Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

The Boston Globe has placed columnist Kevin Cullen on “administrative leave” while it conducts a review of his work, after WEEI radio host Kirk Minihane scrutinized Cullen’s April 14 column about the five-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, and found several inconsistencies.Read more...

Umpire Jerry Meals is five feet eight inches tall. This is a perfectly respectable height, and one that has not kept him from achieving what we can presume was his lifelong dream of being a Major League umpire. Jerry Meals has made it.Read more...

It’s fuckin’ nice out, come yak with us.

A Palatine of Hungary crosses some boars and sows in some Austro-Hungarian barn. He creates a new breed of swine, the Mangalica pig. Upon seeing the result of his meddling with nature, the palatine claps his hands in delight—probably.Read more...

Bradley Beal, like his team in general, is not having a good playoff series against the Toronto Raptors. Beal shot just 3-for-11 in Game 2, scoring just nine points and picking up four fouls en route to an atrocious plus-minus of -34 in 25 minutes. Overall, Beal is scoring 14 points per game and has only made three…Read more...

That’s my guy. Looking like Crossfit Benedict Cumberbatch. Love to see this type of vigor.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.

Two weeks ago, we saw the first glimpses of Simone Biles’s comeback after a full year off and it was impressive. In practice footage, Biles showed that she could still do most of her big skills despite the break from full-time training.

Hearthstone director Ben Brode announced today that he would be departing his job at Blizzard and plans “to help start a new company.” Brode’s departure comes as a shock to Hearthstone fans; the game designer has worked for Blizzard since 2002, starting out as an entry-level game tester and moving up the ranks and…Read more...

This Massachusetts high school baseball game happened last week, but the central story—trying really hard to let someone else have what should be best for them, only to watch them fuck it all up—is timeless. Old Rochester defeated Notre Dame Cristo Rey by a score of a 82-0 (eighty-two! a baseball game!), but the…Read more...

In the frenzied game of musical chairs that is the Trump administration, CIA Director Mike Pompeo is set to become the next Secretary of State. It’s an ideal time, then, to clarify details of his biography, including a rather major one: did Pompeo, as numerous profiles have stated, fight in the Gulf War? We asked the…Read more...

Enter Dominic Thiem, the dull boy who is good on dirt. For all his fits elsewhere, the Austrian has mastered clay, a surface that slows things down enough for his deep court positioning, thumping strokes, and one-track mind. He’s the only player who can justifiably hold any ember of hope when facing Rafael Nadal on…Read more...

At some point, it’ll be continuously warm enough to hike, and Marmot is thinking about getting you geared up and outside for less. Take 25% off all the apparel they carry, or if you need to re-up on your gear, it’s all 20% off too during their Friends & Family sale. Just use the code FRIENDS at checkout. It’s like…Read more...

It was more than five years ago when Lance Armstrong went on Oprah, looked her in the eye, and admitted to the world that his iconic comeback story was fueled by the most comprehensive doping regimen in cycling history. The seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor had spent his career brashly denying that…Read more...

New York Times reporter Amy Chozick has a new memoir out called Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling, and in it she recalls being gaslit and harassed by Clinton’s male press aides, whom she refers to as “The Guys.”Read more...

Plenty of professional wrestlers were able to become kids’ heroes; it is, after all, a battle between good and evil. Being revered, however, is a different matter. Even when there were hundreds of full-time wrestlers across the United States, the overall reputation of the business as a sham and the outsized demeanor…Read more...

Unlike the introductions for the adult Jeopardy! contestants, who stand there with a slight smile indicating either either smugness or paralyzing terror and no emotion in between, the college kids are allowed to “have fun with it.” Last night’s trio put together a little routine involving an invisible basketball. You…Read more...

Former Ole Miss quarterback Shea Patterson penned a nine-page letter in which he claimed the Rebels coaching staff routinely lied to him to keep him on campus, according to CBS Sports, which reviewed a copy of the letter.

There’s probably nobody in the NBA more fun to interview than Steven Adams, who manages to be charming even when he’s quite pissed off, or being outright evasive. He always manages to shine brightest when the conversation turns to one of his favorite topics: anime.

Kick off 4/20 with deals on a popular vape, an automatic herb garden, Nintendo Switch controllers, and a lot more.Read more...

Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside entered the NBA playoffs grumbling about his diminished role on the team, and the proceeded to give his squad absolutely nothing of value while playing limited minutes in the first two games of their series against the Sixers. But last night offered a chance for redemption, as Joel…Read more...

Gizmodo A Worrying Number of Amazon’s Warehouse Workers Are Reportedly Living Off Food Stamps | Kotaku In South Korea, Gamers Stage An Inquisition Against Feminists | Jalopnik What The Perfect No-Mileage 1999 Honda Civic Si Is Like To Drive Today | Lifehacker What to Do If You’re Too High |Read more...

This was the Maple Leafs’ chance, and it was probably their season.Read more...

After 22 years at Arsenal’s helm, and less than a week after Arsenal’s latest embarrassing defeat—a 2-1 loss to Newcastle—beloved but increasingly beleaguered manager Arsène Wenger has announced he will leave the club at the end of the season, one year before his contract is set to expire. He said:

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Smart plugs are the gateway drug to home automation, and TP-Link’s model with energy monitoring is down to $20 right now, the best price we’ve ever seen. This thing adds smartphone and Alexa control to any power outlet, and unlike some less expensive models, it’ll also tell you how much electricity is running through…Read more...

The Crow is so weighed down with eerie, tragic coincidence that it’s almost hard to look at it as a real movie, rather than some mystic totem. Here we have a movie whose star, Brandon Lee, was killed in a freak on-set accident while filming his own character’s death. Lee’s father was, of course, Bruce Lee, a screen…Read more...

Matt Harvey went six innings tonight for the first time since last May; ideally, that should be reason for optimism, or, at least, it could be, if you had space to process anything beyond the rather depressing fact that this marker can be considered a real breakthrough in the first place. But six innings does not have…Read more...

Big day, folks: The 2018 NFL schedule is here. Monday Night Football will now start 15 minutes earlier! The Vikings and Eagles get a rematch of last year’s NFC Championship in Week 5! The Patriots and Steelers should be a good one for the week before Christmas!Read more...

After missing a few weeks with a concussion and an orbital fracture, Joel Embiid is finally back on the floor for tonight’s Game 3 against the Heat—with a pretty sick mask, goggles included. Constructing the thing was apparently quite the project...Read more...

Just like in every other sports league, you can now make your own custom Overwatch League jerseys, and certain words are banned from them.Read more...

The Mariners fortuitously escaped a jam in the fourth inning against the Astros today when Houston’s Evan Gattis made a Little League-level mistake and forgot how many outs there were, gifting Seattle a triple play.Read more...

Novak Djokovic lost today to Dominic Thiem. It went three sets. Nice match. Wouldn’t have been able to pay much attention had I watched it from the stands. The Monte Carlo Masters is the prettiest sporting event on Earth: rich clay, clean skies, jewel seas. Take in this visual feast prepared by Getty photographer…Read more...

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

Lance Armstrong can finally rest easy. Eight years after former teammate Floyd Landis filed a federal False Claims Act lawsuit against Armstrong, one that could have cost the seven-time Tour de France winner up to $97.2 million, Armstrong has reached a $5 million settlement with the federal government. The case has…Read more...

David Booker won a decision against Elijah Terrell last night at regional MMA event Alaska Fighting Championship 139, which was good news for him. The bad news was that he only learned that he’d won after riding a true emotional roller coaster. The announcer at last night’s fights pulled a rare double Steve Harvey, as…Read more...

If reliability is something you crave in a pair of shoes (if it isn’t, you may need to reconsider), I bet you have Cole Haan in your closet. And if you’re looking for a new pair but don’t want to spend the normal asking price, Cole Haan is taking 30% off any order of $175+ during their Semi-Annual Event. Plus, you’ll…Read more...

If you’ve consumed even a tiny bit of sports media in the past few years, you’ve no doubt come across a particular kind of story. It’s a lighthearted one, and the hook is something like, “Hey! Did you know that [group of athletes] are really interested in [non-sports related object or activity]? Isn’t that kind of…Read more...

To refresh your memory, Steven Adams rammed in an alley-oop in Game 1 of the Thunder’s playoff series against the Jazz that made a satisfying thunk, but also rendered his right arm unusable. It just sort of hung there for awhile.

Meet Bill Belichick’s new puppy! The little tiny Alaskan Klee Kai is named after a Greek goddess, and he got to attend his first lacrosse game last night. Fittingly, he dressed up just like Bill.Read more...

Despite miserable weather, 95 percent of of the 27,042 common folk who started Monday’s Boston Marathon eventually crossed the finish line. The whippets up front proved less stalwart: two-thirds of the elite men’s field dropped out. One who didn’t was 41-year-old Tucson resident, Abdi Abdirahman. He finished 15th,…Read more...

Now that the weather’s nice enough to exercise outdoors (or at least tell yourself that you will), Nordstrom Rack’s running a pretty solid sale on Adidas gear. Pick up new sneakers for men and women, plus apparel for men and women as well. And, don’t forget about the kids. It’s a good time to stock up on basics to…Read more...

The Seattle Seahawks have nine players from their 2014-15 Super Bowl season left on their current roster. Two of them, Cliff Avril and Kam Chancellor, might be so injured that they’ll never play again. Two former players say that the significant turnover might in part be because head coach Pete Carroll had already…Read more...

We’ve all seen players stomp off the pitch in barely suppressed anger after their manager has subbed them out of a game. A far less common sight is a player communicating his post-subbing displeasure by walking off the pitch and straight over to the coach and attempting to kick his ass:Read more...

The Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals have each won three games this season. Royals manager Ned Yost earned some slack since he’s three years removed from winning the World Series. Reds manager Bryan Price ... said the word “fuck” 77 times after losing a game in 2015. The team fired him today.Read more...

When we introduced a gum component last week on Let’s Remember Some Guys, the payoff was kind of weak. David Roth remembered all but one guy, so he only had to pop in one piece of thick, stale gum. In this week’s episode, however, he experiences several lapses in memory and consumes approximately two pounds of Dubble…Read more...

If there’s a moral to be gleaned from White Men Can’t Jump, it’s that that if someone carrying many hundreds of dollars in cash—without a wallet in sight—challenges you to an expensive bet, it’s probably because they know something you don’t. I realize people relied on paper money more back in the ’90s, but no one…Read more...

College basketball legend and Notre Dame rising senior Arike Ogunbowale is set to appear on the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars beginning in just under two weeks. But because Ogunbowale still plays for Notre Dame and is thus considered an NCAA athlete even on summer break, there are at least a dozen…Read more...

If you caught LeBron James in just the right light during that first quarter, you could have seen the steam wisping off his damn bald spot. Playoff LeBron is here but probably much, much earlier than he’d intended on arriving, and as cranky as those circumstances would suggest.Read more...

I have raved about the insanely cool material that Mia Melon coats are made out of (waterproof cotton that’s not waxed) and they’ve just rolled out a groundbreaking new textile: wool.Read more...