Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

The Papa John’s board of directors announced late last night that they would be adopting something that’s known in the business industry as a “limited duration stockholder rights plan.” This is an attempt to prevent Papa “John” Schnatter from reasserting his control over his eponymous company, which has done almost…Read more...

Last year, the Washington Wizards underperformed both out of sheer ingrained habit and because some of the most important people on the team just absolutely fucking hated some of the other most important people on the team. On Monday, the team introduced Dwight Howard, the veteran big man that the team signed to…Read more...

The Oakland A’s are no strangers to bizarre late-game plays, and the San Francisco Giants forced extra innings in Oakland on Saturday night by scoring in rather controversial fashion. With the A’s only needing one more out to win the game, Hunter Pence smacked a grounder that snuck past first base and headed straight…Read more...

Germany and Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil announced his retirement from international soccer on Sunday, citing racism from fans, criticism of a photo he took with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and unfair scapegoating by German’s top soccer officials. For no obvious reason, Bayern Munich president and 1974…Read more...

A well-respected neuropsychologist once told me he thought the media was getting the concussion stuff all wrong. The headlines are all bad, he lamented, all the “Football is killing kids” doom-and-gloom stuff. His entire professional life, he reminded me, had been dedicated to treating concussions, particularly in…Read more...

Wallace is an 11-year-old mule who used to annoy Irish villagers by eating their flowers. After a lengthy battle over his right to compete in dressage, he is now a winner and hero to common beasts.

Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype has posted some excellent videos that track the evolution of specific player avatars in NBA video games over the last two decades. By far the most cursed sequence is Dirk Nowitzki’s. If you were expecting a steady, linear progression from “Not Dirk” to “Okay that’s Dirk” as the various games’…Read more...

Doug Harris, the Washington Nationals’ assistant GM and vice president of player personnel, holds a significant position in the organization—and yet, even an MLB team executive has to resort to asking the public to help cover his medical costs.Read more...

The parent company of the New York Daily News reduced the 99 year-old tabloid’s newsroom staff by approximately 50 percent on Monday, and the sports department was especially hard hit. Per multiple reports, a sports staff of roughly 35 people was reduced to nine, including just five writers.Read more...

The ex-wife of current Ohio State wide receivers coach Zach Smith has filed a domestic violence civil protection order against him following Smith’s arrest for criminal trespassing, according to a report from Brett McMurphy. The filing of the protection order also illuminates past details of Smith’s criminal…Read more...

The United States Anti-Doping Agency announced this morning that jolly bro airhead Ryan Lochte would be suspended for 14 months for “his use of a prohibited method.” As the language of USADA’s release hints at, Lochte’s is not a normal doping violation, which is not surprising since Lochte is not a normal swimming guy.

Wonderteen Christian Pulisic willed Borussia Dortmund to a 3-1 victory over Liverpool in the International Champions Cup on Sunday, in front of 55,447 of his countrymen in Charlotte. The 19-year-old subbed in at halftime with his team down 1-0 and promptly took the game over.Read more...

This weekend’s Tour de France stages were relatively inert, as two Astana riders won from breakaways and the main general classification contenders opted to save their bullets for this week’s ramble through the Pyrenees. Riders have three punishing days in the mountains to look forward to this week, including a 65-km…Read more...

Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon, who has spent the majority of his NFL career suspended for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, looked all set to start the 2018 season with a clean slate. This morning, however, he released this worrisome statement indicating that he will not be with the team when training…Read more...

Masanori “Masa” Saito, known as Mr. Saito to a generation of American wrestling fans, passed away at the age of 76 last weekend following a long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease. An Olympic freestyle wrestler in 1964, Saito was a legendarily hard man and among the most universally respected people in the wrestling…Read more...

The worst-kept secret of the All-Star Game was that then-Orioles shortstop Manny Machado was heading to the Dodgers, in a trade that wouldn’t be announced until after the break—to avoid the awkwardness of Machado wearing an Orioles uniform in the ASG and head off the possibility of his story overshadowing what’s…Read more...

Polls! You can’t trust ‘em! Don’t believe me? Get a load of this shit, from Big Poll, no less:Read more...

The Brewers lost to the Dodgers 11-2 in nine innings on Sunday, but they stopped trying to win in the seventh, when utility man Hernan Perez went to the mound to throw two innings of relief. Perez, one of two Milwaukee position players to try their luck at hurling in the game, acquitted himself nicely by not allowing…Read more...

Sunday outrage gives way to Monday fact-checking. If you were one of the people who (reasonably) got very angry at a short video clip appearing to show an adult Cubs fan intercepting a ball meant for a child, you can stand down. The man, it now appears, is a good guy who does not deserve this at all, and indeed gave…Read more...

io9 Comic-Con Updates From The Lego Movie 2, The Good Place, and More | Jalopnik Wall Street Journal’s Dan Neil Deletes Twitter After Tesla Model 3 Review Blowback | Lifehacker What’s Coming and Going From Netflix the Week of July 23, 2018 | Kotaku Players Open Black Lotus At Magic Event, Crowd Erupts |Read more...

Tiger Woods’ hopes of winning British Open championship came to end at the same time as one fan’s hopes of leaving Carnoustie without any bruises. With Tiger in sole position of the lead on the 11th hole, his second shot took a wrong turn somewhere in the sky and smacked a gallery member to the ground. Thankfully…Read more...

Cardinals pitcher Daniel Poncedeleon will be called up by St. Louis today and start tonight’s game against the Reds, making his big-league debut little more than a year after an injury suffered on the mound put his career—and maybe his life—in jeopardy. “Talk about a comeback story,” new Cards manager Mike Shildt said…Read more...

The Mets have spent an MLB-high $39.5 million on players on the disabled list in 2018, almost $2 million more than the next highest team on the list, and a full $12 million more than the third highest. I am going to guess the dollars they spend on Noah Syndergaard’s new ailment are the weirdest they will spend this…Read more...

Mesut Özil retired from German international soccer Sunday, in a lengthy statement released on Twitter. Özil says the fallout from a photo he took with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in May lays bare a kind of racism he’s subjected to as a German with Turkish heritage, and that “enough is enough.”Read more...

Francesco Molinari of Italy won The Open Championship Sunday, following up his third-round 65 with a final-round 69 to finish two shots clear of the field and capture his first career major title. He is not the hero of the tournament. Nor is Tiger Woods the hero, even after his stirring two day charge up the…Read more...

Minnesota Vikings offensive line coach Tony Sparano died suddenly Sunday morning, according to a statement from the Vikings:Read more...

Future Mets savior—and possible capital-S Savior—Tim Tebow landed on the disabled list Saturday after suffering a hand injury earlier in the week. Per a WBNG report:Read more...

Matt Carpenter’s current streak of just absurd production started on July 14, with a double and a home run in the middle game of a series against the Reds. He homered again the following night, this time in a win, to enter the All-Star break on a nice two-day run of slugging excellence.Read more...

In the most definitive sign yet that the Mets have closed the books on any chance of developing their current core back into a championship contender, Saturday they traded closer Jeurys Familia, who has been with the organization since he was 17 years old, to the Oakland Athletics, for a pair of prospects:Read more...

However in the bag Lakers fans might be for young Lonzo Ball, LeBron James joining the Lakers is the first unambiguously positive thing to happen for that organization since Kobe Bryant retired after the 2016 regular season. They’ve been operating in a state of increasing irrelevance since they won their last title,…Read more...

Josh Hader took the mound for the Brewers Saturday night, his first appearance since the All-Star break, and since the accompanying revelation that Hader’s Twitter account was full of racist and offensive shit, all of it posted when he was a teenager in 2011 and 2012. Hader was masterful against the Dodgers, working…Read more...

Do you need a 200 pound ceramic kamado grill? Yes, yes I think you do. This Lonestar Chef Ceramic Kamado Grill normally sells for $1000, but it’s down the insanely-low $550 shipped, today only. That $450 you saved will go a long way towards meats.Read more...

Hey, remember Clint Capela? The big man entered free agency this summer, and received a qualifying offer from the Houston Rockets, keeping him a restricted free agent. Capela then received a five-year contract offer from the Rockets on July 1. And that’s it. An offer was made, and it’s been about three weeks, and…Read more...

NFL coaches are supposed to have a solid memory. It’s almost a prerequisite for the position. Rams head coach Sean McVay, the youngest head coach in the league, takes that quality to another level. During an interview with Bryant Gumbel of HBO’s Real Sports, the 32-year-old coach showed off his incredible memory:Read more...

Tiger Woods surged up the leaderboard at The Open Championship Saturday, jumping from 29th to a briefly held share of the lead with a third-round 66. While it may not be a performance worthy of the Golf Channel’s insane promo, it was nonetheless quite bitchin’, and leaves open the possibility of Tiger challenging the…Read more...

Stephen Strasburg pitched for the Nationals for the first time since June 8 Friday. His return to the rotation after recovering from shoulder inflammation was hailed as a major reason for hope that a gloomy, disappointing Nationals season might turn around in the second half. Then he went out and pitched, and stunk, …Read more...

It’s official. IndyCar is swapping its season finale at Sonoma for one at Laguna Seca instead, starting in 2019. A lot of people are stoked. A lot of people are definitely not. And I am definitely one of those people asking IndyCar “what are you doing?!”Read more...

Giants co-owner Steve Tisch told The Hollywood Reporter this week that Giants players who demonstrate against police brutality and systemic racism during pregame national anthem ceremonies will not be punished by the organization, whatever ultimately happens to the NFL’s increasingly dumb-looking anthem rule:Read more...

So it turns out Nemanja Bjelica’s sudden resolve to play in Europe this season was only good for a couple days. Bjelica backed out of a one-year deal with the Sixers on Tuesday, then spent, oh, three days sitting with the idea of halting his NBA career, and Friday night decided to join, of all teams, the Sacramento…Read more...

In a move that is both delightfully absurd and absolutely no surprise, the Los Angeles Lakers signed free-agent forward Michael Beasley today. It’s delightfully absurd because everything about Beasley—his mystic wisdom master personality, his microwave offense and avant-garde approach to defense—is kind of absurd, and…Read more...

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

The sexual abuse investigation revolving around former Ohio State University professor and team doctor Dr. Richard H. Strauss continues to widen.

If I had to pick a play that best summed up what Darrelle Revis could do as the best cornerback of this pass-heavy era of the NFL, it would be one in which he actually gave up a catch.Read more...

Management, especially in a volatile industry like professional basketball, will say and do a lot of shit to appease the labor. Blake Griffin received a fake jersey retirement procession during the Clippers’ bid to get to him to re-sign last summer, and the team also put him on a t-shirt alongside JFK, Martin Luther…Read more...

It’s Friday afternoon and there isn’t much going on. Ask us stuff. Update (5:05 p.m. ET): We’re done! Thanks for chatting.

Update: Now available on Amazon as well, with delivery as soon as tomorrow! It’s going to go fast though.Read more...

Welcome back to Dead Letters, the feature in which we reprint our favorite reader mail. We should take this moment to remind you that all emails to Deadspin and its editors and writers are on the record unless otherwise specified. Now for your letters.

Sometimes you’re out in public and someone walks through a door ahead of you and because they want to be nice, they hold the door open for you. So far so good..................... or is it?Read more...