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I’ll be honest. I didn’t expect Philadelphia’s Bryce Harper to win the National League MVP this year. I didn’t think his hot streak would last as long as it did, and I certainly didn’t think Harper’s incredible OPS figure halfway through August would be enough to overcome his home run and RBI numbers.

Welcome. Yes, you’re in the right place. This is a boxing post that’s not about a YouTuber or non-boxers boxing. There’s an actual fight this weekend featuring one of the best pound-for-pound fighters against, well, a good fighter, but that’s not the point. The point is Terence “Bud” Crawford is fighting, and you…Read more...

I had no idea that Tavon Austin was playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Nine years ago he was the most explosive player in college football at West Virginia, and arguably one of the most dynamic players in the history of the sport. At 5-foot-8 and under 180 pounds, he was still the No. 8 overall pick in the 2013 NFL…Read more...

Jay-Z once asked, “Would you rather be underpaid or overrated?” For Black coaches, that option has rarely presented itself, as most times they’re both underpaid and underrated. Mel Tucker and Michigan State are about to change that.Read more...

NBA general managers are circling the wagons.Read more...

In a lot of ways, having the Washington Spirit in the NWSL final is perfect for the league. No matter where the league goes from here, what it becomes, the 2021 season will be viewed as a turning point. While the stories themselves were horrifying, heartbreaking, and infuriating, sunlight is always the best cleanser.…Read more...

New England is one of the biggest surprises of the NFL season. While there was certainly skepticism surrounding rookie QB Mac Jones, most doubters had their sights set on the lack of talent at the Patriots’ offensive skill positions.

(TW: domestic violence, assault)

For almost two years now, we’ve all (well, sensible folk anyway) been worried about a global pandemic. Amid something so widespread like this, other health factors or worries might have gone under the radar as a result. One of these health factors is the safety and hygiene standards in those NFL stadiums we all love…Read more...

The story out of Smyrna, Tenn., on Wednesday night appears to be both rage-inducing and fairly self-explanatory, but there’s a lot more that needs explanation, and a lot of questions that need answering.Read more...

The most fascinating aspect about the Tampa Bay Rays competing and winning in the AL East — Kevin Cash repeated as AL manager of the year, and Randy Arozarena took home rookie of the year honors this week — is how they do it not despite their financial shortfalls but almost with the help of them.

It has been all smiles in Charlotte since Cam Newton signed with the team that drafted him No. 1 overall in 2011. Last week, the Carolina Panthers went on the road and defeated the Arizona Cardinals — who were playing without two of their best, Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins — who have the best record in the NFL.…Read more...

Nothing gets pretty inane arguments going like individual baseball awards. I can’t claim to be above them, but I also have never claimed to be a functioning member of society. To a lot of people, and they aren’t completely wrong to think so, who we give a Cy Young or MVP award to is a statement on what the game of…Read more...

The knuckleball might not be dead, but it’s certainly on life support. There are only two active players who’ve primarily used a knuckleball at the Major League level: Steven Wright, who is currently a free agent and hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2019 and Mickey Jannis, who is also a free agent after making his…Read more...

Don’t make Kelly Stafford angry. If you do then you might find a salted, carb-loaded treat coming your way. A person who attended Monday night’s Los Angeles Rams-San Francisco 49ers matchup at Levi Stadium told TMZ that Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s wife threw a soft pretzel at a fan. The witness said that her…Read more...

Generally, the fall has always been the downtime on the WWE calendar. Before SmackDown on Friday nights became the A-show, WWE was happy to cede the floor to Monday Night Football and let its booking from September through the end of the year get even lazier and more banal than it normally is, which is saying…Read more...

Jerry Dipoto is either stupid or a liar. Probably the latter, but don’t discount the former.

Mullets, mom jeans, the United States Football League — you’d be forgiven for thinking you woke up back in the ’80s this morning. Fox Sports announced its sponsored relaunch of the short-lived league, scheduled for the spring of 2022. With an eight-team, two-conference model, spring football will return in yet another…Read more...

New York Jets Rookie quarterback Zach Wilson has still not recovered from his knee injury, but that doesn’t mean we get another week of the Mike White experience. The Jets instead will be going with a face from their recent past against the Miami Dolphins — 36-year-old Joe Flacco. They traded a sixth round pick (that…Read more...

Welp, that’s it. It’s time to shut down the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Stephen A. Smith is done and never going back after the Nets’ lackluster performance Tuesday night against the Golden State Warriors.

I don’t know how TV critics (like Alan Sepinwall) do their jobs when they’re forced to watch awful shows. How many spinoffs of rich people behaving poorly can you honestly consume before low-brow insults from high-class people lose their effect?

In the euphoria of the US’s latest “Dos a Cero” triumph over Mexico, most US fans probably joked with their friends that they would follow this up with a turgid and flat performance in Jamaica. Joke to mask the pain, because we all suspected it, just at differing levels. Maybe some thought they would still gut out a…Read more...

There’s a lot going on in California. The Golden State Warriors are on fire. Anthony Davis thinks the Lakers “suck.” And the Staples Center will be called the Crypto.com Arena starting on Christmas. Maybe that’s why more people aren’t focused on what’s still happening to Vanessa Bryant.Read more...

What’s the point of owning a sports franchise if you can’t make irresponsible trades, overpay role players, furtively watch from a dimly lit owner’s box or make Roger Goodell eat shit?

Brett Favre is now on the other end of a handoff, as the Office of the State Auditor in Mississippi has given the attorney general’s office the go-ahead to try to get back the nearly quarter of a million dollars that the Hall-of-Fame quarterback owes his home state.

This Canada thing is real. I mean in soccer. I know that Canada is a real country. I’ve even been there once. Unless that was an elaborate hoax that involved constructing the entire city of Montreal for a weekend just to pull the wool over my eyes. In which case, that’s just impressive.

Of course it would be California:

At 31 years old, Iman Shumpert would appear to be too young to be done with an NBA career. He hasn’t officially retired, but he hasn’t been on a roster since 2019. Even though he’s not on the court, he’s still making great use of his time. Shumpert has been acting on Showtime’s The Chi and BET’s Twenties, and he’s…Read more...

There’s a growing trend that’s gained too much momentum lately in arenas around the NBA. Fans chanting “MVP” for any player that gives even a halfway decent performance on a given night. This isn’t meant to discourage fans from chanting, but I’m only asking if we can think of something more suited for each moment. And…Read more...

The Los Angeles Angels had 12 different pitchers hit the IR in 2021 due to non-COVID-related injuries. That number was just six in 2020, but seeing as how the season was only 60 games, you could argue that 2020 was worse for the Angels in the pitcher injury department. In 2019, the Angels had 20 pitchers miss time on…Read more...

The Yankees’ policy on personal appearance has long been worthy of mockery, and mockery it has received, for decades, going back to Don Mattingly’s appearance on The Simpsons, when Montgomery Burns kept telling the first baseman to cut his sideburns.Read more...

That singular focus on greatness, nothing else matters, no price is too steep, and there is always more sweat to be poured into the workspace... it turns out is not healthy. For one, where does an obsession like that even come from? For Giannis Antetokounmpo it came from a place of fear.Read more...

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DeMar DeRozan is taking it personally. The 32-year-old Chicago Bulls forward put up 38 points in a convincing victory against the Lakers last night, after racking up 35 against the Clippers at the Staples Center. The “Bulls are back” whispers are a little more audible these days, as fans ever-so-tentatively allow…Read more...

I’m not sure what’s more obvious: A media outlet taking the NBA to task for a multiyear partnership with the United Arab Emirates, or the inevitable controversy that will come of it. It doesn’t take long to unearth copious amounts of dirt about the UAE’s record and ongoing pursuit of human rights violations toward…Read more...

The NBA has never felt younger and more reliant on up-and-coming stars than it does today. Teams are beginning to utilize the draft more and more. We’ve seen plenty of tank-a-thons by teams in the last five years, and these efforts have panned out to varying degrees. For some, it has materialized into dynamic cores…Read more...

We haven’t exactly entered baseball’s nuclear winter yet. That’s still about two weeks away, with the Dec. 1st deadline of the current CBA expiring and everyone expecting a lockout the next day. While some “connected” writers have claimed that “sources” have told them that negotiations so far are a rocky place where…Read more...

Astros’ shortstop Carlos Correa is one of the biggest names on the 2022 free agent market. The two-time All-Star and former Rookie of the Year is fresh off the first Gold Glove of his career. With several rumors linking Correa to the New York Yankees, it was only a matter of time before comparisons to another Gold…Read more...

NBC Sunday Night Football color analyst Cris Collinsworth stepped out on a limb Monday on Twitter when he willingly offered up his Super Bowl prediction and strongly implied that the Patriots make it back to the big game this year.

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s College Football Playoff rankings day, which means the CFP committee is getting ready to royally screw things up again, because that’s how this works.Read more...

Isn’t this what Uber is for?

A top-ranked tennis player has not been heard from for days since detailing sexual abuse allegations against former Chinese official Zhang Gaoli. Like the social media post that was quickly taken down, Peng Shuai has also vanished.Read more...

Our long national nightmare is over, as we don’t have to hear about the New York Mets’ GM search anymore. After every good candidate either turned the Mets down or threw their phone into the nearest lake, and then every out-of-the-box candidate went full Lou Brown and told Sandy Alderson they had someone on the other…Read more...

Come on A-Rod, for once you’re on everyone’s good side. We’re ignoring the year-long ban from baseball for performance enhancing drugs and not raising any stink about you bringing that stain to America’s pastime when we turn on ESPN and Fox baseball broadcasts. J.Rod was cool while it lasted. We were rooting for you!

I realize that having to contemplate how much Teddy Bridgewater means to your team is just north of dreadful. I understand if Broncos fans don’t really care if he gets hurt or not, feeling that a ship steered by Drew Lock is headed for the sirens’ rocks just as quickly and hamfistedly. But everything about the way the…Read more...

We made it to the 10th week of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks are always front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 10.

Kyle Kuzma is feeling himself a bit with the Washington Wizards’ hot start to the 2021-22 season. The Wizards are surprisingly tied atop the Eastern Conference with the Brooklyn Nets. Falling into a good situation after being traded from the Los Angeles Lakers, Kuzma was not in the mood to take any guff from hecklers…Read more...

If you don’t live on the West Coast or just have not paid much attention, the Seattle Seahawks look to be falling apart at the seams. DK Metcalf’s ejection from Sunday’s 17-0 loss to the Green Bay Packers may sum up the season for Seattle. Maybe Metcalf was confused after being ejected. Or maybe he just tried to pull…Read more...

Because I know how hardcore AEW fans get, and I’m one of them, let me get this out of the way at the top. I do not think Saturday night’s Full Gear PPV was bad. Far from it. It was good. Maybe even very good. And any show that ends with the culmination of the two-year Hangman Page storyline is by definition cathartic.…Read more...

Hollywood’s newest release will premiere tonight at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. — the post-trade deadline Los Angeles Rams. They dealt for former All-Pro Denver Broncos pass rusher Von Miller, who did not play in their loss to the Tennessee Titans immediately following the deadline, and the following week they…Read more...