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College football coaches tend to be graded on a steep and extremely generous curve when it comes to their personalities. How well they do or don’t do their jobs is easy enough to assess, because it creates a binary win/loss record that reflects the sum of the players they recruit and the assistants they hire and the…Read more...

Bruce Bochy nailed down his iconic 2,044th victory as a major-league manager Wednesday in Boston, because let’s face it, nothing says greatness quite like a large round number. And if 2,044 isn’t round enough for you, then your entire life has been a lie.Read more...

Andrew Yang has a dream. “I’d challenge Donald Trump to any physical or mental feat under the sun. I mean, gosh, what could that guy beat me at, being a slob?” the presidential candidate wondered last month. His eventual conclusion: “Something that involved, like, trying to keep something on the ground and having…Read more...

An Iranian woman recently died from from self-inflicted burns after she was arrested for trying to attend a soccer match in the country, and her death has brought renewed scrutiny to Iran’s law that bans women from entering soccer stadiums. FIFA, an organization always eager to do the bare minimum in pushing back…Read more...

On a sunny September Sunday in 1982, Mark Burchfield, a 20-year-old tobacco farmer from rural Kentucky, stood in Manhattan’s Central Park, getting ready to take the most important croquet shot of his life.

A Logitech Gold Box, Wayfair Clearance Sale, and 1-Year Costco Gold Star Membership lead off Thursday’s best deals from around the web.

Following his firing by Real Salt Lake over a homophobic tirade during a match in Mexico last month, former coach Mike Petke is now suing the club for $687,500 of lost salary (a season and a half’s worth). The lawsuit, filed in the Third Judicial District Court of Salt Lake County, alleges that the club tried to force…Read more...

Thirteen days, kiddos! That’s how long we have until the NHL season finally, finally kicks off with a heart-stopping season opener where the mighty Toronto Maple Leafs play host to ... *checks schedule* oh, um .... the Ottawa Senators. *Nervously maintains smile*Read more...

It’s been a difficult season for CC Sabathia, which he announced last winter would be his final one. He’s gone to the IL three separate times for his knee—no specific injury per se, just swelling and pain that made it impossible to pitch and necessitated time off. The Yankees knew that coming into the year, and were…Read more...

Logitech Gold Box | Amazon

Reds pitcher Amir Garrett, who led a valiant if poorly planned solo charge of the entire Pittsburgh Pirates organization back in July, seems to have put those salad days behind him.Read more...

On Tuesday, Canadian ice dancers and two-time Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir officially announced their intentions to “step away” from ice dancing after their cross-Canada tour in October. Though they leave the sport perhaps the greatest ice dancing team of all time, their career was marred by…Read more...

This weekend, former Welsh rugby captain Gareth Thomas announced in a video posted on Twitter that he is HIV positive.Read more...

Top-level MMA can be an extremely technical sport, with fighters adjusting to their opponents’ habits every minute and doing their best to pick up on the smallest quirks in timing and technique. That said, it can also be a hilarious dumb-guy ballet, which brings us to UFC fighter Michel Pereira.

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

The thing about reading a book is that it is absolutely, undeniably a sport. Not only does reading a book require endurance, concentration, and a good amount of practice, it is also occasionally competitive. For sure, working so hard to get AR points for reading The Golden Compass or some long doorstop of a book were…Read more...

One possible explanation for the existence of this Albany (Georgia) Herald column, in which Carlton Fletcher fields all the questions a “female person” might have watching her first baseball game, could be that it was accidentally sucked through a wormhole decades ago and finally reappeared on Sept. 7, 2019. That…Read more...

Hours after Pirates closer Felipe Vázquez was arrested yesterday in Pittsburgh on behalf of Lee County (Florida) authorities for a pair of child solicitation charges, he was also charged in Pennsylvania’s Westmoreland County with a slew of felonies that includes statutory sexual assault.Read more...

A 4-year-old gelding was euthanized at Santa Anita after breaking its pelvis during training, according to a statement released by the track’s owner, the Stronach Group. The horse, named Zeke, pulled up on the training track on Monday and was put down Tuesday. Per the statement:Read more...

Our old pal Tim Burke went and made a generator for that wonderfully incongruent graphic of Jets quarterback Sam Darnold that aired this week during ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Try it for yourself!

An ESPN article published this past May recounted a strange story: Lakers GM Rob Pelinka bizarrely claimed that Kobe Bryant was inspired by the depiction of the Joker in The Dark Knight, sought out and enjoyed dinner with Heath Ledger (who was dead), and then channeled that inspiration to drop 61 points on the Knicks…Read more...

On Friday, September 13, a truck bound for the Georgia-based tabletop and video game company Trivium Studios took a turn too sharply, spilling 216,000 gaming dice onto Interstate 75 in Atlanta in what could be the biggest unintentional dice roll ever.Read more...

About a week ago, Hamilton invited me to take part in a “yogurt-tasting” video in what I assumed to be a feeble attempt to expand his brand as a guy who consumes and blogs about yogurt. He said it was an “honor” to participate, which was a lie: If you contemplate any food long enough, especially a viscous, off-white…Read more...

There’s no good reason to consider Malcolm Gladwell a serious writer or thinker anymore, thanks in large part to the things Gladwell continues to write and think. Despite this, he was allowed to write a new book—if you want to know more about it, I suggest clicking on this review in The Atlantic and doing a Ctrl+F…Read more...

Zinedine Zidane must have known this time would be harder. The once-former, now-current Real Madrid manager stepped away from the club after winning the 2018 Champions League final—his and the club’s third in a row, and the team’s fourth in five years—just as Cristiano Ronaldo, the key to all that success, left for…Read more...

ESPN made some good TV this morning.Read more...

A Kyoku Daimyo 8” Damascus Chef’s Knife, a Surprise Sale at Kate Spade, and LEGO Saturn V Apollo lead off Wednesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

Anker Powerwave Qi Stand 2-Pack | $30 | Amazon | Promo code KJEB2524Read more...

Two seasons ago, the Winnipeg Jets were a dark horse Cup contender, and then, for a brief moment, actual Cup favorites, and playing like it. It didn’t happen for them, but they returned largely the same roster the next. 2018 was a step back, with a first-round playoff exit—though to the eventual champion Blues—but I…Read more...

The Yankees, who spent the first week of the season getting everybody hurt, and then a few months later, did it again just to set some all-time IL records, are getting healthy. Just in time for the playoffs, but also just in time to get injured again.

Refurbished VIZIO 5.1 Soundbar | $120 | AmazonRead more...

The Connecticut Sun left the first game of their best-of-five semifinals series against the Los Angeles Sparks Tuesday night not only with a 84-75 win, but also with a narratively sweet one. For a season, the No. 2 Sun have felt like the WNBA’s most underrated team, beloved by their women’s basketball-crazy state but…Read more...

A high school football and basketball coach in Arizona resigned Friday after a Tempe Union High School District investigation found that he had shared game strategies, play calls and information about player eligibility with several opposing coaches for at least two years, according to the Ahwatukee Foothills News.

Here’s something to make a Knicks fan weep: In January, the New York Liberty threw off the yoke of James Dolan. Tuesday evening, for the first time in franchise history, they secured the first pick in the 2020 WNBA draft.

Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett makes more money from just a few years of work than an average person can hope to earn in a lifetime. Going off numbers obtained by USA Today, Bennett has been paid at least $17,457,050 over his past six seasons as a coach, plus 2012; if you factor in the missing seasons…Read more...

The Indianapolis Colts’ 46-year-old kicker Adam Vinatieri has looked depressingly mortal through the first two weeks of the NFL season. In two close games, he’s missed a total of two field goals and three extra points. Because Vinatieri’s an NFL all-timer, he might escape the fate that would’ve already befallen any…Read more...

“They absolutely are this bad,” Barry Petchesky wrote about the New York Giants exactly 365 days ago. The team had just lost to the Dallas Cowboys in a supremely listless Monday Night Football appearance. I watched it with a friend who was visiting from out of town amid a rapidly thinning crowd in a rustling Manhattan…Read more...

Last time we checked in on Erling Braut Håland, the enormous Viking kid had demolished a team of children by scoring nine goals in a single U-20 World Cup match. If you were wondering if the 6-foot-3 teen’s size, strength, and skills would carry over when pitted against adults, the answer is a resounding yes.Read more...

In the 2017 season the Philadelphia Eagles went for it on fourth down 29 times, most in the NFL. Doug Pederson’s decision to go for it a bunch worked, and what’s more, every observer agreed that it worked. The Eagles went 13-3 and won the Super Bowl with their backup quarterback.Read more...

Today, we’re talking about trailers, crossing state lines, Sean’s friend Bruce, drunken coaches, and more.

Dublin beat Kerry 1-18 to 0-15 on Saturday to take their fifth straight All-Ireland football championship, and become the first team to five-peat in the history of the Gaelic Athletic Association’s annual national inter-county tournament. And we’re talking a long history: Dublin and Kerry first faced each other with…Read more...

On Monday, a soccer match in Jamaica between Jamaica College and Wolmer’s Boys was suspended in the 84th minute after a bolt of lightning struck the pitch. The bolt’s impact sent several players to the ground, and a total of three players were taken to the hospital in the aftermath. Here’s video of the incident:Read more...

A few weeks ago, we posted about one YouTuber’s journey to dive deeper into the history of Air Base Speedway, a seemingly lost NASCAR track. There isn’t a ton of information out there about the track, the 1951 race it held, or its fate. But in an update to the video, we’re starting to piece together more about this…Read more...

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced Tuesday that Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez was arrested in Pittsburgh and booked in Allegheny County Jail, where he will await extradition to Lee County (Florida) to face one count of computer pornography - solicitation of a child and one count of providing obscene…Read more...

Well, it looks like we have at least part of the answer to the question of what exactly is wrong with Cam Newton. His foot is all jacked up, and will remain so for an indeterminate period of time:

Germany have a problem—one many national teams would kill for, but a problem nonetheless. Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen is one of the very best goalies in the world, and yet he can’t get any gametime for his national team. Manuel Neuer, who not that long ago was handily the game’s single best keeper,…Read more...

Yesterday, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen tweeted out a series of rat emojis.Read more...

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NEW YORK—In April of 2016, I went to a huge Bernie Sanders speech in Washington Square park, which spilled out into the surrounding streets around NYU. Last night, I went to a (not quite as huge, but still big) speech by Elizabeth Warren, in the same park, under the same noble white arch. What’s the difference?Read more...

To be fair to Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, he didn’t start the sniping with Odell Beckham Jr. last week. Beckham kicked things off by (rightfully) pointing out that Williams coaches his players to make dirty hits. Given that Beckham is very good and the Jets are... well, the Jets, Williams would have…Read more...