rangers looked to be a lock for the postseason. The Dallas-area MLB team always appears to have a loaded farm system, and those moves looking toward the future paid off at the same time the big-money signings stayed healthy. In addition to all that, pitching whisperer Bruce Bochy...
Once again in MLB, it’s better to be worse
MLB owners have been dead set on rewarding their own mediocrity, because the larger economy and society as a whole has basically been set up to reward shitfucks like them for barely being able to remain upright, and intaking oxygen. The expansion of the playoffs was meant to get more money from TV c...
Ain’t no love in the heart of NFL ownership for running backs
On the field, running backs have an offensive line to protect them. Off of the field, all they have is each other. The position with the shortest career span in the NFL has become the one that comes with the hardest fight to receive a contract that properly compensates their contributions. The deadl...
Northwestern’s decision to keep Pat Fitzgerald’s assistants is proof that Northwestern isn’t a serious place
The “intellectual elite” are failing in Evanston. In the same week in which we discovered that Northwestern’s head football coach Pat Fitzgerald’s laughable two-week suspension should have led to his eventual firing for running a program that’s “allegedly” allowed hazing and racism to run rampant fo...