Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

A consistently reliable rule of baseball is that the closer your runners are to home plate, the better chance you have of scoring in a given inning. But what if this isn’t always true? Bear with me on this one.Read more...

A Florida man interested in karate is alleged to have found an elusive and illegal target for his kicks: bird faces. Last week, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rocco Joseph Mantella was arrested for “practicing karate” by kicking swans in the head at a park in downtown Orlando, and further details of his…Read more...

Want to stream the NBA playoffs, or the reboot of Trading Spaces? They’re both included in the $35 base package of DIRECTV Now, and so is a free Roku Streaming Stick when you prepay for a month.

If ever there were any doubt that Real Madrid are the luckiest team in the history of the world, this staggering gaffe by Bayern Munich’s Sven Ulreich that set up Karim Benzema for the easiest goal he’ll ever score in his life should remove all doubt:Read more...

Forty male gymnasts in Brazil have come forward and said that gymnastics coach Fernando de Carvalho Lopes sexually abused them during their careers, according to a report that aired on aired on Brazilian television Sunday night.Read more...

Houston sports radio station SportsTalk 790 has reportedly fired one of its hosts and suspended another, and it’s not exactly clear why.Read more...

The WWE held a major event in Saudi Arabia, and is now suffering the repercussions. Who could ever have predicted?Read more...

U.S. Olympic speedskater John-Henry Krueger announced on Monday that he is joining his brother on the Hungarian Olympic team, ending a lengthy spat between U.S. Skating and the Krueger brothers.

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Drew’s gone! We have guest hosts. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking about video review in sports, ethics in takeout dining, and more.

Professor Trevor Bauer is at it again. The Indians pitcher and science knower weighed in on a question to Driveline Baseball founder Kyle Boddy about whether the Houston Astros’ pitching staff could be using some sort of illicit substance to increase their spin rate:Read more...

Coming into this postseason Al Horford’s playoff reputation never really stood out. He spent most of his career on a series of Hawks teams that were doomed by be steamrolled by LeBron James every spring. In the 17 times he met James in the playoffs, he only won one game, and that was on his 15th try. Horford has never…Read more...

This week at the Munich Open, the Frenchman Gael Monfils was due to play his first match since that “back injury” at Indian Wells. Getting to Germany was the first step. That should be the easy part, since the dude lives in Switzerland. But on an April 28 flight from Geneva to Munich, Monfils learned the risks of…Read more...

So far on Let Me Show You My Pogs, we’ve reviewed pogs that were based on licenses: The NFL, Bad Boy Club, and O.J. Simpson. (Though, sure, O.J. didn’t get any royalties.) But pogs were big enough in the mid-1990s that some manufacturers created their own characters. One of those was Jetty Eddie, ostensibly a surfer…Read more...

Tony Nimmons, a black chair umpire, is suing the U.S. Tennis Association for racial discrimination and is seeking reinstatement to his USTA position as well as compensatory damages, according to a complaint filed Friday in federal court for the Eastern District of New York. The lawsuit was filed after the Equal…Read more...

Twins pitcher Lance Lynn, who’s gotten off to just a cosmically bad start to the season with an 8.37 ERA, had some unlucky shit happen to him in Monday’s 7-5 loss to the Blue Jays. Caught in a bases-loaded jam, Toronto infielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. got away with this tiny little swinging-bunt RBI single:

Last night’s Game 1 between the Celtics and Sixers was a pretty good time. Terry Rozier looked like fuckin’ Chris Paul out there and Joel Embiid was unstoppable and Jayson Tatum did some cool whirly-bird moves that made me go, “Ooh! Nice!” But what I was most excited to see was the late-game introduction of Celtics…Read more...

Nobody will bother Jhoon Rhee again. If anybody ever did, that is.

Ben Simmons was soundly outplayed by wee Terry Rozier in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Simmons still had 18 points on 6-of-11 shooting but did not connect on any shot farther than three feet from the rim. Many of his usual pinpoint passes landed in the hands of teammates who collectively shot an arctic…Read more...

Last night, at exactly the same time as the Celtics-Sixers NBA Eastern Conference semifinals game, somewhere between 16 and 23 people in America elected to tune into a different kind of sporting event. That’s right, my devoted DaStie AthHeads: the long-awaited first episode of Dancing with the Stars: Athletes…Read more...

Browns vice president of player personnel Alonzo Highsmith gave a talk at the Hall of Fame Luncheon Club in Canton, Ohio, on Monday. In the process of explaining his team’s decision to select Baker Mayfield with the No. 1 overall pick in last week’s draft, he dropped a vague and confusing anecdote about former UCLA…Read more...

Series can hinge on the slimmest of margins, but rarely can you see those margins so starkly as in Monday’s Game 3. It is no overstatement to say that the Golden Knights are up 2-1 in their series with the Sharks because of an inch here, an inch there.

io9 Infinity War Puts Adam West’s Batman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Just Hear Me Out | Jalopnik How The Australian Consul Snagged A Chevy SS For Official Business In America | Lifehacker Don’t Ditch Your Galaxy S7, Give It an (Android 8.0) Oreo | Kotaku Fortnite Comet…Read more...

Update: Back in stock for $255, if you missed it last week.Read more...

Josh Hader wasn’t supposed to be the highlight of Milwaukee’s bullpen. He was coming off a strong rookie year, but the star of the relief corps was going to be closer Corey Knebel, fresh off a record-setting strikeout streak from 2017. But then Knebel went down with a hamstring injury in the first week of April, and…Read more...

The 76ers had nearly a week off between closing out their easy first-round series against the Heat and kicking off their second-round one against the Celtics, and it showed. Against a Boston squad missing Jaylen Brown, who was sidelined with a hamstring injury, they couldn’t hang—getting beat down by a final score of…Read more...

Interim Michigan State president John Engler sat down recently with the Detroit News, answering how long he expects to stay in charge of the university (just until next year, he hopes); responding to the woman who says he offered her a check to drop her lawsuit related to sexual abuse by Larry Nassar; and how Nassar’s…Read more...

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager will miss the rest of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, the team announced today.Read more...

Surely Terry Rozier reminding the world of how badly he smoked Eric Bledsoe will terrify the Sixers. Or maybe he’s just a fan of the Drew Bledsoe-era Patriots.Read more...

In 2016, Jae-mo “Xepher” Koo was part of the Korean Overwatch team that wrongfully accused Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon of cheating. Just two years later, Xepher is a flex tank player for the Overwatch League’s Seoul Dynasty, while Geguri is the league’s first woman.

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Hassan Whiteside was awful for the Heat in their five-game playoff series against the Sixers, and everyone knows it. The 28-year-old big man, who broke out as an in-the-paint stud with Miami back in the 2014-15 season, looked completely checked out in his first postseason games since 2016. He was dominated by Joel…Read more...

Canadian triathlete Jen Annett finished seventh at last weekend’s Ironman Texas event, and while she didn’t win, she finished the cycling portion of the race in 4:25:10, which was a new all-time Ironman bike course record. However, her record won’t stand, and neither will Matt Hanson’s would-be Ironman world record…Read more...

The coach of a New Jersey football team says he is being fired for having too many black players on the team.Read more...

REI is about to make you that more inclined to get outside. Right now, you can grab major discounts on gear from Patagonia, Marmot Sorel, REI C-Op, and more at REI Garage. There’s everything from camping, to paddling, to hiking, to cycling, and everything in between. It’ll take some time to sort through everything, so…Read more...

In Arizona, one Native grandma will conclude her rez ball career with a perfect shooting percentage and the respect of every coach in the nation for hustling back on defense.

Game 7 of the 1960 World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees has been described as “the greatest game ever played” and “the best game ever.” Entering the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied 9-9, and Bill Mazeroski was leading off.

Over the weekend, the World Surf League officially crowned Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa the new record-holder for the biggest wave ever surfed. He successfully rode an 80-foot wave off the coast of Portugal in November to overtake the previous record of 78 feet, set in 2011.Read more...

The Phillie Phanatic celebrated his birthday yesterday by inviting a whole bunch of dogs to hang out with him at the ballpark. Some even performed in an agility contest! With the Phillies trailing in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Phanatic said hello to this unsuspecting pug and maybe kinda sorta tried to eat…Read more...

While diving toward the goal line in 2013, then-Buccaneers running back Mike James fractured his ankle. It was a gruesome injury that ended his season. Initially prescribed opioid painkillers, James told CNN he found a drug that worked better for him: cannabis.Read more...

Here we have a lesson from a baseball child on truly committing to the bit. Our slugger, presumably headed in to score a run after some cool-ass baseball heroics, was not having it with instructions to “run as fast as you can” or “move” or “not dunk on the poor blue-uniformed team.” He enjoyed himself for as long as…Read more...

Eight years after being drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Nick Kingham delivered one of the best major-league debuts of all time. He took a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Cardinals, before Paul DeJong knocked a single down the third-base line with two outs. Kingham retired 20 straight batters, an…Read more...

Following months of waivers and appeals, Shea Patterson, the former quarterback at Ole Miss, was allowed by the Rebels, the NCAA, and Michigan (his new team) to transfer and play immediately for the Wolverines. Naturally, this was preceded by Patterson and his lawyer essentially daring Ole Miss and the NCAA to…Read more...

Mother’s Day is less than two weeks away, and if you haven’t already ordered flowers, you can save 25% on any $39+ order from ProFlowers today by using our exclusive link.

This is in no way the most impressive highlight of LeBron James’s series-clinching performance in Game 7, which he started a perfect 7-of-7 from the field and finished with 45 points on 25 shots, but it’s the most representative of what it’s like to face LeBron James in a do-or-die scenario:

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Start off your week with an Amazon PC gaming sale, a cordless Dyson V7, $10 lightning cables, and more deals.Read more...

Because these are two relatively young franchises, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the Jets’ and Predators’ rosters the same way, as playoff ingénues. But Nashville has been here before, seven postseasons in nine years, and has carried over most of the same faces from last year’s Finals run. Winnipeg…Read more...

When I write that CNN politics writer Chris Cillizza is the rankest assbrain in the Western Hemisphere, I am not being nice to him. When I write that God clowned Chris Cillizza before he was born by making him Chris Cillizza instead of a shit-eating maggot, I am being unkind. When I say that Chris Cillizza himself is…Read more...

Already seven games back of the division-leading Diamondbacks with a 12-15 record, the Dodgers are off to a rough start this season. And although it’s still pretty early, some cracks are beginning to show. With the team down four in an eventual 4-2 loss to the Giants on Sunday, manager Dave Roberts benched first…Read more...

Today’s Amazon Gold Box deal is ostensibly meant for PC gamers, and indeed, there are lots of deals in here that will make them happy. But everyone could an extra external hard drive or a better router, so there are a lot of deals worth checking out for non-gamers as well.