Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Right now, the red glow from Clay Travis’s ass is visible from 100 miles away. His book Republicans Buy Sneakers Too, a title that aged very poorly from when it was announced to when it was published, has also sold very poorly.Read more...

I was alone in a hotel room on the East Side of Manhattan last week (PRO TIP: Never stay on the East Side of Manhattan during the UN General Assembly, unless you enjoy endless traffic barricades and the overwhelming stench of cologne in elevators), when I had a really bad nightmare. Like all dreams, the particulars of…Read more...

Portland, ME — On Thursday night, as Maine Republican Susan Collins weighed her vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, around 60 protestors stood in a plaza across the street from her Portland office. They held signs reading “I believe her.” Tourists cut around the outskirts of the crowd. As one…Read more...

The NFL is in the midst of a genuine offensive revolution. It’s also the latest phase of an evolution, given that teams have been passing more frequently and attacking defenses with additional receivers since the early part of this decade. But this year, something’s up. Way up. Scoring is off the charts. Quarterbacks…Read more...

Since coming forward last year as a survivor of former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman has become a prominent voice and advocate for victims of sexual violence. Now her passionate words from her victim impact statement are being used—presumably without her consent—to promote…Read more...

Rotten news, Knicks fans: Kyrie Irving told an assembly of Celtics season ticket holders that he plans to return to Boston in free agency in summer 2019. And if you’re clinging to the hope that he was just saying that to ingratiate himself with Celtics diehards, he went into greater detail Friday at practice, saying…Read more...

It is the dream of all dogs to spill the treat container so that the treats held within it may be scattered about and easily consumed. This dream came true for a dog named Zeus, and even when his owner and a closed door conspired to deny him his bounty, he persisted.

Usually when Manchester United manager José Mourinho—who has been presiding over a plummeting team full of star players who hate him—is backed up against a wall of his own failings, he reacts by talking some insane and/or defensive shit or by storming away in anger. In his pre-match press conference today, however,…Read more...

Don’t watch this video of Lazio defender Riza Durmisi wrecking his arm (early reports say it’s a dislocated elbow) in the Europa League yesterday if you don’t want to see an elbow become double-jointed against its will:Read more...

The Nationals are despicable and I hate them, and anyway they’re out. The Orioles were the lousiest team in living memory this year. As a baseball fan in and from the broader D.C. area, I’m stranded in these playoffs, with no obvious rooting interest—except one: the joy of my dear coworkers’ sadness.

This should not be interpreted as proof that Brandon Ingram is Good now. He had a promising sophomore season; he’s got some defensive versatility; he’s a terror when pointed at the cup and on the move. These things will sort themselves out in the regular season. Certainly a preseason game against the putrid Kings is…Read more...

Double-shifting in 3-on-3 overtime is dangerous, when every forward has to backcheck on every counterattack, and a tired skater could easily mean an odd-man rush the other way and sudden death. But that’s exactly what Artemi Panarin did for Columbus, staying on the ice for a line change in overtime against Detroit.…Read more...

The investigators tasked with studying sexual harassment at the Dallas Mavericks say they interviewed 215 current and former employees and reviewed 1.6 million documents before releasing their 43-page report two weeks ago. But after all that, one name was still absent from the report, surprising some former Mavericks…Read more...

io9 The Speculation About Avengers 4's Real Title Rages On | Jalopnik Buy This Beautiful Bronze Lotus Elise Totaled Over Bumper Scratch | Offspring Is Your Teen Hiding Sexting Photos in a Fake Calculator App? | Kotaku NBA 2K19 MyCareer: The Kotaku Review | The Takeout Ask The Salty Waitress: An acquaintance just…Read more...

During the regular season, Rockies reliever Adam Ottavino worked 36 at-bats to an 0-2 count. Hitters went 0-36 against him in those situations, and 31 of them ended up as strikeout victims. It’s hard to understand, then, how this happened:

The vagaries of walk-offs and crowd dynamics meant that when Mike Moustakas singled in Christian Yelich to win Game 1 for Milwaukee, the dugout chased Moustakas, eventually settling in right-center field, where the Brewers jumped, slapped, and celebrated. One problem with that: It’s a long way to go for a Gatorade…Read more...

Hyun-Jin Ryu pitched seven dominant innings, and the Dodgers walked a whopping eight times against Braves pitchers, but it was late-blooming-ass, rags-to-riches-ass, minor-league-veteran-ass Max Muncy who dealt the heaviest blow in Thursday night’s 6–0 Dodgers win over the Atlanta Braves, in Game 1 of their NLDS…Read more...

Brian Bowen’s dad testified Thursday in the federal criminal trial of agent Christian Dawkins, Adidas executive James Gatto, and former Adidas operative Merl Code, who are accused of committing felony wire fraud as part of the FBI’s massive investigation of corruption in basketball recruiting. Bowen Sr. described…Read more...

The Brewers got nine innings of excellent pitching in a 10-inning game, and won on a walk-off single in extras from Mike Moustakas, to grab Game 1 of their NLDS matchup with the Colorado Rockies.Read more...

Marriott hotel workers are striking in Boston, San Francisco, and San Jose this week. Unite Here Local 26, the union representing the striking hotel workers in Boston, has organized its members around the slogan One Job Should Be Enough, and after months of negotiating with Marriott, last month 96 percent of Local 26…Read more...

Oh no, not this again.Read more...

Late Wednesday, a day after the Chicago Cubs had been eliminated from the playoffs, Major League Baseball announced that it was suspending Addison Russell for 40 games for “violating Major League Baseball’s Joint Domestic Violent, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy.” Russell will also be required to “participate in…Read more...

Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith, who will be startled some time in late November when he realizes he has inbounded the ball to Collin Sexton and not LeBron James, will pay a fan $600 after hurling the man’s phone into a Manhattan construction zone in late July.Read more...

Back in April of 2017, Rockies pitcher Jon Gray was the team’s Opening Day starter, and seemed destined to become the franchise’s future ace. Today, it was announced that he has been left off the Rockies’ NLDS roster.

Earlier today, Portugal’s national team manager, Fernando Santos, and the country’s soccer federation president, Fernando Gomes, competed to see who could be the biggest, most tone-deaf moron when they each offered their commentary on the rape allegation attached to Cristiano Ronaldo. Not content with leaving those…Read more...

Rachel Mitchell, the GOP hired gun who shot blanks during last week’s Brett Kavanaugh hearing, told Republican senators immediately after the public fiasco (but before the FBI investigation had begun) that she would not have prosecuted the nominee for his alleged assault of Christine Blasey Ford.

This morning, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and the United States Justice Department accused the Russian government of carrying out cyberattacks against a number of international bodies, including the World Anti-Doping Agency and the U.S.A Anti-Doping Agency. The coordinated announcements came on the heels…Read more...

The baseball season gets much stranger as it narrows down in October, which is not a novel observation but is one that is already proving itself out. Before we even recorded this week’s Deadcast, a Wild Card game had been decided in the dead of night on a hit by a backup catcher who was one of the very worst hitters…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.

Of the $5 million that Lance Armstrong agreed to pay the federal government in April to settle a protracted legal battle, $1.1 million went to Armstrong’s former teammate Floyd Landis for his service as a whistleblower. Landis, who famously turned on Armstrong in 2010, told the Wall Street Journal today that he will…Read more...

On Saturday, Conor McGregor will return to the UFC for the first time in two years to challenge Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight title. The highly anticipated matchup, which pits one of the most popular athletes in the world against an undefeated champion, has been billed as the biggest fight in UFC history.

A note before starting: Much of this was written before the Saturday, Sept. 22nd heavyweight title fight between Anthony Joshua and Alexander Povetkin held at Wembley Stadium in London, hence the two parts to the piece—before Wembley, and then upon arrival and afterwards. There is a lot of speculation in the piece…Read more...

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has spent the first four weeks of the NFL season playing consciousness-expanding football—scrambling, improvisational, hyper-charismatic stuff. Four games make for a small sample, but if it is at all representative of the underlying talent, Mahomes will be doing big things for a long…Read more...

To seasoned political watchers and people who have spent the last two years gradually becoming more depressed and hopeless—the Venn diagram of those two things really ought be a circle—this news may come as no surprise, but it is galling nonetheless. Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and…Read more...

The Canucks roasted the Flames on opening night, scoring the first three goals in a fairly easy 5-2 victory. Neither of these mostly irrelevant Canadian teams—the Canucks in particular, with their startling lack of experienced depth players—should do much to challenge the top squads in the West. But Vancouver’s first…Read more...

Last month, visitors to Washington’s Olympic National Park were treated to a surreal sight. A helicopter crossed the sky dangling strands of drugged, blindfolded mountain goats—as many as five at a time—like a string of furry pearls. In the end, more than 100 goats were airlifted from the park and shipped to new homes…Read more...

Here we have a Yankees fan, excited because the baseball team he roots for is winning, throwing the majority of his beer onto another person for the apparently sole reason that the other person is a fan of the other baseball team. Really fucked up!

That thing is happening again, where everyone is wondering if there’s some serious internal discord plaguing the Green Bay Packers. Eyebrows were raised when after Green Bay’s 22-0 victory over Buffalo, a game in which the Packers did not play as well as the score indicates, quarterback Aaron Rodgers had some, well, …Read more...

A deeply discounted standing desk, double discounts on RAVPower charging gear, and unique $10 art prints lead off Thursday’s best deals.Read more...

The defending champion Capitals rained righteous hellfire on the Boston Bruins Wednesday night, crushing them 7-0 in front of a celebratory crowd in their season opener. The Bruins are a bunch of ornery bastards when they’re up 7-0, but when Caps center Lars Eller picked up the last of his team’s goals midway through…Read more...

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So you want to try a standing desk, but you’re not ready to commit to it for eight hours a day...what do you do? You buy this monitor riser for $120, an all-time low.

Luke Voit is a meaty midwestern lad who can’t or won’t button up his jersey all the way and whose grandmother still sends him $25 for every home run he hits, and there have been a lot of $25 checks from Nana in the last couple of months.

If you have some bare spaces on your walls at home, you can fill them with Vintage Book Art prints, just $10 each in today’s Gold Box. Each art print is layered atop an actual vintage dictionary page, meaning every single piece is completely unique. You don’t get to pick the words on your page, but you do get to pick…Read more...

The Athletics had a fascinating regular season, and were a ton of fun to follow, and it would’ve been neat to watch a genuine underdog that got to this point in such a weird and surprising way go up against the powerhouse Red Sox in the ALDS. Alas, the dream died Wednesday when the Yankees smashed up Oakland’s “…Read more...

Alabama beat the shit out of the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday. By the end of the first quarter the Crimson Tide had a 28-point lead; by the end of the half it was 49. Louisiana scored a couple of touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but by that time they were already down 56 points. Alabama gained 608…Read more...

The Capitals wasted absolutely no time in getting their Stanley Cup-defending season off on the right foot following a long and Barry Trotz-less banner-hanging ceremony. Just 24 seconds or so into the game—before NBCSN had even had a chance to put the scoreboard chyron on the screen—TJ Oshie ripped a one-timer into…Read more...

The Capitals did their big banner raising ceremony before Wednesday night’s season opener. It was very long! It included both a four-and-a-half minute montage set to Mumford & Sons, and a three-and-a-half minute montage set to Queen, and then an excruciatingly slow two-and-a-half minute raising of the banner. What it…Read more...

With many of the cameras and reporters gone, the fourth Senate hearing about sexual abuse in Olympic sports took on a different tone. There was no yelling. There was no demanding of answers. CEOs of the organizations that oversee Olympic sports had a few chuckles. The grandstanding was gone, just the empty gestures of…Read more...

The Georgia Bulldogs baseball team has reportedly dismissed first baseman Adam Sasser over racial slurs he allegedly shouted from the stands at Georgia quarterback Justin Fields during Saturday’s home win over Tennessee.Read more...