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Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Email Drew here. Buy his book here.

These Lakers are “Showtime,” ridiculously so, but possibly in some ways that they would rather avoid. The saliva and sucker punch, yes, but also in a more general way. In some sense, the battle to prevent vomit pooling in your mouth from spilling out onto your fresh tuxedo while you race to the toilet might also be…Read more...

Carlos Beltran, his wife Jessica, and his three kids pulled off a stellar group costume for Halloween this year by going as ... Carlos Beltran on all his former baseball teams. Even the cat, dog, and fish participated.

One of the earliest urban rent strikes in United States history was organized in New York City, in 1907, by a 16-year-old girl named Pauline Newman. In its reporting on the strike, the New York Times described Newman, a Jewish immigrant who worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and would go on to become an…Read more...

That Simone Biles was going to win the all-around title at the 2018 world championships was something of a foregone conclusion even before the competition in Doha started. The only question was, by how many points? But by the third rotation, she had raised an unexpected additional question: How many times could she…Read more...

Former NFL quarterback Chris Simms, who famously got his spleen exploded during a game, went on Mike Florio’s radio show today and shared the story of a different time in which he was grievously and spectacular injured by a big hit.

When Jane Gross became the first woman reporter to enter an NBA locker room in February of 1975, it merited a mere 100-word Associated Press write-up the next day. Nine months later, when Jennifer Quale entered an NBA locker room, she had her face in sports sections across the nation and others across the globe.

Last night, Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Derrick Rose managed to put together likely the flukiest game of his career, scoring 50 points en route to a win over the Utah Jazz, after which he was immediately and widely praised for never giving up after all he’s been through. So what’s he been through?Read more...

Dusty Hanks sits on a small plane with his teammates. He’s quiet, but his mind is full envisioning the maneuvers he’s about to perform. It’s pointless to talk, anyway; the plane gets louder as it climbs.Read more...

First things first: yes, the Live Deadcast at Headquarters Beercade in Nashville next Monday is indeed happening on the day before election day. Yes, many or most or nearly all of us will be somewhat stressed out as a result of this. And yes, while we’re doing this, pledges made in blog posts are worth nothing at all.…Read more...

AirPods, the Cricut maker, and an iRobot Roomba 801 lead off Thursday’s best deals from around the web.

Following the publication of an audio recording in which prep school basketball coach Mike Woodbury said, “I’m gonna fuck you in your ass” to one of his former players, other people who played for Woodbury in the past are coming forward with their own stories of his abusive behavior.Read more...

LIMA, OHIO—Within five minutes of meeting Janet Garrett’s campaign team for the first time, I’m asked to help with their speaker set-up. The laptop audio playing the Spotify playlist is coming out of the projector, and they don’t know how to hook it up to the main speaker, where it would be louder. I’m happy to try…Read more...

Gizmodo Scientists Find Link Between Parkinson’s Disease and the Appendix | Kotaku How To Play Long Video Games When You Have No Time | Jalopnik Here Is Why Some Dealerships Aren’t Actually Interested in Selling You a Car | Lifehacker How Spotify Family Plan Subscribers Can Get a Free Google Home Mini | The Takeout My…Read more...

Your hands do a lot for you — why not buy them their own home gym? This set of exercise putty from CanDo includes six 2 oz. tubs of goo (in fun primary colors, no less), and unlike an elliptical or a set of dumbbells, it only costs $12. Playing around with the putty is basically a form of resistance training for your…Read more...

The Thursday night game is Raiders-49ers, which, I’d rather die. But pregame, we get a sitdown interview with Jon Gruden (who you thought couldn’t nuke his roster any further after the trade deadline passed, but that didn’t take into account his chasing players into retirement), conducted by his “good friend” Howie…Read more...

Quick thought experiment: A bird has pooped on you outside a restaurant, and a kind bystander has offered you a paper napkin to clean yourself off. Do you use the napkin and go about your day, or do you go inside and wash off with running water in the bathroom?

Spencer Dinwiddie scored 13 points after about the three-minute mark of the fourth quarter of Brooklyn’s Wednesday night win over the Pistons, including a four-point play, two clutch game-tying threes, and the eventual overtime game-winner. It was a virtuosic finish for a fun and underrated player:Read more...

The Timberwolves held Jimmy Butler out of their Halloween home game against the Utah Jazz, for honestly who knows what reason. Shams says it’s part of “a six-week-long process aimed at getting the All-Star out of Minnesota.” Woj says it was for rest. Either way, the Jazz are tough customers, and sitting Butler seemed…Read more...

Recently my wife told me I would enjoy meeting a friend of hers, who she described as “a big Halloween person.” When I asked what made this friend a big Halloween person, she told me this friend made her own superhero Halloween costume from scratch this year. And I, a punctilious dickweed, skipped right past being…Read more...

San Francisco Giants legend and Baseball Hall of Famer Willie McCovey died today in a Bay Area hospital after losing what his former team called a “long battle with many health issues.” He was 80 years old.Read more...

It took players walking out of a team meeting, the resignation of the school president, universal outrage, and public condemnations from the governor and the parents of a dead teenager, but finally Maryland has stumbled desperately into the decision they should’ve made months ago:Read more...

An update on Christian Pulisic, American superstar: he is still extremely good at soccer. Today, in a DFB Pokal win over Union Berlin, he had a goal, an assist, a drawn game-winning penalty, and whatever this shit this move was.Read more...

An audio recording began making its way around the internet yesterday, which purported to be a conversation between Mike Woodbury, who runs a private school called Nation Christian Academy in Florida, and a former basketball player at the school named Marvens Petion.Read more...

In terms of tennis, Borna Coric takes after his stylistic predecessor, Novak Djokovic. One of the aspects he can imitate pretty well is his quick movement, as well as his willingness to slide his sneakers across ridiculous stretches of hardcourt:

Here is a lovely Halloween story for you: Swedish boxer Anthony Yigit suffered his first professional loss last weekend at the hands of Belarusian punisher Ivan Baranchyk. The fight was stopped by the doctor after the seventh round because Yigit’s left eye grew to the size of a grapefruit inside his socket. Yigit…Read more...

Victory parades are one of the few times when a person can get away with drinking in public without getting arrested or making their friends concerned. It’s helpful if you’re famous, too. As the Boston Red Sox made their way along the parade route today, overeager fans who were willing to share their beer cans did…Read more...

A recently released video taken from the pitch of Leicester City’s stadium on Saturday shows the exact moment a helicopter, which was carrying Leicester’s owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, and four other passengers, began to spiral out of control before crashing and exploding, killing everyone on board.Read more...

Okay, so, here we are, eight games into the NBA season, and the Sacramento Kings are 5-3. Sure, it’s early, and sure, the Kings have had decent starts before only to collapse into piles of shit. All the usual caveats apply, and the Kings could very easily turn back into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight and…Read more...

Thanks to an exclusive photo shared with us by a friendly reader, we’re dusting off the old Bear Friday feature on this Wednesday afternoon to bring you the story of a suitably spooky bear encounter.Read more...

Reebok’s Professional Deck is actually an adjustable step, workout bench, and storage compartment all rolled into one, and Amazon’s marked it down to $122 today, an all-time low. If flexes a rippling 4.5 star review average, so get yours before they’re all swoled out.Read more...

Lions head coach Matt Patricia got testy with a reporter in today’s presser after being asked a question about how trading Golden Tate made the franchise better. The inquiry apparently didn’t bug him so much as the posture of the person asking it.Read more...

Yes, okay, fine: James Harden has a strained hamstring that kept him out of the past two games, including last night’s blowout home loss to the Blazers, which dropped the Rockets’ record to 1-5. And yes, Chris Paul missed the two games prior to Harden’s outage—both losses—serving his suspension for fighting with Rajon…Read more...

This piece is part of a recurring series that aims to be a complete guide to the laws of war. You can read previous entries here.

It’s October 31, and the Minnesota Timberwolves still have not traded Jimmy Butler. Today’s date is a significant one in the process, as it marks the two-month anniversary of the Rockets trading for Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss, thus making them eligible to be packaged in another trade for salary reasons. Daryl…Read more...

The Red Sox are holding their championship parade today, and manager Alex Cora had a message for anyone who thought the team was in trouble after dropping Game 2 of the ALDS to the Yankees:Read more...

Remington’s Shortcut Pro self-haircut kit has been a huge hit with our readers, but if the current $52 price tag on Amazon is too much to swallow, Walmart has the blue model on sale for less than you probably spent on your last haircut.

The Philadelphia 76ers are now 4-4 after last night’s 129-112 loss to the Toronto Raptors, which counts as something of a disappointing start for a team that roared through the second half of last season to finish 52-30. Last year’s Sixers finished the season with the fourth-best net rating in the league, but they’ve…Read more...

When Marshall Cordell started buying human bones in the late 1970s, he says a full skeleton from India cost “probably $199.” Back then, almost all real human skeletons came from India, and companies there sent him catalogs listing everything from skulls to finger bones for sale.

Happy Halloween from Emergency Football Show Weekly! This week Dom and I discuss the Browns’ coaching changes, why morning NFL games are so great (Dom—and West Coasters—may disagree), Michael Dickson’s fourth-down run and Todd Gurley’s decision to go down before scoring a touchdown. Enjoy!Read more...

The sun rises and sets, people die and are born, and a grudge grudges between Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley. The years-long feud flared up again last night during the Thunders’ 128-110 win over the Clippers, with Westbrook whipping out the “rocking a baby” celebration after scoring on Beverley, Beverley…Read more...

After a week of unconfirmed reports that both John Cena and Daniel Bryan were refusing to work this Friday’s WWE Crown Jewel event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, we have our answer. It wasn’t a straight one from the promotion itself, unsurprisingly—WWE had repeatedly refused to address whether Cena and Bryan had asked not…Read more...

Remember those three days earlier this month when it was acceptable to ask if Auston Matthews had caught up to Connor McDavid? That was fun, like that very strange month in 2012 when some otherwise smart and reasonable people claimed that Claude Giroux was the best player in the world. Both of those arguments now…Read more...

This sale will have you feeling blue — in a good way. For today only, Levi’s is taking 30% off their entire site, plus offering free shipping, with the promo code FAM30. So now’s the time to swath yourself and everyone you know in denim.

Police were pretty hard on Florida man Michael Abdallah, 34, who was arrested for throwing a dildo on the field during the Bills-Patriots game on Monday. The cops reportedly used security camera footage and eyewitness accounts to grab Abdallah; then they squeezed him for $250 in cash or $1,000 in bond to release him…Read more...

DJ Durkin is back. The Maryland head football coach, who in the very best-case scenario, was so incompetent at overseeing a program that he allowed it to turn into one so toxic and so physically dangerous to players that it killed one, but who was so competent at instilling a culture of “fear” that players and…Read more...

TriggerPoint’s foam rollers are the most popular on the market, and Amazon’s rolling out deals on a bunch of them, today only. They hurt like hell to use, but you feel so much better when you’re done. Both ground rollers and handheld models are included in the sale, but these prices are only available today, or until…Read more...

What a weird, awkward situation they’re brewing up in Cleveland. The Cavs fired head coach Tyronn Lue Sunday morning, apparently without establishing whether their intended interim replacement was willing to accept the job, and now they appear to be gearing up the tank. Kevin Love is dead; they’ve shelved J.R. Smith…Read more...

Ben Simmons, who can’t shoot worth shit, had the bad kind of triple-double Tuesday night, registering 11 turnovers against 11 points and 10 assists. This isn’t an especially rare feat in the NBA—Basketball Reference says it has happened 81 other times since 1977—although Simmons’s 21 combined points and assists amount…Read more...

If it seems like Maryland’s investigative report obscured the question of basic responsibility for the welfare of players in favor of parsing and disputing the concept of toxicity in the context of a football program, probably that’s because those responsible for the future of the football program would like to keep…Read more...