Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Starting in 2019, HBO won’t be in the boxing business anymore. That’ll mean fights in the future will be up for grabs by a bevy of competing services.

In 2005, the Baltimore Orioles shocked the world with a 42-28 start, good enough to keep them in first place in the AL East into mid-summer. This was before Rafael Palmeiro, fresh off his 3000th hit, lied to Congress and tested positive for steroids; before ostensible ace Sidney Ponson was arrested for drunk driving…Read more...

The Tulane football program understands one thing about college sports very well: If you aren’t actually good, you can still get plenty of attention by having weird or funny uniforms. In 2016, the football program introduced the Angry Wave. I am pleased to report that the Angry Wave has grown both in size and anger…Read more...

The testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford—who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault—has been riveting, emotionally wrenching, and above all else, eminently believable. The tactic chosen by Senate Republicans to cede their questioning of Ford to sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell has…Read more...

Build a stadium!, they say. It’ll pay for itself! It’ll spur economic development in the surrounding neighborhood! It never does. For every single city/county/state/province that falls for it, eventually there comes the moment when they have to admit they got bamboozled. It’s Manitoba’s turn now.Read more...

Remember that insane backheel goal Roma’s Javier Pastore scored about a month ago, how with one deft flick he reaffirmed his status as one of the most gifted players in the game after his long fallow period in Paris? Well, he did practically the exact same thing again yesterday against Frosinone:Read more...

Throughout Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s first round of questioning in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding her alleged sexual assault at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, one name has been brought up over and over again: Mark Judge—the man, Ford claims, who helped Kavanaugh sexually…Read more...

It’s cruel, in its way: a week after we intermittently entertained a crowd of friendly goofballs in Chicago in a live podcast that many are still calling “perfectly fine, all things considered,” Drew is once again in the same city as the rest of the Deadcast team. And yet, because of his important work on another…Read more...

Former 49ers safety Eric Reid has been an outspoken advocate for Colin Kaepernick, and previously joined Kaepernick in his protest against police brutality and systemic racism. Reid went into the offseason as a free agent, and despite being just 26 years old, the former Pro Bowler could not land a job with an NFL…Read more...

Today Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor who has worked in Maricopa County, Arizona, since 1993, is interviewing Christine Blasey Ford on behalf of the Republican Party. Since her role was first announced, Mitchell has been the subject of intense national scrutiny, though she has declined to speak publicly about her…Read more...

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy, the “man” of Stillwater, joined UConn’s Randy Edsall as the latest football coach to throw a tantrum over the media doing its job this week.

A Tennessee high school’s athletic director was placed on leave after posting a video telling the student body to “blame the girls” for a dress code change that banned athletic shorts.Read more...

Kotaku “Video Games” Was On Jeopardy Tonight, And It Did Not Go Well | io9 Dark Phoenix’s First Breathtaking Trailer Has Arrived | Jalopnik The Cheap Kia Stingers Are Coming | Lifehacker What’s Coming and Going on Netflix in October 2018 | The Takeout 5 rules for better drinking at a beer bar |Read more...

Jacob deGrom’s sixth-inning strikeout of Ronald Acuna in his final start of the season on Wednesday night was a thing of beautiful chaos. After getting his first slider fouled off, deGrom’s second pitch, also a slider, gets the most halfheartedly sad whiff from Acuna, who’s clearly baffled and down 0-2. The young…Read more...

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but the following two things are true: The Colorado Rockies currently have a half-game lead in the NL West, and it’s largely because, for the first time ever, really, they have good starting pitching. One of those starters is German Marquez, and he was really damn good last night.

Flyers center Jori Lehterä was not at practice Wednesday, as news broke that he has been interviewed by police and named as a suspect in a cocaine ring in his native Finland. According to Finnish news service MTV, which first reported the story, Lehterä has denied involvement.

Veteran wideout Rishard Matthews, who led the Tennessee Titans’ WR corps in both catches and yards in each of the last two seasons, has been nearly invisible this year. He had missed some preseason time recovering from knee surgery, but he says he’s “100 percent healthy,” and it’s not like he’s been riding the bench.…Read more...

If you want an Instant Pot pressure cooker in time for Thanksgiving dinner prep (you do), the standard 6 qt. model is down to $80 right now ($20 less than usual), and the family-sized 8 qt. is down to $90, from its usual $140.

The Brewers beat the Cardinals Wednesday night in a tense 2–1 game. The result clinched at least a spot in the NL Wild Card game for the Brewers and for the Cubs, who sit at 92 wins apiece in the closest divisional race left in baseball. And there is one Cardinals rookie who is going to feel like absolute shit about…Read more...

There’s a reason the three contestants left the category until last.Read more...

White Sox pitcher Jace Fry got his first career start Wednesday, against the Indians. It wasn’t a real start—the White Sox tabbed this one as a bullpen game, and Fry only pitched one inning—but, hey, a career first! Meanwhile, while he and his teammates were out there getting pounded by the Indians, it appears that…Read more...

If you are someone who wants to pump your fist about Nike’s big endorsement deal with Colin Kaepernick, try this on: It is probably an encouraging sign of the times that Kaepernick’s demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism have not made him toxic for marketing and public relations purposes, the way…Read more...

Chris Sale’s final regular season start for the Red Sox met expectations, at least in the most basic sense. The word before his start Wednesday night was that he would throw around 90 pitches, and he left the game after tossing 92. Against the lowly Orioles, Sale went 4.2 innings, getting eight Ks and allowing three…Read more...

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who get misty while reading about Bryce Harper walking around in his uniform more than three hours before what could be his last home game as a National, and those who have no time for sentimentality because they’re too busy drooling over what Victor Robles did on the…Read more...

Veronica Mars—the comedy/mystery show about a teen girl detective that built a cult following during its initial run in the mid-2000s and helped launch Kristen Bell into her current position as America’s Sweetheart—is coming back for new episodes on Hulu next year.Read more...

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

They only just gave out the FIFA award for best goal of the season on Monday, and we already have a solid candidate for next year’s edition. Behold, the wondergoal of Pablo Fornals of Villarreal:Read more...

Imagine you are in a small building. The building has wheels. The building can move—vroom, vroom. The building has an engine that has recently exploded and resulted in months of mechanical issues afterward. Now imagine that you are in this building and you are making it do what Kevin Nicks did on Sunday. You’re …Read more...

Boxer Victor Ortiz, who has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, including “forcible rape,” turned himself in Tuesday, as the Ventura County Star first reported.

The levels of the American soccer pyramid are confusing, mostly because they are make-believe. Every level of the world’s real soccer pyramids are clearly numbered, linked with flights of stairs, and constantly shuffle teams up and down depending on the results of a clear and meritocratic process. At any point, any…Read more...

Cruelty is so often casual, and crueler for it. On Monday, the New York Times reported that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh used his high school yearbook page to drop an inside joke, naming a female student in a way meant to imply that she had been a sexual conquest for him and his football teammates. It is the…Read more...

Clemson senior quarterback Kelly Bryant announced Wednesday morning that he plans to transfer after recently being benched. He will depart the program after one full season of being the starter, though not without a bevy of weird comments to take with him from head coach Dabo Swinney.Read more...

Mike Malone might resemble a dirty Baltimore cop with a good heart from some musty procedural, but he could still drop you with his crossover. Watch him ably dribble his way through a defensive drill with his players in Nuggets training camp.

NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania—How many women must bleed to be heard? How many times? Once is not enough. It must be dozens, if not hundreds, of times. You need to do it under oath. You need to do it on camera. You need to let the lawyers and politicians and everyone on the internet call you and your family and your friends…Read more...

Mason Cox has a history of getting lured into sports he did not actually play. Organized basketball found him first. At Marcus High School in Texas, he stuck to solely to soccer, a decision that looked slightly stranger after he grew six inches between his junior and senior years and found himself a 6-foot-10 goalie.…Read more...

After Monday’s press conference, the biggest question surrounding Kawhi Leonard isn’t whether he will be healthy and happy enough to take the Toronto Raptors to the top of the East, but, “Wait, does he really laugh like that?” Thankfully, this compilation of Leonard laughs throughout the years shows that while he…Read more...

Coalatree makes some of our favorite outdoor apparel, and now you can preorder and save on the company’s new Camper hooded jacket.Read more...

Amazon, the country’s second-largest employer, has so far remained immune to any attempts by U.S. workers to form a union. With rumblings of employee organization at Whole Foods—which Amazon bought for $13.7 billion last year—a 45-minute union-busting training video produced by the company was sent to Team Leaders of…Read more...

Veteran umpire Joe West has been at this a long time, and it seems like he might be suffering some late-season and late-career grouchiness. Over the weekend, he instigated a confrontation with White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson that led to Anderson’s ejection as well as a post-game declaration that “Everybody knows…Read more...

A huge deal on computer storage, discounted Logitech peripherals, and 20% off Bean boots lead off Wednesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

Kotaku Sony Is Finally Allowing Cross-Play On The PS4 | Jalopnik Car And Driver’s First Five Months With the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Have Been a Maintenance Nightmare | io9 Updates on The Walking Dead, Star Wars Resistance, and More | Lifehacker Check Out Reddit’s Favorite Underrated Websites | The Takeout The…Read more...

Serial self-plagiarizer and teeth-enthusiast Rick Reilly has, for some goddamn reason, made a return to the world of sports writing. He attended a press conference at the Ryder Cup today, and while Justin Thomas was on the dais, Rick turned on that classic charm we all know and love:

When last we updated you on the fraught situation between Manchester United manager José Mourinho and his star player Paul Pogba, the two parties were slamming their team’s performance this weekend and low-key (or in Pogba’s case, explicitly) blaming one another for the loss. In just a few short days, things have…Read more...

Things are getting hot in the National League in the final days of the season. After last night’s results, here’s how things stand: The Brewers lead the wild-card race and are a half-game back of the Cubs in the central division; the Rockies are a half-game back of the Dodgers out west and now hold a half-game lead…Read more...

There’s no such thing as owning too much storage, especially at these prices. A bunch of SanDisk, WD, and G-Technologies flash storage and hard drives are included in today’s sale, including the best price ever on a 400GB (!!) microSD card for an all-time low price. Needless to say, that could hold a lot of Nintendo…Read more...

James Harrison, the Steelers all-time sack leader, went on Second Take Tuesday, to talk football and the ongoing Le’Veon Bell situation with Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe. Harrison was reliably anti-authority and pro-players looking out for their money during his playing days, and here he was firmly on Team Bell,…Read more...

Max Scherzer struck out 10 Marlins over seven innings of one-run ball Tuesday night to earn his 18th win of the season. The 10 strikeouts brought Scherzer to an even 300 on the season, the highest season total of Scherzer’s prolific career and just the 36th 300-strikeout season in the majors since 1901.

UFC welterweight Abdul Razak Alhassan was indicted Monday in Tarrant County, Texas, for charges related to the alleged rape of two women in one night in March 2018. Alhassan was reportedly arrested in April following a Saginaw Police Department investigation, and was out on $20,000 bail bond when he participated in…Read more...

Comebackers are some of the scariest events in sports. A comebacker fractured Juan Nicasio’s skull and broke his neck in 2011; a comebacker broke Mike Mussina’s nose in 1998 and for a while poisoned him with the fear that every pitch was going to come rocketing back at his face; last season a Joe Mauer comebacker…Read more...