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The start of Christian Pulisic’s first Premier League season is just 10 days away, though the former Wonderteen has only spent a few weeks with Chelsea after the USMNT lost the Gold Cup final. Has he had time to get up to speed and prepare for a grueling campaign? With the obvious caveat that preseason friendly…Read more...

Justin Verlander’s still got it. The 36-year-old Houston Astros starter flexed his muscles once again on Tuesday night, striking out 13 Cleveland Indians over seven innings of scoreless two-hit ball as his team picked up its 10th win in the past 12 games. It was the Astros’ fourth straight win with Verlander on the…Read more...

Attention all baseball men! Have you been outside? It is thousands of degrees outside and somehow even more humid. Terrible! It is almost August. And so I say to you: it is time to stop wearing these ridiculous t-shirts under your jerseys.Read more...

Deadspin is currently in the process of reporting a story on its owners, an exercise that we’ve done in the past to varying degrees. In a total coincidence, the folks in charge have started pushing for a “public editor” to ensure that all future articles that may include reporting on ourselves would be “objective.”…Read more...

Some people are fans of the Detroit Lions. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Detroit Lions. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

The footage is dark, but the figure is large and fleshy enough to rule out the possibility that it is anyone but Nuggets center Nikola Jokić.Read more...

The NFL’s current collective bargaining agreement has largely made training camp holdouts a thing of the past. By codifying significant daily fines, docking a regular-season game check for each preseason game missed, and placing limitations on the accrual of service time toward free agency, this CBA has mostly made…Read more...

An HP Gaming Computers and Redragon Accessory Gold Box, a printer that is actually good, and Star Wars: The Complete Saga lead off Wednesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

Turkish side Fenerbahce took on German giants Bayern Munich in a preseason friendly yesterday. Things did not go well for the Fenerbahce players, who were dominated throughout the game and lost 6-1. That performance earned them plenty of boos from the home fans, which were enough to drive team captain Nabil Dirar to…Read more...

The Trevor Bauer trade was at least a little overshadowed, because within minutes of the news breaking, one of its major pieces was involved in a big ol’ brawl. Understandable, but it really is a fascinating trade that confounded expectations and may have made the Indians—ostensible sellers here—an even better team…Read more...

Star Wars: The Complete Saga | $58 | Amazon

Literally as I was hitting publish on a blog about Trevor Bauer being fined for a meltdown, and how it might’ve been his final act as a member of the Cleveland Indians, Bauer was traded by the Cleveland Indians. I did that! Sadly, Bauer was not traded to the New York Mets. Even more sadly, he was traded to a team even…Read more...

Trevor Bauer was fined by Major League Baseball Tuesday for his tantrum on the mound Sunday, when Bauer chucked the ball over the wall in center at the end of a brutal outing against the Kansas City Royals. Bauer apologized for the meltdown after the game, but MLB apparently still felt he needed to be taught a lesson. …Read more...

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have effectively neutralized an onslaught of attacks from their Democratic competitors all night. This has been entirely facilitated by the feckless CNN moderating team, who seem to be doing as much as possible to represent bad-faith Republican talking points as well as possible,…Read more...

It’s easy to forget that there are two AAA basketball games on the market, so complete is 2K’s dominance of the scene, but EA Sports just keep plugging away with their NBA games. Some get released to little fanfare, others get cancelled at the last minute and some, like this year’s game, get delayed before they’re…Read more...

Brooke Holden had all but given up on breaking into the video game business.

Disgraced former Michigan State president Lou Anna Simon will retire from the university at the end of August, according to a report from MSU Today. It’s been a long and ignominious slide for Simon, whose 15-year tenure as president at MSU was marked by a “culture of indifference and institutional protection” that…Read more...

When Nathan Peterman finished his tour of pain with the Buffalo Bills last November, he wasn’t sent to football prison, even though that clearly would’ve been the right decision. Peterman earned a second chance with the only team that would make sense for him to give him one. (“Sense” is used lightly here.) Raiders…Read more...

South African runner Caster Semenya won’t be allowed to compete in her primary event, the 800 meters, two months from now at the 2019 World Championships, because a Swiss court has reversed the June ruling that temporarily suspended the IAAF’s discriminatory hormone policy.Read more...

According to a report from the Equalizer, USWNT manager Jill Ellis will not return to coach the two-time defending World Cup champions for any more competitive games. Ellis’s contract expires on Wednesday, July 31, and though she and the U.S. Soccer Federation had a mutual option to extend it through the Tokyo…Read more...

Today, we’re talking about coal, laundry, price points, cups, and more.

The good news is that the Minnesota Wild were not too stupid or too stubborn to cut their losses, firing Paul Fenton after just a single season as GM. The bad news is that in that limited time he managed to worsen the roster, shit up the front office, and make moves that will hamstring the team for years and years…Read more...

Back in the summer of 2000, a 15-year-old LeBron James, playing for an AAU team in Oakland, rolled through his pregame layup line with a double-scoop ice cream cone in hand. It was apparently very funny. It’s the summer of 2019 and LeBron James is still enjoying himself in the AAU layup lines—lately, by yamming…Read more...

Some people are fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Last night, U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro dropped a letter and accompanying fact sheet supporting a claim that his federation invests more heavily in women’s soccer than men’s. Immediately afterwards, the USWNT called bullshit on Cordeiro’s selective numbers and creative accounting, and today the USMNT…Read more...

There’s nothing a hitter wants to see less than a fastball screaming towards his jaw, but such a sight doesn’t always mean disaster is in store. Sometimes the ball just wants to give you a lil’ kiss!Read more...

A First Alert Gold Box, a Kohler bidet, ThermoWorks probe, and a Levi’s sale lead off Tuesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

Alex Lebedev, a successful college tennis player at Notre Dame, is now working his way into the pro ranks by competing in ITF and ATP Challenger events. This week the 22-year-old was attempting to qualify for the Challenger in Lexington, Kentucky, which broiled at a high of 89 degrees on Monday. It feels even hotter…Read more...

Police in Brazil have closed their investigation into the rape allegation against Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar, and recommend that prosecutors not bring charges against him due to a lack of evidence. The prosecutor’s office will have 15 days to “evaluate the case,” according to the AFP.

The people who filled Queens, New York’s Arthur Ashe tennis stadium for this weekend’s Fortnite World Cup were people who love Fortnite, or at least those people and their parents. The bulk of the attendees I saw were young kids, swimming in soccer shorts and baggy Fortnite t-shirts. They performed the game’s emote…Read more...

Marcus Stroman seems cool with it now. The pitcher, acquired by the Mets on Sunday in a shock trade with Toronto, tweeted out an old photo of himself as a small child wearing a Mets jacket, saying “some things were meant to be.” He comes across as genuinely excited to be a Met, and—not for nothing—no longer a Blue…Read more...

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U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro released a letter and accompanying fact sheet Monday evening intended to demonstrate that his federation invests more heavily in women’s soccer than it does in men’s. The purpose here is to refute the notion that men’s national team members are paid more than their counterparts on…Read more...

Tyreek Hill spoke to assembled media Sunday at Chiefs training camp, his first public comments in several months. The criminal investigation into Crystal Espinal’s allegation that Hill broke his son’s arm is inactive; the NFL’s parallel investigation could not determine whether Hill had violated the league’s personal…Read more...

For a team that’s stuck on the fence between selling and buying ahead of the trade deadline, a discouraging showing against a bottom-feeder is maybe all the nudge you need to trade everyone away and start over. That’s the sad position the Arizona Diamondbacks face Monday night after the crummy Marlins and their…Read more...

Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores sure didn’t need long to determine he’d put the wrong man in charge of coaching his offensive line. Pat Flaherty had the job for less than six months—he was hired by Flores on February 8, and he was fired Monday, after just four training camp practices.Read more...

It’s strangely a bit reassuring to know that, no matter where you work, there will always be somebody who doesn’t understand or refuses to honor the basics of conference call etiquette. Whether it’s a distracting echo or the clack clack of keys typing or the slightly more adorable sound of a cat meowing in the…Read more...

What the fresh hell’s going on here?Read more...

For the past two years, Madden games have included story modes about a fictional up-and-coming NFL quarterback named Devin Wade. In Madden 20, you can still play a single-player story about a would-be quarterback, but this time you design him yourself, from his facial features to his strengths on the field. It’s a fun…Read more...

Longtime UFC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg has been one of the most dominant fighters in women’s mixed martial arts for well over a decade, winning titles for three different promotions during a 13-year run where she finished 17 of her 20 straight wins. That run ended late last year, when Amanda Nunes knocked her…Read more...

When the St. Louis Blues won their first-ever Stanley Cup back in June, they said “fuck”—and all its variations—a lot. Audible to anyone watching on TV at home was “fuckin-a,” “fuck yeah,” “fuckin’ right,” “holy fuck,” and “let’s fuckin’ go” as the team took turns raising the Cup, until NBC finally cut off their…Read more...

ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro’s purpose has been clear from the start—he is the massager of the balls, there to soothe the company’s corporate interests, the reactionary to predecessor John Skipper. But with employee Dan Le Batard’s honest and true radio rant two weeks ago about how a “stick to sports” philosophy is…Read more...

Some people are fans of the New York Giants. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New York Giants. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Paul Heyman is known today as the advocate for WWE wrestler Brock Lesnar, but about 30 years ago he was Paul E. Dangerously—named, as Heyman says in a WWE DVD, because he looked like Michael Keaton’s character in the 1984 film Johnny Dangerously.Read more...

Journeyman pitcher Mitch Lively started and earned a win in the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s all-star game over the weekend, pitching two innings against the Taiwanese national team. More importantly, he started his second inning of work off with a rather impressive hidden-ball trick.Read more...

Megan Rapinoe isn’t afraid of being mouthy. In an interview with David Marchese for the New York Times Magazine, Rapinoe tries to explain why her saying “I’m not going to the fucking White House” made her into an overnight celebrity. “Rather than being a regular white girl in the 1 percent, I have a totally different…Read more...

Troy Tulowitzki retired last Thursday, bringing an end to one of the more evanescent MLB careers of the 2000s. Tulowitzki made it through 13 seasons as a professional, though he played over 120 games in just seven of those. Various injuries kept him from playing full seasons throughout his career, and their…Read more...

Soccer fans in the U.S. aren’t usually the most rambunctious sort. As one Lionel Messi stan found out during last Friday’s Real Madrid-Atlético Madrid friendly match in New Jersey, though, even American fans will resort to chucking beer and debris at you if properly provoked:

On Sunday, the Mets did two unusual things. If you want to be rude, you can include them sweeping a series from the Pittsburgh Pirates as a third, but the first two are more notable and also let’s be nice. One of those unusual things was that, in a departure from the norm, the team did not use a “Sunday lineup.” If…Read more...

For the past year, I’ve been dipping a mangled toe into the stand-up comedy waters around L.A. It’s hard, but not nearly so nerve-wracking as my very first gig: making fun of Mike Shanahan.