Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

By virtue of it being a handheld unit, you probably wouldn’t want to use this Hoover carpet cleaner to clean an entire carpet. But it’s perfect for furniture and spot-cleaning stains out of rugs, and at $66, it’s within a few bucks of its best price ever. Assuming you’ve got the space for it, that sure beats renting…Read more...

Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals was never close. The Celtics went on a 17-0 run in the first quarter, and that was that. The central question of this series is whether Boston’s impressive team defense will be able to slow down a Cavs offense that ranked number one in the NBA in offensive efficiency after the…Read more...

Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts is having a ridiculous season. He leads the majors in dingers and runs and batting average and OPS, and he’s 25 years old, and, not coincidentally, his team is tied for the best record in baseball. And he’s a two-time Gold Glove winner. And he bowls perfect games. It’s enough to make a…Read more...

Brooks Koepka shot a course-record-tying 63 today in the final round of THE PLAYERS, which was good enough to bring him into the top five of the leaderboard. Lots of good stuff in a 63, but the true highlight of his day was an amazing 208-yard approach shot on the par-5 16th hole. Check this shit out:Read more...

The new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem will be opened with a big ceremony on Monday. Ivanka and Jared will be there! I am not here to offer commentary on this development—it is deeply unpopular with basically the entire rest of the world, much like just about everything else the Trump administration has done—but to point…Read more...

After the fourth round of Saturday night’s bout at UFC 224 in Rio de Janiero, a very tired and discouraged and busted-up Raquel Pennington told her corner “I’m done. I want to be done.” She’d taken plenty of punishment from Amanda Nunes to that point—her nose was broken, her eyes and mouth were swollen—and a loss to…Read more...

The Philadelphia Fusion’s Overwatch Contenders team, University, is playing without jerseys in today’s season one finals, not due to a laundry mishap or lost luggage but apparently the giant “FU” emblazoned on their game wear.Read more...

It sucks that the Raptors fired Dwane Casey. They probably had to do it—they’ve lost like a hundred straight playoff games to LeBron James, and the systemic and cultural changes Casey engineered this past season made not even the slightest dent in James’s dominance, and they can’t any longer credibly claim to be…Read more...

Cubs catcher Willson Contreras came into Wednesday’s game against the Marlins stuck in a bit of a slump, having gone 4-for-35 over his previous nine appearances. Contreras, who smacked 21 dingers in 2017, tallied just one in April, and hadn’t had a multi-hit game since April 10. The nine-game slump dropped his batting…Read more...

Asked last spring what his retirement might someday look like, Ichiro said “I think I’ll just die.” Which made his sudden retirement, earlier this month, darkly fascinating, if not downright alarming—would Ichiro fall down dead immediately after making the announcement? Would he lay down tiredly, deliver one final…Read more...

For exclusive videos, pictures, and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your confidential tips at tips@deadspin.com, call our confidential tips hotline at (347) 746-8471, contact our writers directly, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system.Read more...

Old man Pau Gasol wrote for The Players’ Tribune this week about the head coaching qualifications of Spurs assistant Becky Hammon, who reportedly has an interview lined up with the Milwaukee Bucks in the coming days. The upshot of Gasol’s letter is this: Hammon is exceedingly qualified to coach an NBA team, and the…Read more...

The conversation around Detroit’s hiring of Matt Patricia has, for obvious reasons, wandered far afield from whether Patricia is qualified purely in football terms for the job of head coach, to how it is possible that the Lions were unaware of an indictment for sexual assault in Patricia’s past. NFL hiring decisions…Read more...

2018 is not a grand year. Every day there’s some new catastrophe. Fans are rioting, Kanye is tweeting, and we’re all drinking shitty cocktails. But there is one beacon of hope: an Overwatch pro and his wife, and their too-wholesome-for-this-world streams.Read more...

Cubs second-baseman Ben Zobrist likes to wear all-black cleats to home games. To hear him tell it, that’s no random fashion statement—it’s done to commemorate a time in baseball’s past when all-black cleats were the norm. But baseball has collectively-bargained uniform standards, just like every other major…Read more...

However disappointed the Sixers and their fans may feel about a five-game series loss to the depleted Celtics, their season was an enormous success. They won a playoff series, and were the favorites to win another, and they certainly look closer to championship contention than all but maybe two or three other teams in…Read more...

Hamburgers, enflamed and heated by their club’s first relegation in its 99-year history, disrupted Hamburg’s match against Borussia Monchengladbach in the final minutes with flares, smoke bombs, and chants of protest:Read more...

As baseball catching implements go, the beer cup is less than ideal—it’s minimally flexible, the opening is only slightly larger than the diameter of a baseball, and there’s dang beer in there! But a man will do desperate things to bring home a foul ball from a May Giants-Pirates game:Read more...

In the eighth inning of a San Antonio Missions Double-A game Friday night, a true baseball loving snake invaded the outfield and began making his way towards the infield, no doubt in search of the best possible view of the night’s action. Unfortunately, for his curiosity and enthusiasm for America’s pastime, the sweet…Read more...

Our readers overwhelmingly voted Tommy Bahama as their favorite brand of beach chairs, and the palacial Big Kahuna model is on sale today on Amazon, just in time for beach weather. It can lie completely flat, and even comes with its own sun shade.

Read more...

Mike Clevinger recently wore some cleats embossed with a pretty chill custom cosmic elephant paint job that artist Jonathan Hrusovsky characterized as having a “#bohemianelephant” vibe.Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.

It looked grim for Vince McMahon’s notional reboot of the XFL when Charlie Ebersol announced his Alliance of American Football in March, given that Ebersol’s league featured more fully-realized versions of McMahon’s ideas and an earlier launch date. But, surprisingly and perhaps inexplicably, rumors of the XFL…Read more...

They did everything right.Read more...

Gymnasts fall a lot. Sometimes they fall in competition and we all get to watch but mostly they fall in practice, with only their teammates and coaches as witnesses. But everyone has a smart phone, which means that all the falls, whether they came in training or in competition, are invariably preserved for posterity.…Read more...

In the relative safety of adulthood, when you can easily purchase alcohol—have it delivered to your door, even!—and legally frequent bars steeped in cocktail culture, it is easy to overlook the lower moments in our personal drinking histories. If you drink, you’ve experienced that desperate moment: drunk, but not…Read more...

Video games are serious now. It’s no longer enough for AAA video games to have sleek graphics, hours upon hours of playable content, and innovative game mechanics. They also need top-notch voice acting, cinematic cutscenes featuring real actors performing in motion-capture suits, and a compelling story with all sorts…Read more...

On March 2, 2017, Jeff Plush stepped down as commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League.

Skins defensive line coach Jim Tomsula is running his position’s rookies through drills today. This one’s probably about making a player light on his feet, but whatever the true purpose, it’s fun to watch.

After the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to end a 16-month legal fight with the Diamondbacks on Wednesday, the team will now be allowed to leave their current ballpark for a shiny new stadium as early as 2022, five years before their 30-year agreement to play in their current ballpark was set to…Read more...

Rafael Nadal’s incomprehensible streak of consecutive sets won on clay has ended at 50. And it was ended by the last person to have scraped a set off him on the surface, a full 51 weeks ago: Dominic Thiem. The upset demanded huge hitting from the world No. 7, who has had a somewhat uninspired week in Madrid, and had…Read more...

Look. Pitchers getting hit in the head by batted balls happens all the time, and is no joke. But I dare you to watch this Super Mega Baseball 2 clip from Giant Bomb producer and Mario Maker nightmare creator Dan Ryckert and not laugh:Read more...

It’s big boy season on Fripp Island, South Carolina. Even the local deer populace respects it.Read more...

Today, Politico’s DC-famous newsletter Playbook went off, y’all. It dropped some major truth bombs. It did NOT hold back.

Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey was voted by his peers as the NBA’s coach of the year two days ago. He received this award for coaching his team to a 59-23 record and the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Today, Casey lost his job. This is because LeBron James exists, and happens to play basketball in the…Read more...

You could see it from the 300 level. Watching the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Blackhawks 5-4 in Chicago on Jan. 5 cemented two things in my mind about this NHL season. First, the Blackhawks were done, having been made to look exceedingly old and slow again. Second, the Golden Knights were very much for real. And fast…Read more...

Typos are bad and embarrassing. Why, the very website you are reading once called the then-GOP presidential nominee “Tump” in a headline. So we’re sympathetic to the particularly noticeable typo before this weekend’s Formula One race, designing a “#SpainishGP” logo that got painted across the race track. Then some…Read more...

It’s no secret that American sports nicknames are not as good as they used to be. Seemingly half the time, present-day nicknames are just the player’s initials and a number (CP3, RG3, TB12, etc.). This is what happens when the brevity of hashtags and social media combines with wealthy player-entrepreneurs who want to…Read more...

Brighten up your day with discounts on Philips Hue smart lights, an adjustable standing desk, a camera-equipped drone, and more of today’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

One of the most fun things about watching a fresh new baseball darling rack up regular major-league at-bats is all the opportunities to see how the skills you’ve been hearing so much about, all those precious tools, actually manifest themselves on the field. You know a guy has power, but does he have big-boy,…Read more...

io9 More Wild Rumors Hint the Obi-Wan Movie Could Be Closer Than We Thought | Lifehacker The Most Efficient Way to Keep Your Resume Up to Date | Jalopnik This Ford Mustang Is Really Owning It | Kotaku Formula 1 Fan Took A Game Boy Camera To A Race, And The Photos Are Fantastic |Read more...

The Jets are now the Stanley Cup favorites, after dispatching Nashville in an occasionally disjointed seven-game series that saw the team alternate wins and where the road team generally ruled. In the end, Connor Hellebuyck was better than the increasingly erratic Pekka Rinne, and while that’s a fine topline summary…Read more...

Whether you’re just starting your Philips Hue collection, or just have a few more light fixtures that need to be upgraded, Amazon’s running an unprecedented sale on refurbished Hue lights, today only.

I could tell you that the defending NL champion Dodgers are having a bad start to the year by pointing at their 16-21 record, or their eight-game deficit in the division. But the much more evocative sign of their misfortunes is that the Cincinnatti Reds—the goddang Reds—felt comfortable enough in Dodger Stadium to…Read more...

Predators goalie Pekka Rinne—or, just as plausibly, some amateur wearing his sweater and pads—ended Nashville’s Stanley Cup bid tonight with two incredibly soft goals allowed in the first period of Game 7 against the Jets, leading to an eventual 5-1 Winnipeg victory. Rinne, a Vezina Trophy finalist who looked shaky…Read more...

For exclusive videos, pictures, and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your confidential tips at tips@deadspin.com, call our confidential tips hotline at (347) 746-8471, contact our writers directly, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system.Read more...

Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles reportedly helped stop a would-be robber at his teammate Brandon Linder’s house on Wednesday night, when an 18-year-old high school student tried to steal Bortles’ truck from the driveway in the middle of a party. According to TMZ, the kid failed because the truck was boxed in by…Read more...

With his NHL season ended before the playoffs even began, Connor McDavid gets the dubious honor of leading the Canadian national team through the IIHF World Championships. And damn, is it a beautiful (if tragic) sight to behold.Read more...

Although the Boston Red Sox are currently in a fine state, David Price is not. The lefty pitcher has a 5.11 ERA after he barfed up seven earned runs in 3 2/3 innings against the lowly Rangers, and he was scratched from Wednesday’s start against the Yankees due to a “mild case” of carpal tunnel syndrome, according to…Read more...