Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

In some ways it’s heartening, at least for those of us who aren’t part of The Nation, to see the Red Sox backing up. Because no team that trades Mookie Betts, then doesn’t really do much in the following offseason either, should return to the playoffs after only a gimmick season. Fenway Sports Group doesn’t deserve…Read more...

The Cleveland Browns come into the 2021-22 season looking to build off a campaign where the team registered its first playoff victory since 1995. To call this a drought is the understatement of the century. Some deserts aren’t as dry as the Browns have been in terms of winning the past 25 years.Read more...

First it was the Big 12 deciding that any Texas opponent who flashes the “Horns Down” gesture would be fined. Mostly everyone agreed that it was a pretty weak move by a football program that claims to have such an elite reputation.Read more...

Over a week into free agency, Lauri Markkanen is still looking for his moment of clarity.

Lamar Jackson has a responsibility to be better than this.

There was much rejoicing on Twitter yesterday, as former MLBer Aubrey Huff was kicked off the platform for God knows whatever he said this time.

At the All-Star break, the Philadelphia Phillies were a .500 team and weren’t being taken very seriously as threats to take the NL East crown from the Mets. Despite throwing everything and the kitchen sink at All-Stars Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto in 2019, the Phillies have not reached the playoffs since. In fact,…Read more...

The Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers officially kicked off the 2021 NFL preseason in a game that featured the ’Boys doing what they have done well over the past 25 years… losing.

When it comes to anything off the field in La Liga, and especially the two giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, if one of my eyebrows isn’t raised then it’s certainly in the starting blocks to be so. So when news last Thursday broke that Lionel Messi was leaving Barca due to their self-imposed, financial straight jacket…Read more...

We should all bet on ourselves when the opportunity presents itself.Read more...

The only thing that would have been fitting during Calvin Johnson’s Pro Football Hall of Fame speech — the one in which he failed to thank the Detroit Lions — is if the Lions served him with papers during the speech in an attempt to get the money back he owes them.Read more...

After leading Team USA to a fourth straight gold medal in the Tokyo Olympic games, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green took to social media to exact a little revenge on all the “haters” who’d predicted their demise just days earlier.

It’s a Trash Talking Tuesday, and today I’m trashing all those LeBron minions who still are hanging on to the false narrative that he’s the best player on the planet.Read more...

Another member of the USMNT is making a big move in Europe. Josh Sargent is moving from Werder Bremen, who were relegated from the Bundesliga after last season, to newly promoted Premier League team Norwich City. The fee is reported to be around $11 million.Read more...

The future of Deshaun Watson continues to be a major question mark.Read more...

Another member of the USMNT is making a big move in Europe. Josh Sargent is moving from Werder Bremen, who were relegated from the Bundesliga after last season, to newly promoted Premier League team Norwich City. The fee is reported to be around $11 million.Read more...

It’s no surprise that the commissioner of the most historically racist and prejudiced pro sports league in America is in negotiations with America’s most racist, misogynist and prejudiced sports site in America to broadcast midweek games, to keep Major League Baseball racist, white, and prejudiced.

It was just six weeks ago that the NBA world quaked a little when reports of Luka Dončić’s unhappiness first slithered out of Dallas. A report of strange dude in the front office who had somehow charmed Mark Cuban. Dissatisfaction with the roster around him. Then some longtime organizational stalwarts started jumping…Read more...

Either MLB’s PR people are locked in a room with no escape, no windows, and all communications shut off to the outside world. Or it’s just a team of koala bears stoned to the bejesus and lying on the floor. That’s the only conclusion you can draw when, on the same day it looks like MLB ducked a major racism controversyRead more...

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Dawn Staley can “do” both, and it’s why she should be the first woman to be a head coach in the NBA.

I guess the folly for all of us was thinking the NXT we loved could last a long time in the world of WWE, if reports are to be believed. I have to admit that I’m biased. While Daniel Bryan was the reason I started watching wrestling again, NXT was the reason I became such a huge fan. But it’s starting to sound like…Read more...

Sometimes it takes the most unlikely heroes to save the day.

The Olympics ended yesterday, which allowed the president of the IOC to declare the Games a success. You could have the debate over what constitutes “success” for the Olympics all day. The actual completion of them doesn’t really feel like it qualifies, because there was never any other choice. Which is exactly what I…Read more...

It’s rarely a good idea to try and judge what a team is in the middle of a losing or winning streak. No team is ever as good for a whole season as they are when winning eight in a row. Nor are they truly as bad as when they spend a week and a half looking like the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But these streaks can tend to…Read more...

The United States women’s team is from another planet.

The hope for most teams before and after the trade deadline is that their new acquisitions will lead to either some sort of inspirational turnaround or make it clear just how much more they’re solidified for the playoffs. It hasn’t worked out that way for a lot of teams.

Whatever happened to discreet gamesmanship?Read more...

Tuesday was a historic day for baseball in western New York, as the Rochester Red Wings, the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, introduced beer bats.Read more...

Who’s been the best shortstop in baseball this year? Fernando Tatis is probably the first person that comes to mind. I agree with that. Who’s number two? Bogaerts? Correa? Turner? Crawford? Bichette? Story? Yeah, those are all very good players.

When Team USA’s men’s basketball squad lost against France to officially begin Olympic play on July 25, the doubts were significantly heightened.

The Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I, Robot all tried to warn us, but we’re not listening. The basketball robot known as CUE5 has been turning heads with its incredible shooting skills. Last night, during halftime of the USA-France gold medal game, it continued to threaten the livelihoods of the game’s best…Read more...

There are takes, and “Barca’s Messi Debacle Shows Flaws of Fan-Owned Teams” is a take, for sure — one that hilariously appears at Bloomberg, of all places.

Here’s the number of times a basketball team won an Olympic gold medal in front of their home country: Five.

File this one under “Deadspin gets results?”Read more...

Nobody is going to argue that this was the best men’s basketball team the United States has sent to the Olympics. They’re gold medalists today thanks largely to Kevin Durant — throughout the tournament and including the title game against France; deciding that play time was over, and proceeding to wreck shop. But…Read more...

The Athletic is running a series called “the NFL 100,” ranking the top players in football history. This might have made more sense a year ago, when the NFL celebrated its 100th anniversary … and also unveiled an all-time team … but, whatever, everybody likes lists.Read more...

Put yourself in the summer of 1948.

NFL training camps have been underway for a few days now. But in just that small amount of time, numerous stories revolving around potential breakout players, big team brawls, and plexiglass, have emerged. While these stories may hold some merit down the line, it’s important to remember that we’re less than a month…Read more...

And with that, football is back. There will be football games every week from now until February 2022. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and while we still have to wait a little over a month before games actually start counting, being able to see how certain players fit into their team’s system is a treat in…Read more...

The Olympics have been lackluster. Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg have not.Read more...

We’ve gotten two collaborations around 20 years in the making this week: LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, and Nas and Eminem. Even when they all broke into their respective industries, Team USA’s women’s basketball program had already been winning gold medals. The first came in 1984, and they’ve won all but one since.

Yesterday, six-time All-Star and 2010 National League MVP Joey Votto made an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show to talk about his home run streak, the social obligations that go on when a runner reaches first base, and how the game of baseball has changed during Votto’s career, among many other topics.

You may want to go ahead and tear those tickets up. Or not, because as with anything concerning Barcelona, Lionel Messi, and La Liga, nothing is ever quite as it seems.

J.R. Richard, one of the most intimidating pitchers in baseball history and one of its most tragic tales, died on Wednesday, it was confirmed by the Houston Astros. He was 71.

The ESPN NFL booth just got a little more interesting this year.

While we’ve all been distracted by watching Olympians from around the world set new records on the athletic field, COVID has been setting some records of its own.

There is no escape from Cody.

A 75-year-old Florida man has a garbage opinion about the U.S. women’s soccer team that he emailed to a bunch of like-minded reactionary dopes on Thursday morning, something that wouldn’t be notable at all if this fellow with a festering dumpster of manure where his brain should be didn’t happen to have been President…Read more...

After the semifinals of the men’s 110-meter hurdles in Tokyo, eventual silver medalist Grant Holloway talked in an NBC interview about the challenge of sitting around the Olympic Village, waiting for what seemed like an eternity for his chance to take his spot on the grandest stage in athletics.