Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Former Cowboys running back Joseph Randle was arrested early Friday in Wichita, Kansas on suspicion of rape, according to a report from The Wichita Eagle:

If you’ve spent time around stage rally in the last two decades, you’ve likely heard a lot of that signature Subaru flat-four rumble-and-turbo ripping through the forests. It’s a sound that is impossible to mistake for any other kind of car, and has left an indelible mark on my automotive sense memory. This Legacy…Read more...

The U.S. Center for SafeSport has banned three-time Olympic taekwondo medalist Steven Lopez, declaring him permanently ineligible earlier this week for “sexual misconduct involving a minor.” According to a copy of the notice of the director’s decision and other SafeSport records, which Deadspin reviewed, the…Read more...

Celtics guard Jabari Bird was arrested in Boston Friday night following a “domestic incident” in which he is accused of assaulting, choking, and kidnapping an unnamed victim.

Steve Nash brought 78-year-old Don Nelson on stage with him Friday night during his Hall of Fame induction speech, and, friends, Nellie looks FUCKING AWESOME now:Read more...

After making four starts this year, White Sox rookie Michael Kopech will most likely not return to the mound until 2020. The team announced this afternoon that Kopech has a torn ulnar collateral ligament, and while he will reportedly seek a second opinion from Dr. James Andrews and consider his recovery options, it…Read more...

Travis McCathie is an average 37-year-old, and yet, on August 13, he finished the Bigfoot 200 Endurance Run. On foot. At one go. It took him 82 hours and three minutes. Bigfoot is actually 206.5 miles (ultras are almost always longer than the stated number) of punishing trail with 42,000 feet of ascent (Everest is…Read more...

Growing up in North Carolina, there isn’t a whole bunch that precedes college basketball. God (yes, of course). Family (well, depends on the family). But always in that top-three, above friends, work, and health, sits ACC basketball.Read more...

The fact that Boris Diaw was still out there somewhere in this large world playing basketball in public, even if I wasn’t around to look at it, lit a happy little flame in my brain. If I was in a good mood at any given time, it could be attributed in some barely measurable way to that fact. Yesterday it was…Read more...

Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, who’s currently under the franchise tag and wants a longer contract with more security, is willing to extend his holdout into the regular season, but somehow he, and not the side with all the money and all the leverage, is getting shit from his teammates.Read more...

The NFL season has only just started (unfortunately for this Falcons fan), but you can already download a copy of Madden 19 to your PS4 for $40, down from the usual $60.Read more...

C.J. McCollum is not the only member of the Trail Blazers’ backcourt who’s also a practicing journalist. Damian Lillard has spent the week outscooping the basketball press. The point guard has turned into a reverse Adrian Wojnarowski and broke news about where a pair of national basketball writers are headed.Read more...

The Falcons began the 2018 season the same way they ended 2017: a turnover on downs inside the red zone in the waning seconds of a close loss to the Eagles, in the same end zone in the same stadium in Philly. It was the same symptom of the same problem that plagued their offense for much of last year—only it somehow…Read more...

It’s not really surprising that an eccentric position played by only one-tenth of a sport’s population and operating under a completely different rule set is relatively overlooked and misunderstood. That’s not always a major problem. After all, a goalkeeper’s job boils down to “Keep the ball out of the net,” and their…Read more...

The MLB is hunting for October, the NFL launched with a thunderous dud of an opener, and the NBA and NHL seasons are just around the corner. All that adds up to false hope for your team’s season and the chance to get 25% off their apparel at Fans Edge with code KINJA25. Plus orders of $40+ receive free shipping.

Welcome back to Dead Letters, the feature in which we reprint our favorite reader mail. We should take this moment to remind you that all emails to Deadspin and its editors and writers are on the record unless otherwise specified. Now for your letters.

Shirts: My friends, they are a fact of life. I long ago realized that, with the exception of some jobs for which I am not remotely qualified, having a job would mean wearing a shirt of some kind, quite possibly to an office. At least partially as a result, I went on to freelance for the better part of a decade. I was…Read more...

Former UFC contender Melvin Guillard is currently wanted by the Denver PD after knocking someone out cold at a club in Denver early Monday morning. TMZ has obtained security camera footage of the incident, in which you can see Guillard, clearly identifiable given his usual bleach blonde hair, swinging on a man and…Read more...

On Wednesday, Deadspin published a report about how FanSided uses unpaid and underpaid labor to power its websites, which in turn bolster Sports Illustrated and its parent company, Meredith Corporation. With names and other identifying information redacted by request, here are some of the dozens of emails and Twitter…Read more...

The NFL’s confusing new helmet rule drew plenty of deserved attention and criticism during the preseason, but for all the plays and games it is going to muddy up, it is not the worst rule change implemented by the NFL this season. That honor belongs to the rule that heavily penalizes defensive players for landing on…Read more...

After 44 years without a championship, the Washington Capitals nabbed the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in June. And then they partied about it. They partied, you guys.

WEEI radio host Kirk Minihane said Thursday night that he’d be stepping away from his show Kirk and Callahan indefinitely, as he was “still battling mental health issues.”

What is it like to go to a football game? Does it hurt? Are you sure? We had no idea until August 30, 2018, when the New York Giants played the New England Patriots in a pre-season game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was a night that would change both of our lives, which nearly ended at the side…Read more...

It is too hot to be fashionable. Everybody is damp. Manhattan is reflective and confining, a griddle on even the least of summer’s scorchers. This is not the least. On my phone, I masochistically have the “feels-like” temperature set as the default display; it is three digits. I am wearing heavy, bulky jeans, my Nice…Read more...

Sports Illustrated has a lengthy and detailed autopsy of the Legion of Boom Seahawks out today, and it is plenty juicy. It features current and former Seahawks players anonymously talking shit about Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson, and offers further insight into just how devastating the goal-line interception that…Read more...

Last night, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka beat Madison Keys in a U.S. Open semifinal match 6-2, 6-4 to advance to her first grand slam final, where she will face Serena Williams, who has played in 31 of them. How is Osaka feeling about playing Serena? Pretty good!

WILDWOOD CREST, N.J. — The shot felt good off my hands. I pumped my fist when it went through the net and called it a day. You have to end on a make. I left the basketball court and went straight to the beach. I swam in the ocean. Later I jumped in a pool. After that I walked to my favorite pizza place. Then I went to…Read more...

io9 Chris Pine Still Has Hopes for His Star Trek Future | Kotaku Elite Dangerous Players Feel Misled After Developers Interfere With Big Expedition To Unexplored Space | Jalopnik The 2020 Electric Mercedes EQC Doesn’t Have a “Frunk” Because Efficiency | Vitals How Many Weightlifting Sets Is Enough? | The Takeout …Read more...

There is no greater frustration than being psyched for your championship-worthy fantasy team to take the field—and not have any players in the Thursday night kickoff game. So let’s get through these last couple of days together. Show us your team!Read more...

Michael Lopez is the Director of Data and Analytics for the NFL, and is a statistics professor at Skidmore College. He runs the site StatsbyLopez, and in a series of posts is breaking down the findings of a forthcoming paper he’s written with a couple of colleagues. And this, my friends, is the good stuff.

Take your pick between all four sizes of top-selling Tramontina nonstick frying pans. They have a stellar 4.6-star rating, and come with removable soft grip silicone sleeves. As long as you use wooden or silicone spatulas, these pans should last for a very long time.

The Eagles’ offense had basically done nothing all night. They were booed at halftime in the first game of the NFL season. But in the third quarter, the team faced a third down in Falcons territory, so what did they do? They ran the trick play the Patriots failed to execute in the Super Bowl.Read more...

The first half of the 2018 NFL season’s inaugural game between the Eagles and Falcons had more penalties (16) than points (9), so things were already off to an abysmal start. Then, the dumb new “no body weight on the QB” rule made an appearance.

The Philadelphia Eagles unveiled their Super Bowl banner tonight. Thirty minutes of game action later, Philadelphia fans booed the team off the field.Read more...

With the NBA season still over a month away from starting, NHL players needed a new source from which to draw their insecurity.

Disgraced former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar lost today on another one of his requests for a new sentencing hearing, this one in Eaton County, Mich. Like in the case filed against him in Ingham County, multiple women in Eaton said Nassar sexually abused them under the guise of medical…Read more...

You may not have even noticed that the Toronto Blue Jays traded former franchise cornerstone and 2015 MVP Josh Donaldson to the Cleveland Indians this week, because the whole thing barely registered. Donaldson, who was only healthy enough to play 36 games for the Jays this season, was sent away for a player to be…Read more...

Two Florida International Panthers football players were shot this afternoon, according to Opa-locka (Florida) Police Chief James Dobson, via the Miami Herald. Neither player’s injuries are believed to be life-threatening.Read more...

Five years ago, as Tablet and the Daily Mail reported today, current New York state Senate candidate Julia Salazar sued Kai Hernandez, the ex-wife of former Mets star and baseball announcer Keith Hernandez, for defamation after she said Salazar stole from her, tried to break into her bank account, and possibly claimed…Read more...

This week, Deadspin and Jezebel swap beats to celebrate America’s most dangerous and controversial pastimes: football and fashion, two sports that have far more in common than you think.

The start of any given NFL season features plenty of players returning from major injuries; violence is an inescapable part of a game built on armored super-athletes ramming into each other. This year’s list of comeback hopefuls, though, feels especially lengthy, and its members especially prominent. The quarterback…Read more...

Every once in a while an athlete will just make you eat your words and your low expectations. Typically they’ll do this by winning; on Tuesday night, Dominic Thiem did it while losing his U.S. Open quarterfinal, pyrotechnically.Read more...

Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Email Drew here. Buy his book here.

Auto racing follows the trends of the auto industry, for better or worse, and that includes self-driving tech. But the world’s first major self-driving racing series won’t go full computer right away—its inaugural 2019 season will have humans behind the wheel, tag teaming races with the artificial intelligence in the…Read more...

Dave Grohl and his classic rock band the Foo Fighters came to Lexington, Kentucky back in May, and boy did they get up to some trouble. The lowlife musicians hit the sleepy town like a heinous tornado of vulgar debauchery, and along the way they swept some University of Kentucky soccer players into their devilish…Read more...

Here we have an example of the redemptive power of never giving up, from the Tajik Cup. After a defender for Lokomotiv Pamir booted a long clearance, FC Istiklol Dushanbe’s goalkeeper made the critical mistake of getting fancy with his interception, trying to turn and kick the ball across the middle of the pitch to a…Read more...

La Liga’s money-grubbing ploy to bring a league match to the U.S. every year always sounded like just about the stupidest idea imaginable. With each additional revelation about the deal, we’re getting a clearer picture of just how moronic and incompetent the plan and the planners behind it truly are.

On the morning of Wednesday, February 22, 1984, head coach John Hadl arrived at the Los Angeles Express’s Manhattan Beach facility and reviewed the list of players who would be dismissed. When he broached the name of defensive end Greg Fields, an executive with the team warned, “Paper isn’t going to take this very…Read more...

The mighty Oakland Athletics pantsed the sickly New York Yankees last night at the Coliseum, taking two games from a pretty entertaining three-game preview of the most likely AL Wild Card game matchup. Oakland shot out to a four-run lead in the first inning, though Yanks catcher Gary Sánchez was as responsible for…Read more...

This is a table. It folds, it’s orange on top, and it’s only $22. That’s about all there is to say on the matter, other than that you should buy it for your next tailgate, or buy a bunch if you plan on launching your body into them. Not a Tennessee or Texas or <gasp> Cleveland Brows fan? Just cover it with a…Read more...