Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Yesterday, it was announced that Gothamist and DNAinfo, two sites vitally important to New York City’s news ecosystem, were shutting down. Its owner, Joe Ricketts, it seemed, would sooner lay off a combined staff of 115 people than see his workers unionize.

After a 13-year run at Auburn that was equal parts success and scandal, Tigers athletic director Jay Jacobs made use of the Friday news dump to announce that he will retire either next June or whenever Auburn hires his replacement.Read more...

Gizmodo I Hate How Much I Love the iPhone X | Kotaku Overwatch Gets A New Hero: Moira, A Support Healer | Jalopnik Tesla Shipped Cars Without Seats And Digital Displays: Report | The A.V. Club Don’t be afraid of The Last Of Us Part II’s violence | Lifehacker Here’s How Solar Panels Work |Read more...

In September, we published a blog about Rockies reliever and avid baseball memorabilia collector Pat Neshek being miffed that Zack Greinke would not sign autographs for him. It ended with this line:Read more...

Raheem Sterling is a gem. He has been one of the best wide attackers in the Premier League for about five years now, boasts an athleticism and technical ability and intelligence that makes 99 percent of his peers look like stodgy goons by comparison, regularly heaps on goals and assists at a much quicker rate than…Read more...

I’ve stayed away from the recent round of Crunchy Sock Twitter’s discontentment with Russell Wilson’s very public display of affection for his wife, Ciara. Because I’ve written about it before. A few times, actually.

An attorney for Louisville’s incoming five-star recruit Brian Bowen—the player at the center of the school’s involvement in the FBI investigation that resulted in the firings of Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich—announced Thursday that Bowen has been cleared by the FBI of any “investigative impediments.”Read more...

Last month, 1992 Olympic all-around gymnastics gold medalist Tatiana Gutsu said that Vitaly Scherbo, the 1992 Olympic all-around champion, had raped her in 1991. Gutsu was just 15 years old at the time.

A lie I tell myself with dismal regularity is Ugh, fuck, I am too tired and burned out to tidy up tonight, I’ll do it in the morning. That is not how it works. In my more caffeinated moments, this is obvious.

As a result of Colin Kaepernick’s collusion grievance against the NFL, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Texans owner Bob McNair, and Patriots owner Bob Kraft will have to turn over their phones, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Those three might not be the only ones, either:Read more...

On October 6, Helen Donahue, who previously worked as a social media editor for Vice and also wrote for the website, posted photos of bruises on her upper body, neck, and face to Twitter. “sux men in media hate women yet write abt feminism n masquerade as allies but its sadder this happens,” she wrote. “2015 i…Read more...

Give your knives a little T.L.C. and get them ready for holiday cooking with this $14 knife sharpener. It has over 2,000 reviews and a 4.4-star rating, works on both straight and serrated knives, and is $6 less than usual.Read more...

The USC Trojans lost 30-27 to the Washington State Cougars on Sept. 29, and at the end of the game the Washington State fans rushed the field. During the chaos, USC defensive lineman Liam Jimmons was seen laying out one of the Washington State fans.

After a promising but still too-barebones second installment, EA’s taking a third swing at the UFC.

Have you seen Ricky Rubio lately? This isn’t the jovial, dime-dropping Spaniard from way back when. This is a man who’s seen things, who’s learned things the hard way, who’s decided to take matters into his own hands. This is the gritty reboot of Ricky Rubio.

The Philips Sonicare DiamondClean attempts to fix the biggest problem with every other electric toothbrush: The person operating it.Read more...

The New Orleans Saints wanted to honor Navy veteran John Wells at this weekend’s game by giving him an award for his life accomplishments. Wells, who is the executive director of the Military Veterans Advocacy group, declined the award.

Oh, hey.Read more...

In 1990, Bill Watterson created a Calvin and Hobbes storyline in which Calvin is bullied into playing baseball during recess. Watterson drew a relatable, cautionary tale about the dangers of cramming boys into neat little boxes. Everyone in this story wants Calvin to do something he hates, but even when he commits to…Read more...

Vitals Four Myths About Hydration That Refuse To Die | io9 Avengers 4 Could Include New Flashbacks to the Very First Avengers | The A.V. Club Nielsen releases Stranger Things 2 ratings that Netflix will inevitably dispute | Compete The Ups And Downs Of Teabagging In Pro Gaming | Jalopnik This Madman Is Stuffing A New…Read more...

Happy Friday! Find deals on a universal remote, a saw Gold Box, a smart scale and much more.Read more...

Amazon is discounting a bunch of athletic clothes today, but one caveat, not every color and size are actually on sale.

ESPN distributed new social media guidelines to its employees Thursday, which reinforced some existing rules about not breaking news exclusively on social media, respecting colleagues, and—oh wait, here’s a new thing: “Do nothing that would undercut your colleagues’ work or embroil the company in unwanted controversy.”Read more...

When the clock counted down the last 100 seconds, Injustice 2 Pro Series player Dominique “Sonic Fox” McLean knew he’d already won the match. His opponent’s health bar had been reduced to a sliver. All Sonic Fox had to do was kill time. So he started teabagging.Read more...

Did you watch last night’s 34-21 Jets win over the Bills? Even if you’re a football fan, there’s a good chance you didn’t. The NFL’s expanded Thursday slate rubs players the wrong way, and with general viewership declines, many media executives are blaming the Thursday games for the public’s general football fatigue.Read more...

Damian Lillard drained a three-pointer as the clock’s final seconds ticked down in a tie game to boost the Blazers over the Lakers.Read more...

Steve Kerr got heated early in tonight’s Golden State win over San Antonio, but Gregg Popovich was ultimately the one to get ejected. In a fourth-quarter outburst with the Spurs trailing, he said something along the lines of “You’re a fucking terrible referee,” after not getting the travel call he wanted on a basket…Read more...

The narrative of Clayton Kershaw’s playoff failure was always something bigger and more intense than it had any logical right to be. It conveniently ignored key context of managerial decisions and bullpen strength, not to mention brushed aside the number of perfectly fine and even good postseason starts that he has …Read more...

Language, Stephen!Read more...

For six or so glorious minutes this evening, the president’s personal Twitter account—@RealDonaldTrump—was gone. Whether he temporarily deleted it himself, intentionally or not, or was the subject of some weirdly brief disciplinary action from the platform (he did, after all, tweet about his wish for the New York City…Read more...

Former prosecutor Bruce Castor—who declined to file criminal charges against Bill Cosby back in 2005—has filed his lawsuit against Andrea Constand, one of the first women to publicly say the comedian drugged, then sexually assaulted her.Read more...

Joe Ricketts, TD Ameritrade founder, billionaire, and father of Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, shut down the local news network of DNAinfo and Gothamist sites today, a week after the writers voted to unionize. Anyone attempting to reach one of the sites was redirected to this letter:

Before he was installed by the electoral college as Supreme Grand Primate Of THE GREAT UNRAVELING, Donald Trump was just one of the more poignant accounts on Twitter. There was nothing sympathetic about him, really, because there has never been anything sympathetic about him. He has been the same way, and locked into…Read more...

Former Manchester United defender and current Marseille player Patrice Evra will not play in his team’s Europa League match today after he channeled his inner Eric Cantona and karate kicked a fan of his own team in the face. Here’s a photo of the incident:

More bad NFL injury news came today, this time in Houston. According to Ian Rapoport, rookie QB Deshaun Watson may have suffered a torn ACL on a non-contact injury in practice this afternoon.Read more...

Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin announced today via Instagram that he is creating a “social movement” called “Putin Team,” which he says is meant to unite Russia and support its current president, Vladimir Putin.Read more...

Auburn announced on Thursday that men’s basketball players Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy have been suspended indefinitely. While the school did not specify the reason for their suspensions, the fact that they were recommended by the school’s compliance department confirms that they are “Player 1" and “Player 2” from…Read more...

The Buffalo Bills are 5-2. If the season were to end right at this moment (which it won’t, probably), the Bills would be in line for the No. 5 seed in the AFC. And with a win tonight at the Jets, they could pull even with the Patriots for first place in the AFC East. But are the Bills really any good? They’re…Read more...

The Phillies held a press conference today to introduce Gabe Kapler as the team’s new manager. It was Kapler’s first time speaking to the assembled Philadelphia media, and he got a good introduction into a major part of his new job.

Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas is probably not going to win this third-round match against Rafa Nadal at the Paris indoors. But he’ll always have this between-the-legs passing shot to look back on as a career highlight.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.Read more...

Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck didn’t play at the start of the season because of his injured shoulder, and now he won’t play for any part of it. The team officially placed him on injured reserve for the remainder of the year.

When was the last time we saw a rookie this broadly excellent? Does Ben Simmons evoke anyone besides the most obvious—and most desirable—comparison? Having already submitted a handful of Bronesque stat lines for our consideration, Simmons did it once again in last night’s win over the Hawks: 19 points, 13 rebounds, 9…Read more...

Connor McDavid did another Connor McDavid thing Wednesday, with a brilliant deke on Olli Määttä that set up an easy tap-in goal for Leon Draisaitl. It was McDavid’s second assist in the game, and it gave the Oilers a 2-1 advantage that, unsurprisingly, they would not keep for long.Read more...

KOROR, Palau—What would a country run by baseball players look like? Would it be a sabermetrics-driven technocracy? A clutch-obsessed theocracy? A cup-adjusting macho dystopia?

Of all the batshit moves made (and not made, if you’re Cleveland) at the shockingly active close of the NFL’s trade deadline, the one that will probably have the greatest impact on this year’s playoff race was Houston sending franchise LT Duane Brown to Seattle for draft picks.Read more...

The Overwatch League is gearing up for its inaugural season in 2018. 11 of the 12 teams competing in the new esports league have been announced, backed by familiar sports names like Patriots owner Bob Kraft and Mets owner Jeff Wilpon. Some of these names are fun and good; others less so. Here they are, ranked from…Read more...

“It was probably one of the scariest things that ever happened to me,” New York-based comedian Jasmine Pierce said in a video posted to her Facebook page on October 15. Wearing a red baseball hat that read “Game On,” Pierce recounted her experience being served with an eye-popping $38 million defamation lawsuit by the…Read more...

The Memphis Grizzlies are in a tough spot. They are a perennial playoff team on the descent, not good enough to do much more than scrap for tough wins every night and compete for a bottom-rung playoff spot. Things got a little worse last night, with star point guard Mike Conley on the bench with an achilles injury and…Read more...

There’s always a postmortem. Where did they go wrong? What should they have done differently? Analyzing a game—a baseball game, a World Series Game 7—is like dwelling on any other thing in the past: It’s in a fixed state. It happened, it’s not changing, and at some point you swallow it and move on.Read more...