Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

John Urschel spent three seasons as an offensive lineman for the Ravens. He’s also a candidate for a Ph.D. in mathematics at MIT—a pursuit he began in 2016, during his final season in the NFL. He’s also written a book, Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football, that’s being released today by Penguin Random House.Read more...

In tonight’s draft lottery the Knicks have a 14 percent chance of obtaining the first pick and Zion Williamson. They were the worst team in the NBA, but this year, odds have been flattened out at the top of the lottery to disincentivize tanking. So the three worst teams all enjoy a 14 percent chance at the No. 1 pick.…Read more...

Most relief pitchers good enough to last eight seasons in the Major Leagues will have careers that look roughly as bizarre as Cory Gearrin’s. Some of those relievers are closers or setup aces or multi-inning firemen types, and they’ll have a more linear lot and make more money, but for the ones living a tranche…Read more...

Turkish NBA fans hoping to catch the Western Conference Finals won’t be able to do so on network TV. According to the schedule for the NBA’s official broadcaster in Turkey, the network S Sport will only carry the Eastern Conference Finals after previously showing nearly every other playoff series thus far. Today a rep…Read more...

Today, we’re talking about J.R.R. Tolkien, OK symbols, plastic knives, beer cans, and more.

Just days before Palermo were set to play in the Italian second division promotion playoffs with a spot in Serie A hanging in the balance, the Italian soccer authorities hit the Sicilian club with a relegation penalty that will send them into the third division next season. The authorities handed down this automatic…Read more...

Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias was arrested Monday around 9:30 p.m. local time by the Los Angeles Police Department after witnesses reportedly saw him shoving a woman to the ground.Read more...

The final game of the soccer season is often the time for players and club staff to enjoy the culmination of the long season by mingling with each other and their families out on the pitch, making it prime time for cute sports baby hijinks. Tottenham forward Son Heung-min may be unmarried and childless, but he used…Read more...

Leave a pitch in one of Freddie Freeman’s hot zones, and you’ll regret it. The Braves first baseman’s own son learned that lesson the hard way. Locate those strikes, kid.

Is a ballpark a place to watch baseball, a theme park, a microcosm of its city, or something else entirely? It’s an open question that stretches back to the late 19th century, when enclosed ballparks, flanked by cheaply constructed wooden bleachers, began the gradual evolution of ballpark construction that reaches to…Read more...

Celtics guard Terry Rozier was on this morning’s episode of Get Up, and was asked during a one-on-one interview what it’s like to play with Kyrie Irving, the Celtics’ mercurial star who spent most of this season doing everything in his power alienate himself from his teammates. Rozier immediately answered the question…Read more...

Since Major League Baseball’s players shut down the 1994 season with a work stoppage, only 13 teams have won a World Series. The Marlins have done it twice, with radically different teams, in 1997 and 2003. They’ve not been a factor in the National League East since the last of those wins, and never finished above…Read more...

A 65" 4K Vizio TV, Amazon Fire TV sale, and a Gatorade Gold Box lead off Tuesday’s best deals from around the web.

If there’s one game that sums up what’s been a weird season for Bryce Harper, it’s probably last night’s contest between the Phillies and Brewers.Read more...

It’s real, and it’s spectacular.Read more...

Robert Bortuzzo doesn’t score goals. He doesn’t really try to, and he’s not good at it. There’s no more delicate way to put this.

Anker only released its first MFi-certified USB-C to Lightning cables a few weeks ago, but now, they already have a second version out and on sale.

Shohei Ohtani returned to the Angels lineup on May 7, following a lengthy recovery from offseason Tommy John surgery. He has not pitched and will not return to the mound this season, but he’s been back in the middle of the Angels lineup now for six of their last seven games, in time for the Angels to put together a…Read more...

The gigantic contrail dick that graced the skies over Washington state’s Okanogan County in November 2017 was, it has long been known, the work of some number of pilots out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. After all, the Navy immediately apologized for the celestial dong, describing it as “unacceptable” and “of…Read more...

While disgraced horse Maximum Security seeks justice in the courts following his disqualification in the Kentucky Derby for unruly racing, his jockey, a man named Luis Saez, has been suspended by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission for “failure to control his mount and make the proper effort to maintain a straight…Read more...

Having personally brokered peace for all time between the U.S. government and North Korea, basketball Hall of Famer and all-around goof Dennis Rodman spends his time nowadays, among other things, being accused of stealing 400-pound amethyst crystals from Orange County, California yoga studios.Read more...

The Palm Beach County judge overseeing Robert Kraft’s criminal case has said that certain pieces of evidence can be tossed. County Judge Leonard Hanser wrote in his ruling today that video—which police said showed Kraft receiving sex acts he later paid for at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa—can be suppressed because the…Read more...

Let’s check in on the Chicago White Sox:

One Appalachian Trail hiker is dead while another is recovering from several stab wounds after a man attacked a camp in southwestern Virginia with a knife early Saturday morning. Massachusetts resident James Jordan was arrested by Wythe County Sheriff’s Office deputies in the George Washington and Jefferson National…Read more...

In the end, it truly is the hope that kills you. When Sadio Mané scored for Liverpool early on in their game against Wolves, it was the start of a frustrating but ultimately fruitful game. The Reds brought it to the surprise seventh-place finishers, scooped up the goal they needed (and another from Mané in the dying…Read more...

Experienced live, Kawhi Leonard’s Game 7 buzzer-beater was an agonizing bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce. As a still image, all the drama on the floor could be frozen in time. Toronto-based photojournalist Mark Blinch masterfully captured the full spread. This shot appears to have been taken at some point between the…Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.Read more...

He’d won over Federer on fast hard court at a major, and he’d won over Djokovic on slow hard court at a masters. Saturday brought an even thornier test for Stefanos Tsitsipas. The Greek had lost all seven sets he’d previously played against Rafael Nadal, five of them on hard court. The last time they played, a…Read more...

In a few short seconds, the kid defending the hoop in this clip learned a few important lessons about basketball. If you’re going to jump, really jump; if your opponent is palming the ball on you with a full head of steam, know they are trying to expose you; and finally, make sure to be aware of your surroundings,…Read more...

Zafar Iqbar, a doctor on staff at Premier League club Crystal Palace, was taking two of his kids to Palace’s home match against Bournemouth on Sunday when he says a three-year-old child, walking nearby alongside his father, shouted a racist slur at Iqbar and his children.Read more...

Now that we have entered the dog days of the Western Conference playoffs, it is incumbent upon us to find ways to caricature the Portland Trail Blazers to keep up our interest in what most folks fully expect to be a desultory series against the Golden State Warriors.

Tip to tail, UFC 237 was a bummer. Saturday’s event felt sour from the start of the prelims—when former UFC champ B.J. Penn led off the undercard one month after MMA Junkie reported on allegations against Penn of years of physical and sexual abuse—and the evening culminated with Jessica Andrade dethroning Rose…Read more...

After trying and failing to convince Ty Lue to go for another round of LeBron-fueled stress nightmares, the Los Angeles Lakers settled on their new head coach over the weekend: Frank Vogel, and also Jason Kidd.

The Sixers hit their last field goal in the half-court—a long, and-one leaner by J.J. Redick—with 3:29 remaining in Game 7. Then the Raptors put the clamps on. Philly would only even hit the rim one more time, off a heroic Jimmy Butler transition play. As stagnant and deferential as the Raptors have looked…Read more...

When Nashville radio personality Sam Alex interviewed Aaron Rodgers at a party before the Kentucky Derby, he thought Rodgers was just joking around. “We gotta get you into a TV show or movie,” Alex told the Packers QB. “Is that gonna happen?” Rodgers had a quick reply before running away: “Episode five, Game of Thrones…Read more...

Well, we can’t say we’re surprised.Read more...

As Luis Paez-Pumar noted here last Thursday, WWE is currently flailing its way through a ratings panic. Two weeks ago, Monday Night Raw did the lowest non-holiday ratings number in its history, posting an average of 2,158,000 viewers across the three-hour show; hour three was at 1,898,000 viewers. The promotion got…Read more...

Much of my life as a fan of the Philadelphia 76ers has been marked by a series of disappointments and frustrations, and above all else, waiting. As Kawhi Leonard’s ridiculous game-winning jumper rattled around the rim for what seemed like dozens of times before finally dropping through the net on Sunday night, it was…Read more...

The very next paragraph contains a description of the events of “The Bells,” the fifth episode of the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, which aired last night. If you do not want to know what happened in that episode, stop reading now.

Grasshopper Club Zurich are historically the biggest club in Switzerland. But for the first time in 68 years, Grasshoppers were relegated to the second division with this weekend’s loss to Luzern. This didn’t sit well with fans, who communicated their anger quite directly to the players by making their way to the…Read more...

The greatest Premier League title race in history was settled yesterday, with Manchester City edging out Liverpool by a single point. Liverpool lost one game all season, and their 97 points would have made them runaway champions in any campaign other than the last two. But all they have now is a second-place finish,…Read more...

After the Blazers came back from 17 down to knock out the favored Nuggets, Portland hero C.J. McCollum told reporters that his 37 points, 9 rebounds, and game-saving chase-down block was fueled in part by a text from his brother Errick: “He told me not to settle, told me to get to the midrange, get to the floater, get…Read more...

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In an out-of-nowhere bit of NBA coaching news that I have at this point quintuple-checked to make sure it’s not coming from a Fake Woj account, University of Michigan head coach John Beilein is leaving Ann Arbor to try and save the sinking ship that is the Cleveland Cavaliers. The two-time national runner-up, two-time…Read more...

Bounce.

Amazon Gold Boxes aren’t the only time to get Anker products on sale, but they do offer unusually good discounts on our readers’ favorite gadget accessory brand, albeit for one day only.

The Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers just got done with a ragged and at times infuriating Game 7 to end the Eastern Conference semi-finals. The Raptors won the game, 92-90, thanks to this buzzer-beater from Kawhi Leonard. Hooooooooly shit, wait until you see this shot:

Texas A&M hurdler Infinite Tucker was losing his grip on the lead of the 400-meter hurdles at the 2019 SEC Track & Field Championships. As he and the rest of his competitors finished the final two hurdles, Tucker and his teammate, Robert Grant, separated themselves from the rest of the pack. In order to ensure that he…Read more...

It hasn’t been easy for Madison Bumgarner and Yasiel Puig to continue hating each other as fiercely as they once did now that Puig has moved away to the Midwest. The former in-state proximity between the two players allowed them to share an angry bond built on bat-flipping and batter-beaning. With Puig in Cincinnati,…Read more...

Playoff games have a way of allowing narratives to fully bloom in the best possible ways. The latest example of this came on Sunday, when the man who almost single-handedly dragged the Portland Trail Blazers kicking and screaming into the franchise’s first Western Conference Finals appearance since 2000 also happened…Read more...