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The night before I was set to turn myself in—either for robbing a pharmacy or committing serial tax fraud, I hadn’t decided yet—I sent Officer Mark Gudmundsen an email with a couple of last-minute questions. “You may bring a book,” he replied, “but I will look at it and decide if you can have it in your cell to read.”Read more...

Olympic champion McKayla Maroney recently said that she’d been sexually abused by disgraced USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar for years, and on Wednesday she filed a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics for supposedly paying her to sign an unlawful confidentiality agreement about that abuse. Maroney later spoke out anyway,…Read more...

Former pitcher and part-time gamer Curt Schilling sprung into action after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in August. He asked for donations to his charity Operation Bullpen, filled up trailers, and drove to Texas with volunteers. Schilling was briefly hindered in Tennessee, however, when one of the trailers broke down.…Read more...

From the Daily News today comes a profile of Kristaps Porzingis’s flavorful “personal physician and trainer” Dr. Carlon Colker, who has no affiliation with the Knicks.

Listen. I am old. And one of the things that happened along my way to becoming old was that I recognized, and even came to derive some comfort from recognizing, that the things I value—privacy, the company of my loved ones, good health, not having what look like limo-tinted jeweler’s glasses from the Blade Runner universeRead more...

This year, a lot of things sucked. But a lot of things were also unexpectedly good! Let’s celebrate those latter things with a big list.

Various baseball insiders are reporting that the stove is hot this morning. Rays third baseman Evan Longoria has been shipped to the Giants in exchange for Denard Span and some other stuff:

LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball will head across the Atlantic into the Lithuanian countryside in a few weeks, and Andrew Keh of the New York Times visited Prienai to get a sense of what they’re getting themselves into. He found a small town with Ball family fever, where the pizza joints are blaring about their forthcoming…Read more...

The storied history of the Boca Raton Bowl had never seen a blowout like this. It wasn’t quite the 1902 Rose Bowl, but it was a romp: Florida Atlantic beat Akron, 50-3 in the fourth edition of the Boca Bowl.Read more...

For a while there, the Republican tax bill contained a provision that would be difficult to describe as a “silver lining,” given how comprehensively destructive the rest of the bill is, but could reasonably have been described as “not bad.” The provision was set to prevent cities from using tax-exempt bonds to finance…Read more...

Pick up last-minute gifts and great deals on Eneloop batteries, Calvin Klein underwear, a puffer jacket Gold Box, and much more.

Referee Wes McCauley is universally respected across the NHL, which is why he’s allowed to display a bit of showmanship from time to time. (Just a quick Youtube search pulls up literally seconds of entertainment.) So when McCauley got to announce the results of a Michael Grabner goal review in last night’s 4-1 Rangers…Read more...

Jalopnik The Last Jedi’s Coolest Moment Shares The Same Problem With A Lot Of Other Movies | Lifehacker Help! My Wife Is a Porn Star | The A.V. Club The 20 best films of 2017 | Kotaku Riley’s Top 10 Games Of 2017 | io9 Kevin Feige Teases Thanos’ First Big Moment in Avengers: Infinity War |Read more...

Almost no one played as Blanka in Street Fighter IV. This is because the low-tier green Brazilian is weird, doesn’t play like any other character in the game, and is widely considered not to be very powerful. Nonetheless, Street Fighter V is adding Blanka into the game this January after two years without him. I can’t…Read more...

Nearly 18 years after Bert Emanuel’s name became synonymous with the NFL’s inability to define what constitutes a catch, the NFL still can’t define what constitutes a catch.

If you thought a December game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Vegas Golden Knights would end up pitting two of the NHL’s best teams, and would be one of the most exciting games of the season, you’re a fucking liar, get off my website, we don’t like liars here. If you’re as baffled by Vegas’s success as I…Read more...

Amazon sells outerwear and it’s actually pretty decent-looking. Right now, they’re giving Prime Members exclusive discounts on basically all the down styles they make from Amazon Essentials and Haven Outerwear, from packable hooded jackets to puffed parkas. Plus, vests, kids options, and one women’s raincoat, for some…Read more...

Amazon’s Gold Box is full (two pages full) of up to 50% off Calvin Klein underwear, bras, undershirts, and more. Men’s and women’s styles are included, and there are a ton of 3- and 4-packs, so you can stock up. Or, be that guy and get someone underwear for the holidays.

Mamie Johnson, one of three women to play in the Negro Leagues, has died at the age of 82.Read more...

The above photo is from a New York City event hosted by business magazine Fast Company back in October, a talk titled “Finding Professional Fulfillment After The Dream Career, Featuring Derek Jeter.”Read more...

Pickerington Central’s (Ohio) Adrian Nelson, who’ll be a Detroit Titan next year, delivered a literally show-stopping highlight tonight in his game against Groveport Madison. Given the opportunity for a wide-open dunk, Nelson showed off his strength (and maybe some weakness in the Groveport gym) by collapsing the rim…Read more...

A lawsuit filed today says former San Francisco 49ers running back/punt returner and current Australian Rugby League player Jarryd Hayne sexually battered a Santa Clara, Calif., woman in December 2015. The woman claims sexual battery, battery, gender violence, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional…Read more...

Multiple Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, who seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth since he last pitched in 2016, has reappeared on baseball fans’ radar looking far beefier than he ever did on a pitcher’s mound. Adam Ottavino of the Colorado Rockies posted a picture on Instagram of what TMZ is calling “Gym…Read more...

Alex Guerrero has maintained a strange relationship with the Patriots since 2013. He operates the TB12 therapy center next to the Patriots stadium, where he treats players, and his relationship with Brady affords him access to Patriots sidelines and the team plane. However, a day after rumors surfaced regarding a…Read more...

And now an update for all those who’ve been wondering how noted orange jersey-wearer Laurence Leavy—better known as Marlins Man—has been handling all the drama surrounding the team’s new ownership and their desire to just torch the whole roster to avoid paying for what they just bought.Read more...

io9 The Last Jedi Killed My Childhood, and That’s Exactly Why It’s Great | Jalopnik Michigan Man Forced To Sell 20 Cars A Month Has Resorted To Scrapping Some Cool Cars | Offspring Teach Kids to Nickname the Fears That Won’t Go Away | The Takeout Why ordering from the kids menu is harmful to children | Compete …Read more...

Have you heard? Chess fucks. And chess wants you all to know that it fucks, so it has graciously made it very clear in the logo for the upcoming 2018 World Chess Championship.Read more...

Micah Parsons is considered one of the best high school football players in the country. The defensive end is ranked as the seventh-best overall prospect by ESPN and fourth overall by 24/7, and before today, he was considering joining Ohio State. However, Ohio State has agreed to stop recruiting Parsons after…Read more...

Welcome to Bad Quarterback Performance Of The Week, a recurring feature in which we celebrate the worst quarterback play the NFL has to offer.Read more...

Texas Rangers starting pitcher Martin Perez had surgery yesterday to repair a fracture in his right (non-pitching) elbow on Monday. Perez needed it, team GM Jon Daniels said, because he was startled by a bull on his ranch in Venezuela.Read more...

If most casual sports fans know anything about professional road cycling that extends beyond the orbit of Lance Armstrong, it’s that a bunch of the people who were in line to receive his seven tainted Tour de France titles also tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Cycling’s reputation and credibility…Read more...

Rio Ferdinand hasn’t played professional soccer since 2015, and he hasn’t suited up for Manchester United since the year before that, but as this clip of his exuberant celebrations while covering United’s recent thrilling win over Arsenal proves, he remains very much invested in the goings on at Old Trafford:Read more...

Five years after the announcement of a 25-year lease at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, the New York Islanders are already returning home—well, not quite home, but at least back out of New York City and onto the land mass* where they began (Correction: They never left the land mass). Reports say that a news conference…Read more...

On Oct. 29, the Houston Texans lost to the Seattle Seahawks, 41-38, a hard-fought game in which rookie QB Deshaun Watson put on an entertaining, four-touchdown, 403-yard performance. Houston was 3-4 but still sat at the edge of the playoff hunt in a weak conference, and Watson had led the offense to close games…Read more...

What with all the nice fat triple-doubly Ben Simmons and Lonzo Ball lines, you might be wondering what exactly makes an assist. Not because I’m interested in whether home scorers are especially generous to their local stars—both players, it turns out, average more assists per 36 minutes when on the road—but because I…Read more...

This feature was originally published in the December, 1997 issue of Premiere magazine and appears here with permission.

Overwatch is still young as far as sports go, but if you’re a professional player of anything, whether that means basketball or Russian knight fighting, you’re gonna be held to a higher standard than most. Overwatch League’s players are having trouble with that.Read more...

On my first day at NFL Media I signed paperwork promising that I wouldn’t harass players for autographs. That struck me as odd, given that I was a professional reporter being hired to work in a newsroom; this was a newsroom that answered to 32 NFL owners, yes, but the strangeness of that fact didn’t seem like it would…Read more...

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking aliens, Christmas songs, the XFL, and more.

In a good way!Read more...

On Friday afternoon, I received a particularly surprising DM from someone whose information is normally solid, if not always reportable. The DM said that Vince McMahon is bringing back the XFL, with a press conference announcing the move on Jan. 25. The scuttlebutt was that not only had ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary…Read more...

The U-12 Prospects Cup is underway right now on our corporate parent Univision Deportes, and the tournament that matches U.S. academy teams against some of the world’s most famous squads has been full of highlights from the next generation of soccer’s best.Read more...

The director of Canada’s national women’s gymnastics team, David Brubaker, was charged last Friday with 10 counts of sexual offenses spanning eight years, all concerning a gymnast who was younger than 16 for part of that time period. According to the Sarnia Observer, Brubaker faces one charge of invitation to sexual…Read more...

I think my favorite thing about Star Wars: The Last Jedi is how successfully writer/director Rian Johnson dove into the giant toy box that is the Star Wars universe and started playing. His willingness to repudiate the franchise’s nostalgia industry—to let the past die, as Kylo Ren put it—is what I think will…Read more...

The Australian Open begins in less than a month and it’s still unclear whether defending champion Serena Williams will be playing in it. Despite eager assurances from the tournament director that the 23-time grand slam champion will indeed make her historic post-baby comeback at the tournament she won last year while…Read more...

Amazon is discounted a bunch of hats, mittens, gloves, and socks today to gift, or to get yourself further prepared for the extra cold months of winter that are right around the corner. You can give someone the gift of warm hands, or gift yourself the ability to show the wind who’s boss with these full-face masks.Read more...

After Manchester City’s home win over Tottenham this past weekend, the Telegraph reported that City forward Raheem Sterling had been called a “nigger” and then kicked by an unknown man when Sterling was on his way to the stadium before the game. Today, Manchester police arrested the man they suspect was responsible.Read more...

The future of Street Fighter depends on its newcomers, many of whom come up as children that simply play fighting games for fun. One such kid, a 10-year-old named Asuna, made an appearance on Daigo Umehara’s live stream last week to test her burgeoning Street Fighter V skills.

Blazers point guard Damian Lillard was not happy after last night’s 108-107 loss to the Timberwolves, which he largely blamed on poor refereeing during a postgame rant. That frustration stayed with him long enough to cause a brief confrontation with some fans outside the arena.