Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Stephen Strasburg pitched for the Nationals for the first time since June 8 Friday. His return to the rotation after recovering from shoulder inflammation was hailed as a major reason for hope that a gloomy, disappointing Nationals season might turn around in the second half. Then he went out and pitched, and stunk, …Read more...

It’s official. IndyCar is swapping its season finale at Sonoma for one at Laguna Seca instead, starting in 2019. A lot of people are stoked. A lot of people are definitely not. And I am definitely one of those people asking IndyCar “what are you doing?!”Read more...

Giants co-owner Steve Tisch told The Hollywood Reporter this week that Giants players who demonstrate against police brutality and systemic racism during pregame national anthem ceremonies will not be punished by the organization, whatever ultimately happens to the NFL’s increasingly dumb-looking anthem rule:Read more...

So it turns out Nemanja Bjelica’s sudden resolve to play in Europe this season was only good for a couple days. Bjelica backed out of a one-year deal with the Sixers on Tuesday, then spent, oh, three days sitting with the idea of halting his NBA career, and Friday night decided to join, of all teams, the Sacramento…Read more...

In a move that is both delightfully absurd and absolutely no surprise, the Los Angeles Lakers signed free-agent forward Michael Beasley today. It’s delightfully absurd because everything about Beasley—his mystic wisdom master personality, his microwave offense and avant-garde approach to defense—is kind of absurd, and…Read more...

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

The sexual abuse investigation revolving around former Ohio State University professor and team doctor Dr. Richard H. Strauss continues to widen.

If I had to pick a play that best summed up what Darrelle Revis could do as the best cornerback of this pass-heavy era of the NFL, it would be one in which he actually gave up a catch.Read more...

Management, especially in a volatile industry like professional basketball, will say and do a lot of shit to appease the labor. Blake Griffin received a fake jersey retirement procession during the Clippers’ bid to get to him to re-sign last summer, and the team also put him on a t-shirt alongside JFK, Martin Luther…Read more...

It’s Friday afternoon and there isn’t much going on. Ask us stuff. Update (5:05 p.m. ET): We’re done! Thanks for chatting.

Update: Now available on Amazon as well, with delivery as soon as tomorrow! It’s going to go fast though.Read more...

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.

Sometimes you’re out in public and someone walks through a door ahead of you and because they want to be nice, they hold the door open for you. So far so good..................... or is it?Read more...

Iron-fisted UFC boss Dana White has spent the last week feuding with former UFC heavyweight and current comedy guy Brendan Schaub. The tiff kicked off when White responded to Israel Adesanya’s Instagram video of comments that Schaub made on his Showtime show Below the Belt. White called Schaub a “MORON,” “a fucking…Read more...

The Lakers are going to be much, much better and more fun than they were last season, but they’re not going to beat the Warriors. This hasn’t stopped team representatives from getting a little chesty, first by suggesting that their new-look roster of weirdos surrounding LeBron is actually an uncanny replica of…Read more...

A few months ago, the Deadspin staff got into one of our dumber and more protracted debates (a true feat) about whether the ocean or space was scarier. Like every other drawn-out yelling match, it lasted for a long time and went nowhere, though this one surfaced again yesterday. Both sides refused to budge from their…Read more...

This piece is part of a recurring series that aims to be a complete guide to the laws of war. You can read previous entries here.

Liz Cambage did not have any trouble coming up with an encore. In her first game after her record-setting 53-point performance on Tuesday, Cambage dominated again for the Dallas Wings on Thursday. In a 90-81 win against the Washington Mystics, Cambage put up 35 points on 31 shot equivalents, pairing that with a…Read more...

A Mexican League game between the Diablos Rojos del México and the Algodoneros de Union Laguna on July 18 produced one of the most shocking umpiring errors in the history of the game. In the top of the first inning, umpires Ulises Domínguez Solís and Rodolfo Pastrana Tejeda somehow both determined that this was a…Read more...

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At any point on any day, I can turn on my TV and with one click of a button have nothing but sports ephemera directly delivered to my brain. I could get it via the myriad iterations of ESPN, or via NBC Sports, or via NFL Network (yes, an entire network just about the NFL), or via NBA TV (an entire network just about…Read more...

The NFL is truly, truly incredible sometimes. I remain in awe of its ability to court terrible press, and entirely unnecessarily. Remember in May, when, under pressure from Donald Trump, the league issued a “compromise” policy on players protesting systemic inequality during the playing of the national anthem? The…Read more...

My mother has lung cancer. At the end of last year, she began feeling breathless and tired, struggling with walks around the village I grew up in; in March, we found out a tumor was to blame.

If you’ve never checked out Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale, what are you even doing on Kinja Deals? The largest of the three annual sales Nordstrom runs, the Anniversary Sale discounts thousands of fall and winter styles way before they make it into brick and mortar Nordstrom stores. Once the sale is over, you’ll only…Read more...

Former NFL QB and talking head Trent Dilfer—a man who once told Colin Kaepernick to “be quiet and sit in the shadows”—has struck again with some of his Good Stuff. This time, it’s regarding both climate change and the link between football and CTE.Read more...

In the aftermath of today’s AP report that the Miami Dolphins (and possibly other teams) would classify players’ protests during the pregame national anthem as punishable offenses, the NFL and NFL Players Association have released a joint statement saying that all rules related to its anthem policy will be frozen…Read more...

LAFC striker Adama Diomande wrote in an Instagram post that an opponent on the Portland Timbers called him “the ‘N’ word” during his team’s U.S. Open Cup match on Wednesday. Diomande came on in the second half as a substitute in his team’s 3-2 win, and while he exchanged a few words with Timbers players towards the…Read more...

With the NFL’s convoluted national anthem policy, teams now have a guideline for how to punish players—if they chose to do so—for protesting on the field during the anthem. The Miami Dolphins have decided to keep that option open just in case they need it.Read more...

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With the combined efforts of NBA reporters Adrian Wojnarowski, Shams Charania, and Royce Young, a picture of this three-team deal between the Thunder, Hawks, and Sixers has emerged. Carmelo Anthony is headed out of Oklahoma City to Atlanta, where he will be waived and paid $27.9 million. Nice work if you can get it.…Read more...

The Cleveland Indians, despite owning only the sixth-best record in the American League, have basically already clinched their spot in the playoffs, and are the only AL team that doesn’t have to worry about the wild card play-in game. Thanks to the putrid AL Central and its one (1) team with a record over .500, the…Read more...

Even after it officially approved a new helmet rule for the 2018 season, the NFL quietly made a significant change to the wording of a related rule that addresses the applicable penalty. The change was an attempt to provide clarity by distinguishing prohibited hits to the helmet from incidental contact. But there’s…Read more...

It was a little jarring to see today’s TMZ video of porn actress Kiara Mia and football player Jimmy Garoppolo enjoying a fancy dinner in Beverly Hills last night. A date with a San Francisco 49er? Couldn’t she do so much better?Read more...

Of the many responses to Elizabeth Cambage’s historic 53-point performance with the Dallas Wings on Tuesday afternoon, one of the most common dealt not with the performance itself, but the Tuesday afternoon part. Why, people quite reasonably wondered, was one of the great moments in league history taking place while…Read more...

Ian Poulter found himself in some deep rough at the Open Championship today, with a water hazard and a bunker standing between his ball and the pin. So he did what most of us would do in the same situation: he whacked the hell out of the ball and hoped for the best.

Marc Gasol has spent the last week volunteering aboard the Open Arms Proactiva, a ship operated by a Spanish NGO that works to rescue migrants from the Mediterranean Sea. According to the UN, 1,443 asylum seekers and refugees trying to make it to Europe have died on the journey so far this year, and organizations like…Read more...

The public-facing component of The Cheesemonger Invitational is a dairy bacchanalia where ticket-buying attendees can consume their weight in unlimited cheese. But behind the scenes at the bright, industrial space on the Brooklyn waterfront, the pros have come to compete.Read more...

Last night, something went terribly wrong with Overwatch’s best team. It became apparent early on in a match, when Do-hyeon “Pine” Kim, New York Excelsior’s unstoppable, sawed-off shotgun, switched off the sniper hero who made him famous and onto Doomfist, a character notorious for being high-risk but high-reward.…Read more...

Today the Tour de France returned to Alpe d’Huez for the 30th time in race history. Over one million fans packed the slopes of France’s most famous climb to cheer on crowd favorites like Romain Bardet, Tom Dumoulin, and Steven Kruijswijk, but mostly to sing, drink, and wave flags at riders they hate, most notably…Read more...

Sometimes, in the late stages of a certain loss in a big game, a soccer player might boot the ball with an unnecessarily strong kick in an effort to physically expel some of their inner frustration. No problem, you see it all the time. Less common—and less forgivable—is deciding that your discontentment must be sated…Read more...

When we recorded this Deadcast, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America had yet to premiere. To the extent that we or our extra-lanky returning guest Patrick Redford knew anything about the show, it was through a series of brief promotional videos in which Cohen himself didn’t even appear, although it seemed safe to assume…Read more...

The venue’s security checked the guest list one more time. HG Locks wasn’t on it. It slowly began to sink in: No one was expecting him to perform; he had been scammed.Read more...

You bright and risen angels! Tiger Woods is either contending for the British Open championship this weekend or, depending upon how seriously you take this comically overwrought Golf Channel promo, going nobly into that BATTLE we all must face, the final charge into the breach in pursuit of mastering our very SOULS…Read more...

Forbes just published a deep investigation into John Schnatter’s Papa John’s Pizza empire, and it reaches some expected conclusions. Based on conversations with 37 current and former Papa John’s employees, Forbes paints a picture of a mismanaged business being led by an increasingly petty and vindictive Schnatter, who…Read more...

A fatless and notably tall-headed man going by the name “Novak Djokovic” spent a lot of his time on tennis courts over the last 18-odd months, and succeeded even in being granted entry to some important professional tournaments. There he beat some solid tennis players, even though, off the court, his emotional world…Read more...

Today’s best deals start off with a cordless Dyson V6, a 25 pound weighted blanket, a $310 mini desktop, and more.Read more...

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Commissioner Rob Manfred’s all-star break wasn’t only spent sandbagging his sport’s best player. He also took some time to throw his support behind expanding MLB to two more cities.

Denis Ten, the first figure skater from Kazakhstan to win world championship and Olympic figure skating medals, died in Almaty today. He was 25 years old.

The weighted blanket boom that you’ve seen on Amazon over the last year can be traced back to a very successful Kickstarter for the Gravity Blanket. It wasn’t the first weighted blanket, but it was the first marketed to average consumers to help them stay cozy and combat anxiety, and now, it’s on sale on Amazon for…Read more...