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The Vietnam stuff really did happen; he really did the Vietnam stuff. Shattered and crumpled and beat to shit, starving, John McCain really did decline an arbitrary offer of early release from foreign torture prison; he really did choose what turned out to be four more years of torture and suffering and misery over…Read more...

The Gold Cup is a shitty tournament. It’s the championship of CONCACAF, a garbage confederation with two consistently pretty good teams mixed in with a bunch of flotsam of varying quality. It’s normally contested by the participating countries’ B or C teams, since no one cares all that much about winning it. It’s…Read more...

During new White House flack Anthony Scaramucci’s introductory press conference, he bragged that his famously exercise-averse and bulbous boss was in fact a sports genius, capable of throwing “a dead spiral through a tire,” “swishing foul shots” in a suit, and sinking, uh, three-foot putts.

It’s a good day to be a Nationals fan and a very, very bad day to be a Brewers pitcher. The Nationals hit eight home runs in their first four innings today; five of those home runs were off Michael Blazek in the span of six at-bats in the bottom of the third.Read more...

Kristaps Porzingis, despite being the centerpiece of one of the world’s most visible sports franchises and a superstar in utero, spent this summer’s gym trips looking an awful lot like what he is: a skinny-ass 21-year-old trying to put some weight on. It was comforting to see.

After his brief and inglorious tenure as Swansea City manager came to an end last December, ex-USMNT coach Bob Bradley and his shiny head will once again be on the sideline where they belong, as he has been named manager of one of MLS’s newest expansion teams, LAFC.Read more...

Some people are fans of the Cleveland Browns. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Cleveland Browns. This 2017 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.Read more...

Now that Lonzo Ball is safely on the Lakers, the Lavar Ball media circus has finally started to slow down a bit. A month ago, he was hawking merch and jumping around on WWE Raw; lately, he’s mostly been in the news for an NBA player telling him to fuck off and for throwing a tantrum at his son’s AAU game.

The Philadelphia Union beat the Columbus Crew 3-0 last night, but it wasn’t without a bit of drama — from its own players.Read more...

After what feels like years of turmoil and scandal, of missed fights and blown opportunities, the baddest motherfucker on Earth is finally back.

Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish, one of the top names being thrown around before Monday’s trade deadline, pitched in what could have been his final start for Texas last night. Unfortunately, Darvish’s potential send-off—and a chance to convince good teams he’s worth a high price—ended up being his worst-ever career outing.Read more...

Baltimore Ravens lineman and math genius John Urschel is walking away from football at age 26.Read more...

Here’s a good Twitter thread.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and freshly hired GM Koby Altman held a press conference yesterday, the purpose of which was to assure everyone that, actually, the Cavs’ disastrous summer has been good. It was mostly boring, except for one part when Gilbert couldn’t help but throw some shit at the Pacers.

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After jacking a huge home run against the Twins last night, Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig returned to the dugout to give his hitting coach, Turner Ward, a big ol’ kiss. The homer was Puig’s 19th of the season, which matches his single-season career high.Read more...

On Tuesday night, Rangers reliever Jason Grilli struck out Giancarlo Stanton to end the game, securing a 10-4 victory for his team. Grilli was pumped:

Despite a back injury that will keep him out until September, Clayton Kershaw was at Dodger Stadium for his eponymous bobblehead night, and a very special first pitch from 2-year-old Cali Kershaw. Let’s scout some film.Read more...

Adrian Beltre is unarguably among baseball’s purest sources of joy and delight. But umpire Gerry Davis was not too delighted by Beltre’s response tonight when he told the veteran to get in the on-deck circle while he was, uh, on deck. Beltre simply dragged the on-deck circle to where he was already standing—a few feet…Read more...

“Idk why Jordan Morris is out there,” I typed to the Deadspin staff exactly two minutes before his game-winning goal. Morris was barely scoring in MLS with the Seattle Sounders this year, and even his two goals in this tournament came against the far inferior Martinique. He looked lost and mistake-prone in the Gold…Read more...

Jozy Altidore was in a bit of a slump, having not scored for the USMNT since September of 2016. But suddenly, he’s on fire, with two goals in fewer than 90 minutes across the past two games.

There are many productive ways to deal with frustration. Here, for example, is a handy-dandy guide from our colleagues over at Lifehacker. And here is a decidedly unproductive way of dealing with frustration: slamming your batting helmet down after grounding into an inning-ending out, only to watch it ricochet back up…Read more...

J.P. Crawford—a Phillies shortstop prospect currently playing with the AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs—smacked an inside-the-park grand slam tonight. That in itself is a rare feat, but it was made even more unbelievable by some bizarre action at the plate when Crawford came in to score.Read more...

Scarcely 24 hours after officially acquiring Jaime Garcia, the Twins are rumored to be interested in dealing him.Read more...

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Stay balanced.Read more...

In the far off days when Nick Young was still on the Lakers and Iggy Azalea was relevant, we learned of Swaggy P’s delfiniphobia, which apparently stemmed from an attempted drowning by one of the majestic sea creatures while on vacation with his then-girlfriend Azalea in Cabo. From ESPN:Read more...

With little more than a month remaining in a five-year agreement to pay for concussion research, the NFL still owes the National Institutes of Health $18 million—more than half of the $30 million that the league agreed to provide for the study back in 2012. Today, a group of Democratic members of the House Committee…Read more...

It’s now been six days since Hugh Freeze resigned as head football coach at Ole Miss after personal behavior that school officials described as “moral turpitude.” (Translation: at least one instance of calling an escort service from his university-issued cell phone, which was part of a larger “pattern of conduct that…Read more...

Rafael Devers, just called up by the Boston Red Sox, is the youngest player in baseball. Today was only the second MLB game ever for the 20-year-old third baseman, but he has already made an impact:Read more...

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Have you heard the news? Michael Phelps raced a Great White shark to kick off Discovery Channel’s annual “Shark Week” in style. Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White aired Sunday night after months of anticipation, and it settled the question that I guess someone maybe thought of at some point: Could the…Read more...

Young, excitable Phillies outfielder Odubel Herrera is having a slightly down year compared to his first two promising campaigns, and he currently plays for the worst team in baseball. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to have affected his confidence too much.

On Monday, Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop published a story about Tom Brady’s longevity that greatly credited the quarterback’s fitness guru, Alex Guerrero, while failing to properly address the fact that Guerrero has been sued multiple times for fraud and has run afoul of the FTC for hawking products that he…Read more...

If you had asked me when I was a student at the University of Florida who is Huntley Johnson, my answer would have been this: The guy who represents all the football players. Football players exist in the bizarre NCAA unreality where those in power refuse to pay their most necessary workers a living wage but somehow…Read more...

His face has never changed.Read more...

Here’s a couple of plays from the FIBA U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup final over the weekend, Russia vs. Spain. Pay close attention, because nobody on the court did.

This feature originally appeared in Inside Sports and appears here with permission.

While not quite as small as some of our favorite minimalist wallets, the new Swift Wallet is well-built and has a ton of features, and you can get it for about $70 by preordering.Read more...

The ongoing furor in response to Michael Phelps not actually getting into open water with a great white shark to race side by side is the dumbest and most hilarious in recent pop culture history. And it’s continuing! Hallelujah.Read more...

Yesterday, Katie Ledecky won the 1500 meter freestyle world championship by 19 seconds. It was her 12th gold medal at worlds, a record for women swimmers, breaking a tie with Missy Franklin.

Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones had a pretty chill offseason, resting for most of it to heal up from foot surgery in March. However, Jones was recently jet skiing on Lake Lanier, a large reservoir north of Atlanta, when he hit a boat wake and flopped into the water.

An indigenous tribe from northern Mexico known for producing ultramarathoners has increasingly been forced by cartels into drug-running. [Texas Monthly]Read more...

Welcome to NeyWatch, a series in which we catch up with the daily, often contradictory updates on the hottest story of the summer.Read more...

Back in September, the Indianapolis Star was the first publication to report on sexual-abuse allegations made against Larry Nassar, then a physician and faculty at Michigan State University. In their initial story, two women claimed that Nassar had sexually assaulted them when they were young teenage gymnasts while he…Read more...

When we last checked in on the progress of the Atlanta Falcons’ new stadium, which features an eight-petal retractable roof known as “Megatron’s Butthole,” things were stopped up. The Atlanta Journal Constitution brings us an update today, and it looks like the hole will remain closed for some time.Read more...

The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,659-mile long trail passing through the Cascade and Sierra mountains in California, Oregon and Washington. It’s a National Scenic Trail, and part of the Triple Crown of Hiking. It looks beautiful. Plus, per Wikipedia: “The chances of meeting your spouse on a backpacking trip seem very…Read more...

Yesterday it already looked as though Novak Djokovic was going to miss the U.S. Open, and this morning the Serbian star announced that he will be sitting out not just the year’s final major but the whole 2017 season to recover from a right elbow injury. “I think I haven’t missed a single major event for more than 10…Read more...

Manchester United player Daley Blind wants you to know that he’s ready for the next match, and also that he’s not very good at copying and pasting.Read more...

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The best thing to do when the dishwasher has finished running is to take out all the clean dishes and put them away. The worst thing to do is to take out just a few clean dishes, and then have someone else come along, get confused, and start mixing dirty dishes in with the clean ones. Then the dishes need to be…Read more...