Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

What is politics? Politics is a struggle between competing interests. What is politics not? Politics is not an ultimately unimportant game that you play in order to make friends. If you write about or participate in politics for living, please do not fuck this up.Read more...

Chicago Blackhawks winger Marian Hossa announced this morning that he will not play in the 2017-18 season because of a skin condition and the effects of medication he takes to treat it. The Blackhawks are losing a still-very-capable veteran player, and it may mark an abrupt end to Hossa’s hall of fame career. It is…Read more...

Klymit pads are lightweight and inflate incredibly easy, so they’re ready to be packed into an overnight bag and hiked up a mountain. And right now, Amazon is running a Klymit sale full of really fantastic sleeping pads, pillows and more. I have the Static V2 pad and for $40, I’m kind of pissed I can’t return mine and…Read more...

Rather than let his teammate and likely future rookie of the year Cody Bellinger continue to steal the spotlight, reigning rookie of the year Corey Seager yanked it back tonight. While Bellinger hit a milestone of his own in the team’s 12-0 win over the Mets, Seager made sure he was unequivocally the hero.Read more...

Cody Bellinger has been in the big leagues for less than two months and is already the subject of a litany of fun facts, thanks to the historic pace of his rookie season. Here’s another one—he’s now the first rookie ever to hit 10 home runs in a 10-game span.Read more...

Draft Week trade mania—it’s happening!Read more...

Imagine: The year is 2017. You are the president of a dysfunctional NBA franchise, seemingly with no professional goals other than increasing the dysfunction of said franchise and maniacally preaching the virtues of triangles. You do not consider yourself beholden to your players or fans or, really, anyone. You’re…Read more...

Umpire Joe West will take the field for his 5,000th game tonight, and Jeff Passan has a profile of him over on Yahoo Sports to commemorate the occasion. There are quite a few interesting tidbits—he golfs with Hawk Harrelson! He doesn’t seem to care even in the slightest about how much people hate him!—and there’s also…Read more...

De’Aaron Fox will almost certainly be a top-five pick in Thursday night’s NBA draft, although this draft is silly with point guards and he will likely be the third lead guard selected. It’s inevitable that Fox will be judged alongside Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and Frank Ntilikina as this class of point guards ages…Read more...

Before the start of last season, Seattle Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto declared 2016 to be “The Year of Mike Zunino.” Simply put, it wasn’t. Most of the season was spent in Triple-A, and while he showed some marked improvement at the plate during his weeks with the big-league club, it wasn’t enough. Zunino was…Read more...

Professional golfer Grayson Murray, last seen flirting towards a high schooler on Twitter then deleting his tweets and apologizing, is once again following through on his promise to be more active online. Tonight’s subject: the dashcam footage that shows a police officer murdering Philando Castile, a man who did not…Read more...

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Later.Read more...

After sitting at .500 two months into the season, Cleveland baseball might be back to where we expected at the start of 2017. In the midst of a six-game winning streak, the bats are absurdly hot, the pitching is strong, and once again this team is the clear favorite to win the AL Central.Read more...

The second big trade domino has fallen ahead of Thursday’s NBA draft. According to Adrian Wojnarowski, the Los Angeles Lakers will send point guard D’Angelo Russell and NBA Finals hero Timofey Mozgov to Brooklyn in exchange for Brook Lopez and the 27th pick in the draft.

Gizmodo New Calculation Could Spell Trouble For a Popular Theory of the Universe’s Origin | Jalopnik Why You Shouldn’t Run Your Car Low On Gas | Kotaku A List Of Things I Still Have To Do In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild | Lifehacker Why Your Car Thermometer Is So Bad at Telling the Temperature |Read more...

Barring catastrophic injury or disaster, the Cleveland Cavaliers have a very good chance of returning to the finals next season, because the East is a bunch of cupcakes and having LeBron James is an excellent head start. Beyond that is unclear, as James has a player option for the 2018-19 season, and Dan Gilbert’s…Read more...

This afternoon LeBron James posted a video of himself kneeling on a rubber sphere while waggling a large rubbery wand, that, per our own Tim Burke’s experiences, is liable to knock you right on your ass should you stop waggling it at the right rate. Every fiber of James’s action-figure torso strains to stabilize his…Read more...

Red Sox star Mookie Betts uses a weird bat that’s gotten a lot of attention over the last few seasons. Instead of the normal knob that is standard on wooden bats, the bottom of Betts’s looks more like an axe handle; logic is that the more streamlined handle leads to fewer blisters on the palm.Read more...

Video streaming platform Twitch announced a two-year collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment today, where the service will receive exclusive third-party streaming rights to tournaments like the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship and Overwatch APEX League.

Ryan O’Callaghan played 51 games for the Chiefs and Patriots over the course of his five-year NFL career, which ended in 2011. In an interview with Outsports this morning, he came out as gay, discussed how hard it was to transition out of a playing career, and opened up about how he planned to commit suicide after…Read more...

With Adidas taking over the contract for NHL uniforms from Reebok, that means redesigns for everyone. Any major redesigns? Officially, we’ll all have to wait until tonight to find out. The jersey unveiling party is taking place in Las Vegas starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, with the reveal of the Vegas Golden Knights’…Read more...

Following last week’s failed raccoon coup, it seems that the squirrels may have gotten some nutty ideas, too. Today’s edition of Squirrel Watch brings a confusing mix of romantic, vicious, and inscrutable deeds.Read more...

The Golden State Warriors have been champions for one week, and the rest of the NBA is already scrambling to get in position to beat them next year. The Cavs have spent the past few days on a nonsensical roller coaster, flirting with soon-to-be ex-Pacer Paul George then self-immolating and stunting any progress they’d…Read more...

On Monday, with a distinct lack of ceremony, the Arizona Coyotes announced that they would not offer a new contract to Shane Doan, abruptly dismissing the longest-serving active captain in the NHL. Doan had been with the franchise his entire 21-season career, dating all the way back to when the Coyotes were the…Read more...

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking first bites, kiddie sports, The Ringer, and more.

On yesterday’s show, Mike Francesa passed along the Supreme Court’s ruling on whether a slur could be registered as a trademark—a case that would have affected the Washington Redskins’ trademark—with the signature delicate approach only he could provide.Read more...

Tony DiCicco, the USWNT’s winningest manager, died last night according to a statement released by his son. DiCicco, who coached the team from 1994 to 1999, is the only manager of the U.S. to have won both a World Cup and Olympic gold. Here’s his son Anthony’s statement:Read more...

Phil Savage may have been a lousy NFL general manager—the former Browns GM traded up for Brady Quinn and replied to a fan email with “Go root for Buffalo-f#@* you,”—but he does have some pretty good Lane Kiffin goss.Read more...

Phil Jackson had millions of sad, tri-state area sphincters clenching after an April presser when he said there was no player on the Knicks who was safe from the trading block. They stayed clenched when Kristaps Porzingis skipped his exit meetings, apparently frustrated after wading through this sewer of a franchise…Read more...

Everything about politics and the world in general is pretty bad right now. Walk up to me and say the word “politics” and I’ll say to you, “No sir! No ma’am! I’d rather not!”

The first thing I did when I got to Vegas was put a bet on Sergey Kovalev. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You might say, “How could you bet against Andre Ward? One of the most polished pound-for-pound fighters in the world? An Olympic gold medalist? A world champion at two different weight classes?…Read more...

What do the three best teams in the National League all have in common? They all play in the NL West. As of Tuesday, the Diamondbacks have won seven games in a row, the Rockies have won five in a row, and the Dodgers have won four in a row. In their last 10 games, these teams are 9-1, 7-3, and 9-1, respectively.Read more...

According to Spanish prosecutors, Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho owes the state €3.3 million in taxes from his time coaching Real Madrid in 2011 and 2012, as El Mundo reported.Read more...

Enzo and Cass were mostly a shtick, but that shtick was pretty good.

After the pre-draft trade between the Celtics and Sixers was made official yesterday, Celtics GM Danny Ainge held a conference call with reporters to explain his reasoning.

Paleofuture Huge Collection of Nazi Artifacts Discovered Inside Secret Room in Argentina | Jalopnik Tesla Driver In Fatal Florida Crash Got Numerous Warnings To Take Control Back From Autopilot | Kotaku New Nintendo Switch Update Lets You Find Lost Controllers | Lifehacker When Letting Your Dog Greet Another Dog Is a…Read more...

In the abstract, David Brooks’s choice to begin today’s Times column about the assorted Trump/Russia investigations with the following isn’t necessarily a bad one.Read more...

Cody Bellinger, called up when he was only because of injuries on the Dodgers’ big-league roster, gave the rest of the league a three-week head start. He’s caught up. With his 20th and 21st home runs in last night’s 10-6 win over the Mets, Bellinger now leads the NL in home runs, and is just two behind the Yankees’…Read more...

If you’ve never deep-cleaned a carpet, get ready for an eye-opening experience when you see just how much crap a person can track into a home.

Since MLB created new rules a few years ago to protect catchers and limit unnecessary hard contact in plays at the plate, we’ve seen fewer and fewer collisions. But we got one tonight, courtesy of Anthony Rizzo and Austin Hedges, and San Diego is steamed about the way it played out.Read more...

Clayton Kershaw began the night against the Mets looking more or less like Clayton Kershaw, which is to say that he began the night looking as if he’d be very hard to hit. But that soon unraveled—seemingly slowly, at first, and then very quickly—and suddenly it was the seventh inning and baseball’s best pitcher was…Read more...

SNY analyst Keith Hernandez was caught in an unfortunate spot tonight when the broadcast came back from commercial early and caught him unawares—right as he was discussing how Washington Nationals starter Tanner Roark has been “getting his tits lit” lately.Read more...

The NFL has “taken advantage” of players by failing to be transparent about the risks of brain injury, Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis said today.Read more...

Tonight’s Carolina League Home Run Derby was, as always, the year’s premier display of lower minor league power hitting on the East Coast. Glorious! But this year’s event brought us more than dingers. This year brought us Sicnarf Loopstok.Read more...

With the team at the center of trade rumors—not to mention three days before the draft—the Cavaliers have decided to part ways with general manager David Griffin.Read more...

A little more than two weeks ago, Kenley Jansen set the record for most strikeouts to begin a season before allowing one walk. The record-breaking strikeout was No. 36, and he hasn’t slowed down since—getting No. 50 to go down swinging last night.Read more...

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Later.Read more...

io9 Yes, The Dark Tower Movie Is a Sequel to the Books | Jalopnik Here’s Why The Honda Civic Type R Has Three Exhaust Pipes | Vitals How to Start Working Out in the Mornings | Kotaku Metroid: Samus Returns Feels Great To Play |Read more...

The Packers and Bears have played 194 times. Chicago and Green Bay are less than four hours apart, and fans from either team frequently attend Bears-Packers game at the opposing team’s field. This is fine. This is how sports work. But one thing the Bears won’t stand for is letting a fan in Packers gear stand on…Read more...

Deuce Gruden (born Jon Gruden II) is an assistant strength and conditioning coach with his uncle Jay’s NFL team, and he’s also a tiny, powerful weightlifting genius. The 23-year-old is 5-foot-5 and he told TMZ earlier this afternoon that he can squat 622 pounds, which seems like a lot.