Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

When Rebecca Welch sounded the opening whistle during today’s Harrogate Town and Port Vale tilt, she became the first woman to referee an English Football League game.Read more...

Ah, baseball’s opening weekend, fans in the stands and the Nationals sidelined by the coronavirus.Read more...

I’ve written about Shohei Ohtani before in this space. About how he almost certainly can’t be all that he teases, and the Angels are losing out on all he can be as a hitter or a pitcher by allowing him to be both.Read more...

You can tell a lot about a person by what music they listen to.

It was at the same point last season, though not in the calendar thanks to the pandemic, that this happened. Less than 10 games left in the season, Bayern Munich facing an away date against their closest rival and looking … well, vulnerable is too strong a word. Less godly, let’s say. The chasing team, in this case RB…Read more...

Carter Hart made his return to the net after an eight-game “reset” for the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, and no, let’s not go with any rising from the dead analogies, but he was looked to as the savior of the franchise.

Charles Barkley is trying his best to be the next Jason Whitlock — the overweight and jovial Black man with a larger-than-life personality, whom you can always count on to say something to make white Americans feel good about themselves while demonizing and belittling his own people.

That was the best college basketball game I have ever seen in my lifetime.Read more...

Luke Ratliff was an Alabama student and men’s basketball superfan known around campus as “Fluffopotamus.” Last week, he made the trip to Indianapolis to watch the Tide in the Sweet 16. Ratliff was in Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse on Sunday for the game. After UCLA pulled off the upset that night, he returned to…Read more...

Bruh…

UPDATE (4/4/21, 12:24 E.T.): Initial reports of 14 positive tests within the Canucks organization have swelled to more than 20 confirmed infections among the team’s roster and coaching staff, according to TSN’s Darren Dredger:Read more...

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament hasn’t really been all that exciting this year. Sure, there have been upsets, and a handful of close games, but particularly in a year without Duke and Kentucky in the field at all, and several other traditional powers in the doldrums, not to mention the whole tournament being just…Read more...

Optioned to the minors by the Angels last week, a few days before his 28th birthday, Ty Buttrey decided that he was done with baseball. He’d accomplished his goal to “prove to every motherf***** who didn’t believe in me and doubted my ability to become an MLB player, that I could do it.”Read more...

Rockies fans have been looking for something to be excited about since the Nolan Arenado trade, and now they have it.Read more...

Nicholas Castellanos was angry about being hit by a pitch from Cardinals right-hander Jake Woodford, so when the Reds’ right fielder came in to score on a Woodford wild pitch, sliding into Woodford in the process, he made his feelings known.Read more...

You could go so far as to say Grant Hill was always meant for this.Read more...

The trailer for the new Space Jam movie came out on Saturday.Read more...

The Thunder’s starting lineup on Friday night was Aleksej Pokusevski, Théo Maledon, Moses Brown, Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, and Isaiah Roby. If none of those names is familiar, don’t worry, they’ve combined for 285 games of NBA experience — 280 before Friday night.Read more...

Nicknames are endearing, but they’re not always respectful.Read more...

You mean to say that a baseball franchise with a racially insensitive name, which does all it can to harm any argument that their name isn’t just insensitive, but outright racist, by encouraging its fans to do racist chants; which moved out of team’s location name’s urban core and into another county, in order to…Read more...

Stanford vs. Arizona will be the matchup for the women’s national title, and the Pac-12 will have its first national champion since 1992, when the Cardinal — then, as now, coached by Tara VanDerveer — won its second title.

With the Houston Astros now wearing the crown as the most hated team in professional sports — as indicated by the chorus of boos and piercing screams of “CHEATER!” that rang through the Oakland Coliseum (whatever ridiculous name it has today) last night on Opening Day (ahh… welcome back baseball, and welcome back…Read more...

According to a report from Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, the Big3 is returning after their 2020 cancelation due to COVID.

Major League Baseball is not generally an organization that you’d think of as progressive, but Rob Manfred made a big move on Friday, stripping this year’s All-Star Game (something Rob Parker called for Deadspin on Monday) and draft from Atlanta in protest of the state of Georgia’s new voting rights restrictions.Read more...

Sunderland took another step in its quest to get out of England’s League One and back to the Championship on Friday, but the Black Cats’ 3-1 win over Oxford United wasn’t without controversy.Read more...

After getting the coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, I was pretty out of it on Thursday, which meant that Opening Day was a different experience than usual. I woke up in the morning, had breakfast and walked the dog, then went right back to sleep, setting an alarm to be able to watch the first inning of the season…Read more...

This is not what Case meant by Touch Me, Tease Me.Read more...

Y’see Kevin Durant, you don’t seem to get why you’re apologizing. In one sense, I appreciate how nakedly obtuse you are about the whole thing. It beats the PR department-fueled apologies we usually get from someone like you that are treated as the real thing. You’re making it easy for everyone to see just how off the…Read more...

There’s literally nothing 19-year-old UConn freshman phenom Paige Bueckers can’t do on a basketball court. Well, except for the fact that she can’t take the floor with a WNBA team for another three years.

Draymond Green needs to take a step back.Read more...

I find myself often being perplexed by the way some things are happening. Currently, one of those situations is the seemingly-inexplicable decrease in draft stock of a quarterback prospect I love, Justin Fields, who before the season was the consensus second-best quarterback behind Trevor Lawrence. It makes no sense…Read more...

I know we all want to get back to normal, but Texas’ “fuck it all, we’re completely open” approach seems a Texas-sized amount reckless. We’re close. More people are getting vaccinated by the day, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but we still need to be smart and do exactly the opposite of what that state, as a…Read more...

Miguel Cabrera now has 488 career home runs (350 as a Tiger), and it’s possible that none were as unique as this.

When I was in elementary school, we used to take annual field trips to the old Tiger Stadium. One year, Detroit was playing the Royals. I remember those blue jerseys. Our school was sitting in the outfield and somebody who wasn’t in our group pulled a beach ball out from nowhere. It eventually bounced over to a group…Read more...

It’s Opening Day… and the vast majority of Americans are at least 550 days removed from their last trip out to the old ballgame. We all know about the 2020 shortened season and the cardboard cutouts and we are trying hard to forget it. As such, I know that I am looking heartily forward to my second vaccine shot and…Read more...

It’s Opening Day, America. It’s time to get back to our national pastime, and to leave all our worries aside. It’s our day to just focus on what we all need, a game of baseball. And isn’t that what we deserve? Nothing can interfere with the sound of a line drive or the smell of — I’m sorry. Buster Olney said what?Read more...

I’ve had my share of fun at the expense of the Coyotes and will continue to do so as they continue to be the dopey buzzard of NHL, and really all sports teams. It must be a rotten existence to play for them, other than the warm weather and athlete’s paycheck and lack of any pressure whatsoever. Last night, for Conor…Read more...

In June 2019, right after drafting Tyler Herro and K.Z. Okpala, and before trading for Jimmy Butler, Pat Riley said the following:Read more...

We all want to be first. First in line for whatever you’re buying, first to discover new talent, first to see that blockbuster hit. In the media, we also want to be first to a story. You probably do too. That might be why you’re on Twitter — to follow the “Woj Bombs” or Schefter’s BREAKING news. But in that rush to be…Read more...

NBA legend Bill Russell could be making a comeback.Read more...

In a profile over the summer, I asked Cam Perron what he’s up to next. At the time, the young Negro Leagues researcher, whose work of documenting players’ service time led to their receiving MLB pensions, was operating his memorabilia business and working on a book set to hit shelves in 2021.Read more...

Every year we discuss how baseball’s become boring, how it could grow more enjoyable for younger fans, and how we long for legitimate progress of our national pastime.Read more...

Huzzah! It is time to single people out and call them names. Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH. As always, we are proud to present the Trevor Bauer Trophy to an impressive March crop of dipshits and fuckgoofs.

Happy April Fools Day to all. I hope everyone reading this hasn’t already gotten duped by one of their friends or loved ones. If you have, it’s okay at least you didn’t get fooled like these organizations did when they picked the “star” of their franchise. There’s been so many examples of these players throughout the…Read more...

Can anyone rise over .500 and challenge the A’s? How will the Astros do without George Springer? Can the Mariners surprise a few people? Will we hear anything from Mike Trout and the Angels? And how bad will the Rangers be?Read more...

Can anyone dethrone the Twins? What will the White Sox look like with septuagenarian Tony La Russa returning to manage? Will Cleveland hit enough after trading away Francisco Lindor to help their talented rotation, and ultimately bother Cleveland or Chicago? Will K.C.’s moves move the needle? And what about the…Read more...

Can the Rays repeat as division champs without starters Charlie Morton and Blake Snell? Can the Yankees stay healthy enough and is their starting pitching good enough to return to the top? Are the Blue Jays and all their young talent ready to break through? Where are the Red Sox? And will we see anything from the…Read more...

Can the Dodgers break the single-season wins record? Can the upstart Padres with Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis, Jr. run down L.A.?Read more...

Nolan Arenado is in St. Louis. Defense will be on display. What to make of the Cubs and Brew Crew. And what about Cincy and Pittsburgh?Read more...

I made jokes about it yesterday, and that’s really all the effort I was prepared to give it. And yet, another day rolled by after Michael Rapaport (who I assume just walked off the set of another charity MTV softball game as that’s still what he does, right?) revealed the heinous and disgusting messages that Durant…Read more...