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With the caveat that no one knows anything about how this will turn out in the long term, it’s fair to say that the Phoenix Suns had a strange 2019 NBA Draft. They dropped in the rejiggered draft lottery to land with the sixth pick, then dropped another five spots Thursday night via a genuinely head-scratching trade…Read more...

This has happened to the Cardinals before, albeit on a much bigger stage. St. Louis was down 7-6 in the bottom of the 11th inning, with two outs and pinch-runner Jack Flaherty on second base, when Marlins reliever Sergio Romo whipped around for a game-ending pickoff, to the dismay of the home crowd.Read more...

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This young T-baller identified as Abelardo served up a mighty hit, circled around to find a target, and flung his bat directly toward the cameraman, briefly staring him down before trotting off to first base. Max Muncy could maybe learn a thing or two from him.Read more...

After 36 group stage matches, and seemingly triple that number of VAR headaches, the Women’s World Cup is getting into the good shit. Gone are the eight teams unworthy of continuing on, while the 16 best remaining sides prepare for a four-round elimination chaos pit. The survivor of that churn will be the eighth…Read more...

Stefanos Tsitsipas, tennis’s vlog prince, has done plenty to be proud of in the last year, with wins over Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer on hard court, a victory over Rafael Nadal on clay, and a current No. 6 ranking in the world. The breakout is nearly complete, and there is little else to wait for except his face…Read more...

Kawhi Leonard is the prize of this summer’s NBA free agency bonanza, and the reigning Finals MVP will be courted by a bevy of teams starting July 1, all of whom will do all they can to prostrate themselves as his feet. When we checked in with Leonard yesterday, he was making a run on cardboard boxes to pack up his…Read more...

The Washington Nationals finished off a weather-shortened three-game series sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday night. The Phillies are in a bit of a swoon, having lost eight of their last 13 games. That stretch isn’t so arbitrary as it might seem—Andrew McCutchen succumbed to a season-ending knee injury 14…Read more...

One could mount an argument that the United States’ long-term interests at this here World Cup would have been better served had they thrown their group-stage finale against Sweden yesterday and given themselves an easier path to the final. Let your opponents win Group F and let them deal with the French in the…Read more...

When the Giants and Dodgers met earlier this month in San Francisco, the final game of the series was a 1-0 Los Angeles win where infielder Max Muncy irritated Madison Bumgarner by cracking a solo shot deep into the bay. As Muncy rounded the bases, Madison acted like a mad bum, telling the Dodgers hitter to “fucking…Read more...

Any Major League Baseball franchise setting out to hire a pitching coach over 80 years of age would do well to get Phil Regan. He has had a distinguished and improbably eventful life in baseball, and a very long one. Regan’s first big-league manager, in 1960, was Jimmy Dykes, another lifer who made his debut when the…Read more...

A Converse sale, Japanese sunscreen, Audio-Technica turntables, and Home Depot security cameras lead off Friday’s best deals.

Now that the mock drafts are dead, the fashion show is done, all the crying parents have come and gone and Woj and Shams are back in the holster for a few hours, let us see what Postseason Advent has wrought:Read more...

With one out in the top of the second inning of yesterday’s Reds-Brewers game, Cincinnati’s Jesse Winker smoked a loopy Jimmy Nelson breaking ball on a hard line past center fielder Lorenzo Cain and all the way to the wall. It was a double, easily. Was it a triple? Only for a madman. A madman like Jesse Winker!Read more...

As this video of undrafted Fred VanVleet that made the rounds last night showed, there are at least some NBA draft parties that fizzle out before anyone can enjoy the ecstatic release they all came for, and it looked like Tennessee standout Jordan Bone’s party was headed that way as the draft wound down on Thursday…Read more...

Extremely fun one-and-done Oregon prospect Bol Bol showed up to Thursday night’s NBA draft decked out in a black suit featuring a garish sequined spider web on the left shoulder, smiling and optimistic and looking forward to being drafted somewhere in the lottery. His night ended with him gloomily trudging to the…Read more...

The Boston Celtics used the 22nd pick in the first round of Thursday night’s NBA draft to select first-team All-American Grant Williams from Tennessee. Williams is a skilled, undersized forward and the son of a NASA safety engineer. I mention his parentage because being privy to mom’s insider knowledge of space and…Read more...

The Washington Wizards selected Gonzaga big man Rui Hachimura with the No. 9 pick in NBA Draft. The pick was a bit of a surprise given that there hadn’t been any reports of any connections between that franchise and their eventual draftee. As it turns out, that surprise extended all the way to the player as well.

The saddest teams in the NBA have gone ahead and taken prospects they hope can lead their franchise into next year’s tank when they race for whoever 2020's best college player will be. Here are the lottery picks of 2019.Read more...

The Knicks got their man with the third* pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, selecting Duke one-and-done prospect R.J. Barrett. Knicks fans in the crowd went nuts as soon as the pick was announced, signaling their approval in no uncertain terms. Barrett, a Canadian, is a slick wing with diverse skills and a tantalizing bag…Read more...

With the first pick in the NBA Draft, ESPN draft analyst Chauncey Billups selected one of the worst possible approaches to complimenting a player’s character, after Zion Williamson had finished taking his ceremonial photo with commissioner Adam Silver and was making his way over to ESPN’s Maria Taylor for his first…Read more...

The 2019 NBA Draft is almost underway and, in a surprise to absolutely no one, Darren Rovell is in attendance talking about the only thing that matters to him: the brands. With this access, he approached the guaranteed first-overall pick of the draft in Zion Williamson and asked him when the shoe deal was coming—the…Read more...

The trade that sent Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Los Angeles Lakers was a good one. The Lakers got a superstar to pair with LeBron James, and the Pelicans got a hefty package of young players and draft picks to put toward rebuilding their roster. One of the top assets to change hands in the deal…Read more...

Twitter user Malinda has done excellent work curating a delightfully ill-advised collection of nearly identical tweets sent from the accounts of men’s pro sports teams, all of which attempted to express support for the USWNT while also making sure that nobody is in danger of forgetting that dudes play sports, too.Read more...

This afternoon, ESPN basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale praised the New Orleans Pelicans for flipping the fourth pick in the NBA Draft for Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner. The alleged trade also somehow involved the Atlanta Hawks, who have the 10th pick.

The NFL’s competition committee issued its recommendations for how instant replay for pass interference will work, based on the rule that had been approved in March. On one hand, some relatively prudent judgement has been ironed into the standards the league will use to review and overturn pass interference calls and…Read more...

The Finals are all wrapped up. Kawhi Leonard spent a postseason making his case as the best player in the universe, and now his contractual duties in Toronto are complete. The draft is almost over with, too, and with it all the mind-numbing long-term speculation about various teenagers, which means we’re free to…Read more...

It’s truly a crime that we missed out on 90 minutes of Tobin Heath in the U.S.’s last game against Chile, but today against Sweden, the magical American winger came back with a vengeance. In the 50th minute, Heath’s deadly feet took on an overmatched opponent in Sweden defender Jonna Andersson and orchestrated an own…Read more...

Remembering past failures can be useful as motivation, but at this point Bears head coach Matt Nagy needs to move on, because it’s getting unhealthy. Ever since Chicago lost on a double-doink in the playoffs, Nagy’s made sure that his players remember how they lost on the flukiest of plays.

Facing elimination from the Women’s World Cup and desperately searching for a late goal to push them through to the knockout rounds, Cameroon countered a late New Zealand throw-in with a burst forward toward the Football Ferns’ net in the 95th minute. It was Cameroon’s goal, but most of the credit should go to…Read more...

The Los Angeles Lakers are going to enter next season with a roster of extremes. On one hand, LeBron James and Anthony Davis seem like the league’s most seamless pick-and-roll partnership. On the other, the team seems determined to add a third maximum salary player to its books, which will inherently require the…Read more...

Given all of the problems with the Rays—and there are many—dire situations call for nontraditional thinking. Like hanging out with your friends and smoking a ton of weed and wondering aloud Dude. What if a team could play in two cities? That is probably not how this proposed solution to the Rays’ attendance woes came…Read more...

All the bars that can open their windows have opened them, and the other ones have shut them tight and dialed up the air conditioning. The air is dense and soupy; just walking down the street feels like wading out into a very still body of saltwater. The sports schedule, give or take the end of the women’s World Cup,…Read more...

Ideally, this would be a story about the best saves of the group stage from the group stage of the 2019 World Cup. The field for this eighth run of the women’s tournament is deeper and more talented than ever, and there have already been a number of highlight-worthy stops to match. I would love to use this space to do …Read more...

Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN’s most prolific and trusted NBA reporter, is now a brand bot for a company that is partnered with the league he is, in theory, supposed to be covering aggressively and adversarially.

In the photos, Robert Kraft looks every part the billionaire—well-tailored suit, shock of white hair, deep tan, big grin. One of the most powerful men in American football has been seen in recent photos living the glamorous life at the West Hollywood launch party for rocker Jon Bon Jovi and son Jesse’s “premium Rosé,Read more...

Mexico’s men’s national team is one of the best in the world. How you define “one of the best” is up to your interpretation, but they are the best team in CONCACAF, the 18th best in the world according to FIFA’s rankings, and always a good bet to play at least four games at every World Cup, even if they have Germany…Read more...

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Gizmodo Everything We Know About the U.S. Spy Drone Shot Down By Iran’s Revolutionary Guard | Kotaku It’s Hard For Japan To Change Its Escalator Manners | Jalopnik NASCAR Driver Wrecks Another Under Caution, Basically Gets Free Weekend Off | Lifehacker How to Find a More Ethical Zoo | The Takeout What’s the saddest…Read more...

Vanderbilt beat Mississippi State 6-3 on Wednesday to advance to the semifinals of the College World Series, and they pulled off their second win in Omaha despite The Man’s best efforts to keep a crucial person from making an impact: 72-year-old Preacher Franklin.Read more...

A minor league baseball game between Norfolk and Scranton Wilkes-Barre went into the bottom of the 10th inning with Norfolk leading 6-5. With the tying run at second, Scranton’s Breyvic Valera hit a ball down the right field line that looked destined to tie the game and put Valera on second with a stand-up double.…Read more...

An exclusive deal on Japanese chef’s knives, a Roav dash cam, Amazon activewear, and a Kindle Oasis discount lead off a Thursday’s best deals.Read more...

I’ve historically not been a fan of the NHL Awards being held after the season, rather than before the playoffs. I don’t care, by this point, who won what—the debates have long since cooled, and the regular season feels like something from the distant past— by now we’re already thinking about the draft and free agency…Read more...

Tickets to The Masters, held annually at Augusta National in Georgia, are notoriously difficult to come by, and prices on the secondary market are generally preposterous. Four members of one Texas family apparently seized on the arbitrage opportunities presented by this situation in order to make quite a lot of money…Read more...

Police want to charge Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri with a crime for allegedly concussing an Alameda County Sheriff’s Office deputy with a two-fisted shove in the aftermath of Toronto’s Finals-clinching Game 6 win in Oakland. Soon the department is expected to file a report with the…Read more...

A longtime and prominent track coach and former Olympian was arrested in Los Angeles on Wednesday and charged with one felony count of sexual battery by fraud for allegedly molesting one of his former athletes. The arrest reportedly comes as the result of an Outside The Lines investigation that detailed allegations…Read more...

In an unsurprising yet still kind of melancholy move, the Anaheim Ducks have bought out the last two years of Corey Perry’s pricey contract, making him an unrestricted free agent for the offseason. Perry, the 34-year-old winger, played his whole 14-year career with Anaheim, and he leaves the franchise as one of its …Read more...

The rain-delayed NASCAR Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway on Sunday was kind of a mess, in that the driver who crossed the finish line first didn’t win and that one driver in the field, Johnny Sauter, got so mad at another that he wrecked him under caution. That’s a big no-no in NASCAR, and the sanctioning body is…Read more...

Tuesday afternoon Max Scherzer broke his nose during batting practice, while working on his bunting. Among the many reasons this was unfortunate is poor timing: Scherzer was scheduled to pitch Wednesday evening, in the second game of a day-night doubleheader. The Nationals brought a pitcher up from Triple-A Fresno,…Read more...

Dominican Republic Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez announced new findings Wednesday afternoon in the non-fatal shooting of Red Sox all-timer David Ortiz last month in Santo Domingo. The story, to this point, has already been fairly surprising, involving somewhere around ten co-conspirators, a “mastermind,” and a…Read more...