Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Former No. 1 and four-time Grand Slam winner Kim Clijsters of Belgium has announced that she’s planning a return to tennis next year. In an extended interview with the WTA’s Courtney Nguyen, the 36-year-old mother of three, who retired in 2012, said she wants a “challenge.”Read more...

The home run that made baseball history was pretty workaday, as they go. Sure, it was a big moment in the game, breaking a seventh-inning tie to give the Orioles a 5-2 lead over the Dodgers. But this game didn’t really matter to either team, and Jonathan Villar’s homer—the 6,106th homer hit in MLB this season,…Read more...

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There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to enjoy the color purple. Among them, I look quite fetching in purple shirts, which is no small matter. It’s a lovely color. If I tell you that Dwight Howard enjoys the color purple, right away you are going to assume that it’s for a dumb and bad reason. Which might seem…Read more...

Explosive news out of the world of horse racing today: Justify, the colt that ruined the mystique of one of sports’ all-time legendary feats last summer, reportedly tested positive for a performance enhancing substance in the weeks ahead of the Kentucky Derby. Under the rules in place at the time, Justify normally…Read more...

Oftentimes, the worst examples of society’s despicable penchant for immediately blaming and/or discrediting women who report being victims of sexual assault are relegated to anonymous, obscure social media posters and website commenters. Other times, the dumbfucks embodying the trend are people with real names and…Read more...

Kobe Bryant, when not sloppily cosplaying Michael Jordan, has been sharing occasional updates on his Mambas youth team. Two days ago, the retired Laker congratulated the girls after they beat an opponent by 88 points. Yesterday, he shared an image of a fourth-place trophy they received two years ago, noting that the…Read more...

Right, right, right: It came against a crummy opponent whose ineptitude no doubt made things far easier than they had to be, and it was only Week 1. But in terms of personnel, play design, and execution, the Cowboys on Sunday showed they’re capable of being as forward-thinking and efficient as any offense in the NFL.Read more...

Behold this potato of a man. That’s 49-year-old Shane McMahon, son of WWE chairman Vince McMahon and also somehow an “active wrestling competitor” on SmackDown. The phrase is in quotes because Shane McMahon is not so much a wrestler as he is the beneficiary of a concoction of nostalgia and nepotism heretofore unseen…Read more...

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Having been surprised and inspired by Comrade Burneko’s scolding paean to the virtues of minor league baseball (namely, that it’s fun and people you don’t hang out with seem to like it so it deserves its continued existence based solely on that fact), I decided to avert my eyes from the smoldering ruins of Antonio…Read more...

In his first at-bat in an eventual Brewers win against the Marlins on Tuesday night, reigning NL MVP and 2019 MVP frontrunner Christian Yelich fouled a pitch off his right knee and fell to the ground in what looked like excruciating pain. The Brewers right fielder left the game, and not long after, the team broke the…Read more...

Although the Olympics are known more physical competitive pursuits like gymnastics and swimming, the organization has been inching closer and closer to the world of esports over the last few years. Its latest toe dip into the water comes in the form of a $500,000 gaming tournament hosted with Intel, held during the…Read more...

There are two versions of President Donald Trump that appear in public. They both inhabit the same body—the same Youppi-shaped torso pitched forward at the same implausible angles, same ghost-pale eyelids fluttering alarmingly, same resplendent candyfloss Kangol of hair stuck on top of it like a weird hat—but don’t…Read more...

Eighteen years ago this morning I awoke to shouts from the hall of my dorm. “We’re going to war! We’re going to war!” The origin of the shouting was my neighbor Brian, known for his histrionics, so I went back to sleep. But soon after, I received a call from my high school quarterback, Justin, living in New York and…Read more...

Pour one out for poor Eric Smith, whom the Cleveland Browns banned for life from their stadium for dumping beer on visiting Tennessee Titans players this past Sunday—even though he was nowhere near the stadium at the time. Just be careful not to get any on anybody, or the Browns will have some random sucker’s legs…Read more...

The only thing former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger likes to talk about more than the philosophical implications of life as a soccer manager is all the players he claims he narrowly missed out on signing. The latest addition to this nearly infinite list of Almost Gunners is former Manchester City academy prospect and…Read more...

Many people who visit Beijing take special pleasure in doing a thing they often do, but on the Great Wall. Shotgunning a beer on the Great Wall. Lighting a cigar on the Great Wall. Making a sandwich and then eating it on the Great Wall. I have personally seen a used condom on the Great Wall.

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The Rockies stink, but their star third baseman, Nolan Arenado, does not. Last night, he reminded everyone just how good he is by crushing a 482-foot homer that one-hopped its way out of the stadium:

Team USA had a seven-point lead over France with just under eight minutes to play in today’s FIBA World Cup quarterfinal game. From that point on, France went on a 22-5 run and advanced to the tournament semi-finals while leaving Team USA behind to make a new life for themselves in the trash.

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Of course, there’s the very sweet and good genre of fan-athlete interaction: kids meeting their heroes and melting down for lack of ability to regulate emotions. But there’s also the equally enjoyable, if perversely so, category of athletes dunking mercilessly on children.

Seth Dunlap is the host of weeknight sports show The Last Lap With Seth Dunlap on talk radio station WWL-AM, the radio home of the LSU Tigers and the New Orleans Saints. Last week, he wrote an open Facebook letter to Saints QB Drew Brees, discussing Brees’s video for Focus on the Family and subsequent public statementsRead more...

The woeful Pittsburgh Pirates fined relievers Kyle Crick and Felipe Vázquez for their roles in a locker room altercation prior to the team’s game against the Giants Monday night. Worse and dumber than that, the altercation led to an injury to Crick’s throwing hand, requiring surgery, and he is done for the year.Read more...

Well, this blows. The Milwaukee Brewers are very much in the hunt for the second National League Wild Card spot, trailing the Cubs by just a game and a half. But their pursuit from this point on will no longer include the services of reigning NL MVP Christian Yelich, who has been ruled out for the remainder of the…Read more...

Antonio Brown’s former trainer Britney Taylor is suing the wide receiver, accusing Brown of sexually assaulting her on three separate occasions—twice in June 2017 and again in May 2018.Read more...

You would think that robbing a home run at the wall comes down to getting a good jump, timing your leap, and having the insane hand-eye coordination to rip the ball out of the sky with your off hand, while crashing into a padded wall. Turns out that’s only most of it. As Ronald Acuña Jr. learned in a painful lesson…Read more...

The NBA 2K series has, for years now, been an excellent basketball game beset on all sides by predatory microtransaction practices. If you’re looking for a 2019 update on this eternal struggle, know that the core of NBA 2K20 is still rotten, it’s just not (from what I’ve played so far) quite as rotten as it’s been the…Read more...

Fans at Hong Kong Stadium turned their backs on the Chinese national anthem prior to a World Cup qualifying match against Iran on Tuesday, bringing the long-running pro-democracy protests to the sporting world, per the Associated Press. The fans not only turned their backs, but also held up signs with the word “Boo”…Read more...

Quarterback Nick Foles fractured his clavicle in the Jacksonville Jaguars’ first game of the season, and his injury meant the door was wide open for rookie Gardner Minshew to strut right through it, because Gardner Minshew looks like a guy who struts, or at least saunters.

J.R. Moehringer has a rich profile of Kevin Durant, in the middle of his Achilles rehab, up at the Wall Street Journal today. The new Brooklyn Net drains deep threes in a swimming pool, explains the decay of his relationship with Oklahoma City, details the purported offensive limitations of the Golden State Warriors,…Read more...

FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s math blog, published an article by Travis Sawchik yesterday under the headline “Do We Even Need Minor League Baseball?” In the piece, Sawchik argues that advancements in technology and data analysis have made both the discernment of genuine major-league baseball talent and the off-field…Read more...

Today, we’re talking about why baseball has no left-handed shortstops, flossing, Worcestershire sauce, toenails for teeth, and more.

A talented 17-year-old swimmer at Anchorage’s Dimond High School in Alaska was disqualified after winning the 100m freestyle event on Friday night because the referee overseeing the swim meet said she had violated “uniform regulations.” The teen’s one-piece swimsuit had reportedly bunched up and was showing her…Read more...

One good thing about the New York Mets, which is only good if you do not care about the team or its success, is that they always do just what the Mets are going to do. This does not necessarily mean Disappoint The Faithful or Screw Up Preposterously, either. That’s absolutely part of it, but there are subtler tasting…Read more...

Sahar Khodayari, a 30-year-old Iranian woman, has died after she self-immolated outside of a courtroom where she was being tried for attempting to enter a soccer match disguised as a man. Khodayari was arrested in March as she tried to attend a match featuring her favorite team, Esteghlal. She was facing up to six…Read more...

My only experience with professional wrestling is in the twelfth grade, when I had a crush on a football player who happened to really like the Rock. Because of my target’s passion, I engaged in the ultimately unrewarding activity of pretending to be into something for the interest of a man. I watched a wrestling…Read more...

When Texans QB Deshaun Watson got the ball down six with zero timeouts and 50 seconds remaining on Monday night against the Saints, it looked like he was entering an impossible situation. Since scoring a touchdown on their first drive of the second half, the Houston offense had been completely ineffective—turning the…Read more...

Sixers forward Mike Scott had a typical Philadelphia sports Sunday this week: He went to an Eagles tailgate, got into a fistfight, then brushed himself off and attended the game—a plot so hacky it’s straight out of the movie they made about Philly sports degenerates, Silver Linings Playbook. Mike Scott got the full…Read more...

Like many aces who have come before him, Noah Syndergaard prefers throwing to some catchers more than others. In Syndergaard’s case, he actually has two catchers that he likes more than Mets starter Wilson Ramos. When Syndergaard pitches to back-ups Tomas Nido and Rene Rivera, which he has done in 11 starts, he has a…Read more...

“Juiced” feels like the wrong word to describe what’s going on with the baseballs currently being put in play and mashed over fences in MLB. Not because what it’s describing isn’t real—it’s real all right—but because it makes it seem like the balls themselves have been injected with some kind of home run serum, when…Read more...

Breathe, we’ve almost made it. We’re two days from NHL players taking the ice at training camp; less than a week from the first preseason games; less than a month from the start of the regular season; and just about nine months from Kaapo Kakko winning the Calder Trophy.

I swear that headline up there is not the result of late night Mad Libs. Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson was on Fox News with conservative shithead Laura Ingraham Monday to discuss a recent article by Jemele Hill. It became clear almost immediately that Watson was expected to share Ingraham’s sneering contempt for…Read more...

The California State Assembly on Monday passed a bill that would allow college athletes to sign endorsement deals. SB 206, the Fair Pay To Play Act, cleared the Assembly by a vote of 72-0. A version of the bill passed the Senate by a similarly decisive vote in May.

Rookie Raiders safety Johnathan Abram made a number of noisy and violent hits Monday night. Late in the third quarter, with his team up 14–3, Abram drew a 15-yard penalty for lowering his head to initiate contact on a tackle of Broncos running back Royce Freeman, who was slowed up on the sideline by a sprawling…Read more...

Monday night’s Texans-Saints game ended with two incredible late drives and a dramatic walk-off 58-yard field goal to put the home team over the top, 30–28. However you feel about the Saints and their fans, one positive takeaway from their victory is it managed to wipe out a pretty significant refereeing error in the…Read more...

Hmm. Here is what I know to be true:

For reasons passing understanding, ESPN’s Monday Night Football presentation uses a sickly greenish-yellow color for the graphic showing the down and distance. It’s a big highlighter-yellow block on the bottom right of the screen, and it’s ugly, and I hate it. On top of being ugly, it looks like a penalty flag has…Read more...

Just when you thought Madden glitch season was over, here’s another entry sure to astound and amaze. A fumble after the catch turned into ... well, I’m not really sure what the hell happened.Read more...