Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It’s time to crown a champion — or at least pretend like we don’t know who is going to win this tournament. Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James is the question of our times, like when West Coast vs. East Coast was the fulcrum point of the Golden Age of Hip-Hop. If I could bottle whatever it is that leads to recency bias,…Read more...

The Sacramento Kings Beam season isn’t over yet, but success is relative. The Kings finally ended the NBA’s longest playoff drought. All it took was De’Aaron Fox straightening out his jumper, an offseason for Domantas Sabonis to get fully integrated into the offense, trading for Kevin Huerter and Mike Brown putting…Read more...

The reality of this world is that everyone with influence is not going to treat it with the respect that they should. Influence is a form of power. Of the many lessons I’ve learned in ⅓ of a century on this planet is that when people finally grasp a bit of power, many of them have only two goals: To wield it, and to…Read more...

I don’t know if that’s what this horse’s ass was actually doing, but man it’s fun to just go ahead and think he thought he could get away with proposing on the field:

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One of my favorite Bill Burr observations didn’t take place on stage. He was talking about the ESPN 30 for 30 film The U, and for all that he liked about it, he especially enjoyed the players overexaggerating their accomplishments as people sometimes do as they get older. For example, Bennie Blades said in the…Read more...

Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! Take a gander at these dunces and be reminded that a future in which artificial intelligence destroys all biological life on Earth might not be so bad after all.Read more...

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There’s a bit in my favorite stand-up special of all time, Suzy Eddie Izzard’s Dress To Kill, where she mocks most Americans for not knowing the lyrics to the national anthem but also advises them how to get around it. It’s mostly about how one looks and how one sounds, not really what is actually being said. Look and…Read more...

I’m going to talk about Steph Curry in a negative light for the next 400 to 600 words, so all you super fans should just hop off now, or steal your backbone because the truth bombs are about to start flying like I got shot in the ass twice and am on a shitload of painkillers. The greatest shooter in the history of…Read more...

Ever since Tom Brady left New England, it feels like the shine has worn off the legend that is Bill Belichick. Suddenly, “the hoodie” is catching strays from all directions, including former players. Asante Samuel posted a warning to Lamar Jackson on Twitter about playing for Belichick.

I’ll get my biases out of the way up top. I’ll never fully buy reality TV as “reality.” It’s hard for me to believe that anyone can act fully natural with a camera around, even if they say that after a while of being followed by them they forget they’re there. Goes for Hard Knocks, too. The conversations we see on…Read more...

Has there been a closer franchise to winning a World Series ever that never reached the pinnacle than the Texas Rangers? The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex’s Major League Baseball team had multiple squads good enough to be the sport’s last team standing over the last 15 years and never got it done. Standing one strike…Read more...

The people over at the National Basketball Players Association have the bubbles on ice with “Mission Accomplished” banners and balloons ordered. We’re about a week and a half away from the end of the regular season, and the only star players in jeopardy of missing playoff games due to injury could return by, or…Read more...

It’s only been a few short weeks since Outkick’s David Hookstead blamed some non-existent woke-ism manifesto for the placement of women’s college basketball dominating ESPN.com’s front page. A few weeks before that, Jason Whitlock was frothing at the mouth over women’s basketball highlights leading off SportsCenter.…Read more...

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On Wednesday, the performative set of elected officials who gather in Washington D.C. to raise money and occasionally draft legislation held a meeting to discuss the future of Name, Image and Likeness.Read more...

Updated March 30: CBS Sports is reporting that the Pac-12's media rights deal is still up in the air.Read more...

You can all give up the Rogers Hornsby quotes, already. We made it Opening Day, when hope springs eternal for millions of MLB fans across the country, a least for a few days/weeks. We’d all love to believe that our team has as much of a chance of winning the World Series as any other but, realistically, that’s…Read more...

Hot dogs. Peanuts. Cracker Jacks. Racism. It can only mean one thing — Opening Day of a new Major League Baseball season is here. And today, of all days, is a great example of how things haven’t changed and remain the same, or gotten worse.Read more...

With opening day in Major League Baseball upon us, there’s no better time to remember baseball’s heroes of yesteryear. Such nostalgia shouldn’t only extend to past eras of MLB but also to those who paved the way in the Negro Leagues for players of color to make their way into the Majors. One of those influential names…Read more...

It’s the most wonderful day of the year for baseball fans. Well, it’s one of them I guess — Opening Day! After the World Baseball Classic, the real fun begins, right Keith Olbermann? All 30 teams will have 161 games to go in the regular season after Thursday, with eight former Cy Young winners throwing on the first…Read more...

When you’ve been earning next to nothing, and you get offered double that or more, it would take some brass balls to turn it down. That would seem to be the lesson of the MiLB Players Union’s first-ever collective bargaining agreement with MLB.Read more...

Welcome to Opening Day! It was a long, cold winter, but Spring is, at last, officially upon us. Sure, the ivy at Wrigley might be sparse and brown, and your favorite broadcaster might be wearing Gore-Tex for the next few weeks, but baseball is back. As Bart Giamatti once said, “It breaks your heart. It is designed to…Read more...

As hard as MLB tries, baseball remains pretty parochial. That’s mostly due to the daily nature of it. If you’re a fan of a team, you basically spend every day from the beginning of April to the end of September watching your team and then going to bed, or maybe cramming in some sort of worthless social activity at…Read more...

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Hard economic times have come for ESPN and its parent company — Disney. Like many companies, Disney is doing some downsizing. There have been rumors for a while and returning CEO Bob Iger dropped the hammer when he sent out a memo in which he states that the company is beginning the process of laying off 7,000 of its…Read more...

The following is adapted from the podcast script for Stick to Pods Episode 11, “Josh Gibson,” which originally aired on April 12, 2018

UConn men’s basketball looks like the favorite heading into this weekend’s Final Four in Houston. Not only are the Huskies the highest seed remaining of the quartet, they’ve looked dominant in every March Madness game. Turns out UConn’s 15-point second-round victory over St. Mary’s was its closest margin of victory…Read more...

It’s rare that I get to use my real-life expertise at this job, or am actually qualified to write the things I think, but today is the day a decade of arrested development as a snowboard bum pays off. I’m here to tell you why both Gwyneth Paltrow and the other gaper* on the slopes of Deer Valley in 2016 are at fault…Read more...

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This year’s MLB Opening Day feels different than recent iterations because the media doesn’t have (most of) its usual talking points to complain about. The rule changes are going to shorten the games, discontinue the dialog about shifts, and provide baserunners with throw pillows to slide into. Yay! Now, if we can…Read more...

Lamar Jackson is the NFL’s Shohei Ohtani. If this were Major League Baseball, he’d be demanding starting quarterback and starting veteran running back money, and some owner would oblige and airdrop whatever he demanded. Not only is the Baltimore Ravens’ one-man show on offense, but he’s also his own defense. Jackson’s…Read more...

The No Fun League introduced some excitement this week when they announced players could now wear No. 0 moving forward. Players across the NFL scrambled in hopes of trading in their current jersey for zero. (Calvin Ridey, back from suspension, will wear it for Jacksonville.) While the older generation (i.e. Shannon…Read more...

Every generationally great player, or every player that can safely say they’re one of the five best of all time, eventually bores the public with their greatness. Or at least fails to spike the EKG when news of their latest heroics crosses the wires. Connor McDavid is there.Read more...

Look at the NFL trying to be looser as an organization. First, it relaxed restrictions on player numbers in 2021, and the league has decided that in 2023 a forbidden number will be allowed. Certain players will be allowed to wear the No. 0.

It’s never a good sign when John Mara, the answer to the question of what would happen if George Will ate paste, is the voice of reason. But that’s where the NFL, and Roger Goodell, found themselves at the owners’ meetings yesterday. Somehow, the owners were able to resist the urge to flex Thursday night games, but…Read more...

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Xavier Babudar, the Kansas Chiefs superfan accused of robbing an Oklahoma bank, allegedly removed his ankle monitor and no-showed a court appearance, leading to a $1 million bond warrant, according to multiple reports.

Former NFL star Antonio Brown has been relatively quiet lately, not popping up on news feeds too much outside of our Jackass bracket tournament, for which he recently advanced to the Final Four. That should be considered a good thing because there hasn’t been any scandalous behavior out of AB this month. However, what …Read more...

Who among us hasn’t wanted to whip a brick at an ESPN building, be it the headquarters in Bristol, Conn., or one of its few now-shuttered ESPN Zones? I know if I walked by the window where Get Up is shot in New York, I’d pick up the heaviest piece of refuse I could find and heave it at Mike Greenberg’s face. That’s…Read more...

It has long been time to put fans in their place. An average human being would not normally scream “you fuck!” at a 6-foot-4, 200-plus-pound man. Make that person Bradley Beal, and all of a sudden the probability of that happening increases.Read more...

When baseball writers get done complaining about how late their games are on, most of baseball’s attention this season will be on the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Padres kneecapping the Dodgers in last year’s divisional round gave this tango some stakes instead of the Padres just talking loud. The…Read more...

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Tournament season is in full effect, and things are no different here at Deadspin. Our Jackass Tournament rolls on with an action-packed Elite Eight, as voted on by you, the people. Isn’t democracy swell?Read more...

You’ve known about him for years. You’ve read about how he’s worth millions via NIL. And you’ve seen his highlights. But, have you actually heard him speak? Probably not. And more than likely that trend will continue on Tuesday night when Bronny James takes part in the 2023 McDonald’s All-American Game that’s…Read more...

There’s a surefire way to piss off a coach and/or player, and that’s to name or draft their successor. Nobody enjoys confronting the mortality of their career on someone else’s terms — and it’s happening in New England, again. You’d think the franchise that pushed out Tom Brady would learn from its mistakes, but now…Read more...

Some things don’t have redeemable qualities, like the NCAA. In an under-the-radar recent news story, it was revealed that Ferris State’s football program was fined $15,000 for the damages that occurred after winning their second consecutive Division II national championship back in December. The crime? Smoking victory…Read more...

Take a look at the face of MLB umpire Randy Rosenberg in the image above. If that’s not the face of someone who is slowly realizing that they may have *slightly* overreacted, I don’t know what is. But before we get into it, please take a second to view Rosenberg ejecting Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto yesterday in the…Read more...

The Final Four is here, with a bunch of heavy hitters and a No. 8 seed that, technically, is a heavy hitter as well. Jordan-LeBron, cats-dogs, Biggie-2Pac, and The Rock-Stone Cold are the last debates left standing, and we’re going to lose at least one more 1 seed, and possibly two if The People’s Champ and Steve…Read more...