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There is a tension at the heart of both Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire, a contradiction which threatens to swallow the world and our heroes whole if they don’t manage it properly: How do you save the world without breaking it in the process? If you burn everything down to win, what’s the point of winning?

With Quincy Enunwa now out for the season with a neck injury, the Jets’ wide receiving corps will be led by ... well, um, let me know whether you’ve heard of any of these jamokes:Read more...

The Little League World Series, the most heartwarming competition in sports, kicks off next week in Williamsport, Pa. It runs from August 17-27, which, as astute observers of solar phenomena will note, covers the forthcoming total solar eclipse will darken American skies on August 21.

One of the persistent and hilarious myths of the Trump administration—along with “He’s flailing around like a spastic toddler on purpose to distract you from Russia!”—has been the narrative of Jared Kushner: Machiavellian Trump Whisperer. It’s one of the few things Donald Trump and his critics seem able to agree upon:…Read more...

Today is Roger Federer’s birthday. He turned 36, won both majors he entered this year, and shows no signs of slowing. Here is an extremely charming compilation of birthday wishes from people he has regularly and/or recently owned.

Gareth Bale, once the assumed heir to Cristiano Ronaldo’s throne at Real Madrid, is now at risk of becoming an afterthought. Acquired from Tottenham in 2013 for a then-record transfer fee, Bale has only topped 30 La Liga appearances once in four seasons for Real Madrid. True, he has been as good as advertised when…Read more...

Being the person in charge of a media outlet’s assignment desk is not a glamorous gig. You ask permission to use other people’s hard work and hope they don’t tell you to fuck off, which they have every right to do. The Fox Sports desk, after the network pursued a video-first online presence, is one step weirder than…Read more...

UCLA QB Josh Rosen is expected to be a high pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. The 20-year-old junior can be seen as a future NFL star and an ambitious guy whose eagerness to have a life outside of football somehow makes certain corners of the league’s intelligentsia skeptical. In today’s interview with Bleacher Report’s…Read more...

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking fried food, drying your feet, dad gags, and more.Read more...

It may be almost Autumn already, but that doesn’t mean you should pass up a good outerwear deal. Nordstrom Rack is marking down a bunch of The North Face jackets and coats for 30-40% off. Pick up a great coat and save it for next winter. Men’s, women’s and kids’ styles are all marked down.Read more...

Yesterday, Barcelona played tragedy-stricken Brazilian club Chapecoense (you may remember them as the team involved in that awful plane crash last winter) in the Joan Gamper Trophy match. This match, hosted annually at Barcelona’s Camp Nou, is a friendly and thus doesn’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of…Read more...

Mike Trout got his 1,000th hit last night, on his 26th birthday, and yet that’s not even the most absurd Mike Trout Number to obsess over today. Here is something to really blow your mind:Read more...

Lamar Jackson, the 2016 Heisman winner who, for a while, appeared to be the Second Coming, is heading into the fall with the typical pressure being applied to college football’s reigning MVP—he’ll be tasked with somehow improving his draft stock, bettering a team that fell apart down the stretch, and becoming the…Read more...

Seahawks second-round pick Malik McDowell hasn’t reported to training camp after he suffered “facial injuries” and a concussion in an ATV crash on July 30. McDowell said after the accident that his injuries weren’t life- or career-threatening, but his recovery will take a while, and could eat into his rookie season.

Some people are fans of the Cincinnati Bengals. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Cincinnati Bengals. This 2017 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Yesterday was only day one of the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but we might already have the shot of the tournament, courtesy of 20-year-old Russian Daria Kasatkina, who came up with one of the best tweener shots I’ve ever seen.Read more...

Last week, offensive lineman Branden Albert seemed pretty sure that he didn’t want to play for the Jaguars. After being traded to Jacksonville from the Dolphins in March, Albert sought and didn’t get a new contract from the Jags, so after three days of training camp, he retired before ever playing a down.Read more...

Gizmodo Men Have Always Used ‘Science’ to Explain Why They’re Better Than Women | Kotaku Hellblade Will Erase Your Save If You Die Too Many Times | Truck Yeah Leaked 2018 Jeep Wrangler Options List Includes A Big Change To The 4WD System | Lifehacker How to Avoid Getting Sick on a Cruise Ship |Read more...

The Brewers want a new spring training park. Gilbert, Ariz., would like to give it to them. The stadium would cost $90 million; the Brewers offered to pay $20 million of that. The adjoining mixed-use “village,” including retail and hotel, would cost another $70 million; the Brewers offered to pay none of that.Read more...

Please remember that the only reason Brock Osweiler is currently on the Browns’ roster is because the Texans were so desperate to be rid of him that they gave Cleveland a second-round pick for absorbing Osweiler’s $16 million salary this season. Also remember that Browns GM Sashi Brown was most excited about getting…Read more...

The PGA Championship has been played in August every year save one since 1971, but this week’s Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte will be the next to last: Beginning in 2019, it’ll permanently move to May and become the year’s second major.

Today was Mike Trout’s 26th birthday. He recorded his 1,000th hit. He hit a home run. He remains so spectacularly talented to be almost boringly so, with no indication that he will develop any flaws soon. Here are his teammates, celebrating this glorious day by dumping all manner of stuff upon his head:

Youngstown State football coach Bo Pelini has spent the last week explaining his decision to allow Ma’Lik Richmond—a former high school football player found guilty of rape in juvenile court in the Steubenville, Ohio, case—to walk on to the team this winter.Read more...

What goes up must come down to embarrass you by striking you on the head, as the old saying goes. This is a lesson that Clinton LumberKings designated hitter Nick Zammarelli learned all too well yesterday, when he fouled off a ball that hit the roof only to have it come back down and plunk him right on the head. He…Read more...

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. The beat goes on.Read more...

Miami police have released the arrest affidavit for new Los Angeles Clippers forward Willie Reed. In it, Reed’s wife says the ex-Heat player got upset Saturday afternoon when she said she wanted a divorce, leading to him “twist[ing] her arm causing her to kneel to the ground.” In response she says she hit him in the…Read more...

The women’s 1500 meters headlined the fourth day of the IAAF World Championships in track and field, and it was a worthy main event for the London crowd. Great Britain’s Laura Muir led the pack through the first 800 meters at 2:17, at which point the race turned into a sprint.Read more...

Now that Los Angeles has won the bid to host the 2028 Olympics, it seems as good a time as any to look back at what happened to the city when it last hosted the events. The 1984 Games were successful in L.A., in that they were profitable for the host city and didn’t leave behind a bunch of decaying stadiums eventually…Read more...

Last month, a federal judge struck down what was left of a class-action lawsuit that accused NFL teams of pumping ex-players full of dangerous painkillers, to the detriment of the long-term health of those players. The July 21 ruling, by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court of Northern California, stated…Read more...

The former world No. 5 from Italy, Sara Errani, was banned from tennis for two months after she tested positive for the cancer drug letrozole, a drug that can be used to “increase lean body mass,” the International Tennis Federation said today.Read more...

Jalopnik Rich Bay Area Residents Pissed After Two Genius Investors Buy Their Street | io9 This 14-Minute Video Detailing Last Night’s Game of Thrones Battle Rules So Much | Kotaku This Summer’s Standout Anime Is About A Mysterious Pit Full Of Monsters | Lifehacker The Facebook Mom Problem Is Real |Read more...

Qatar is a tiny, obscenely wealthy country/U.S. military base in the Persian Gulf that has, justifiably so, become synonymous of late with dynastic oligarchism, shameless venality, modern-day slavery, and financial support for Islamist terrorism. This, it probably goes without saying, isn’t quite the reputation the…Read more...

Tom Brady has slowly and carefully built up his own lifestyle brand in recent years, with his extravagant pajamas, rabbit food, and post-human, Russell Wilson-esque ad pitches delivered through the Patriots QB’s online presence. It appears that Brady might be dipping his toe into a half-hour web series in the near…Read more...

Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang might never come back to Major League Baseball as he still can’t get a work visa after admitting guilt and receiving a deferred prison sentence for a 2016 DUI in South Korea, Pirates GM Neal Huntington told MLB.com Sunday. Kang has been charged with three DUIs in Korea since 2009.Read more...

The Dolphins held a press conference today to officially introduce new quarterback Jay Cutler, who ended his brief retirement to sign a one-year, $10 million deal to play in Miami. Cutler certainly plugs a hole at quarterback for the Dolphins, but there remain concerns about his commitment to the game, and I, a…Read more...

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry is being investigated for possible battery in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. It was first reported today by Andy Slater of WINZ, and Fort Lauderdale police confirmed to Deadspin that the case is open and has been sent to the Broward County State Attorney’s Office, where prosecutors…Read more...

Ole Miss can make this whole self-induced Houston Nutt headache—which is now just one headache among many—go away if it just admits it lied about the details of some recruiting violations and forks over a half-a-million bucks in the name of “sports ethics.”Read more...

The following paragraph, from the MMQB’s Tim Rohan, does not appear to be intended as irony:Read more...

More than $20 million in prize money is on the line this week in The International 2017, a tournament for the video game Dota 2 that can leave new spectators baffled. We’re here to help, in case you want to watch one of these matches and be able to tell a core from a support, or just want to be able to enjoy what’s…Read more...

The Three Rivers Regatta, a three-day aquatics extravaganza, took place in Pittsburgh over the weekend. Over 600,000 people attended and hundreds of rowdy youths reportedly got into fights, but more importantly, the boldest and dumbest tried to fly during Saturday’s Flugtag, a modern-day Franz Reichelt contest.…Read more...

Some people are fans of the Carolina Panthers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Carolina Panthers. This 2017 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.Read more...

Justin Verlander’s contract is so big that the Tigers had no fear any other team would want it. After the traditional trade deadline passed at the end of July, Verlander and the $28 million he’s owed in each of the next two years easily cleared revocable waivers, making the 34-year-old Tiger still eligible to leave…Read more...

An easy way to measure an athlete’s influence on his or her sport is to consider what they meant to different groups of fans. Don Baylor, who died of cancer today at age 68, was many things to many people.

Coldplay performed at the Washington Redskins’ stadium Sunday night and put together a brief (but somehow too long) tribute song to curry favor with fans of the local team. Lead singer Chris Martin crooned this 30-second masterpiece to the cheering crowd.Read more...

The biggest thing to happen at the IAAF World Championships this weekend was Usain Bolt taking bronze in the final 100-meter race of his career. The second biggest thing to happen was a jolly streaker running the track and having a grand ol’ time. Watch him break right through a security guard’s arm-tackle:

Technically, this is still a highlight because it’s Didier Drogba scoring an absolute scorcher of a free kick from way far out that probably would’ve flown into the net had he been back in a Chelsea shirt facing like Jordan Pickford or something. However, it’s also kind of a lowlight because it’s Didier Drogba, a…Read more...

The 1993 Phillies opened the season 17-5 and led the NL East basically wire to wire. They upset the 104-win Braves in the NLCS and were a few outs from Game 7 of the World Series when Joe Carter hit a walk-off homer to end the series.Read more...

io9 On Game of Thrones, Daenerys Unleashed Hell and It Was Glorious | Kotaku New GTA V Graphics Mod Looks Like The Future | Jalopnik Elon Musk Might Be A Total Jerk And Build His Own Hyperloop System: Report | Offspring How to Make Sure Your Kid Has Great Musical Taste |Read more...

The Little League World Series is happening again, which means it’s time to watch pre-teens do amazing baseball things while thinking, “Hmmmm, are we sure that kid is only 12?”

Wow, did you watch Game of Thrones last night? Wow! With the dragons, and the...elves? Elves, probably. And orcs, no doubt, seeking to regain the One Ring. And the TARDIS. Wow. (I don’t watch the show.)Read more...