Month: October 2024

Congratulations to the New York Mets, who shook off the vexing enigma that is the Pittsburgh Pirates and beat the Florida Marlins 4-0 tonight to clinch the National League East title. They're the first team to punch the proverbial ticket to the playoffs, and now we can all breathe a sigh of relief that, for the first time in about 15 years, we don't have to watch dreary October Braves games with 20,000 people in attendance. The ever-inventive Shea Stadium PR staff mercifully avoided "Our Team, Our Time" and played the hip-hop hit "Takin' Care Of Business" by East Coast gangsters Bachman Turner Overdrive. We still hope that the Mets will find a way to expand their postseason rosters to include Vince Coleman, so that he will work as official tarp blocker…

Quick: what’s the biggest joke of the decade in the NBA? If you answered, “the New York Knicks,” fine, I’ll give you that. But most people would answer, “that damn Brooklyn Nets-Boston Celtics trade,” and most people would be correct. When Celtics general manager Danny Ainge fleeced his Brooklyn counterpart, poor Billy King, back in 2013, it didn’t just set the Celtics up to be a rebuilding team also capable of winning 50 games a season, it also set the Brooklyn Nets back at least half a decade, turning New York City’s second team into a scrap heap comprised of bad players and worse contracts. Well, the scrap heap has looked more like a mighty Voltron this month, with D’Angelo Russell at its head: Russell will always be known to a certain subset of NBA fans as the gu…

Overshadowed in the international selection controversy sparked by Eric Cantona’s comments and Karim Benzema’s fanning of the flames was Cantona’s lamentation that Hatem Ben Arfa wasn’t called up for the France team for the Euros. As understandable as the Ben Arfa snub is, it’s still sad. Because Ben Arfa has been eating people alive this year. We’ve covered a few of the Nice attacker’s feats of skill this season, but now that it’s officially over, we have the above video to memorialize the torn knee ligaments and snapped ankles and obliterated egos Ben Arfa’s magic feet have counted as casualties this year. It’s wild to think that just a year ago, Ben Arfa was out of the professional game and well on his way to becoming one of those sad “Where are they now?” gu…

data-mm-id=”_cu6vajcqe”>Philip Rivers might be finished, or he might just need a change of scenery. All it takes to see that he is broken is one look at his demeanor when he talks about the latest road crowd to overrun the Chargers' "home" stadium in Los Angeles. When they move into Stan Kroenke's new billions-plex next season, it may actually get even worse as there will be more territory for the visitors to conquer.Jon Gruden and the Raiders are reportedly considering the idea of moving on from Derek Carr, and Rivers is a looming free agent. This is a marriage of convenience that is the optimal situation for both sides. Rivers would get to stay in the general geographic vicinity of his family in San Diego (it's about a five-hour drive to Vegas), play for a te…

data-mm-id=”_f7c8wsetk”>The college football industrial complex keeps dealing Dabo Swinney the disrespect card. He keeps playing it for his team. It's a bit pedantic but certainly understandable considering the situation. After all, just many consecutive games does a side have to win before they are given the benefit of the doubt? After all, is this not the defending national champion who trounced Alabama by four touchdowns on the big stage last year?Swinney's whining has earned him the reputation as a whiner. That's what tends to happen, even if the complaints are warranted. All the blowouts and politicking in the world couldn't move the Tigers above the No. 3 seed. Their reward for walloping opponents is a matchup with Ohio State, another program with a reasonable…

data-mm-id=”_w0tippmdj”>Draymond Green and Charles Barkley have been embroiled in an entertaining war of words for some time that has reignited in recent days. Last week, Draymond Green fired back at criticism from the TNT analyst by saying that Barkley never won any rings and that he'd be coming to take Chuck's job. Now, Barkley is returning fire. He told TMZ that Draymond has a face for radio, and subsequently dropped a savage analogy about boy bands on the Dan Patrick Show:"He's the least famous person in the boy band, and he thinks he's a star. And he's not. He's lucky to be in the boy band. He thinks all the girls are screaming for him. No, they're screaming for Justin Timberlake.”-Charles Barkley on Draymond Green (? The Dan Patrick Show)…

data-mm-id=”_fpyyr2vsn”>Chris Simms created some waves in the football world the other week when he reported the Seattle Seahawks had offered Russell Wilson to the Cleveland Browns for the No. 1 overall pick ahead of the 2018 draft. He went on the Dan Patrick Show on Friday to double down on that report, framing it as a fact rather than a rumor. Starting at the 2:32:00 mark of the video below: "This is something I know. This is not a rumor. This is something I found out about not too long after the 2018 NFL Draft from some people close to the situation. And then had it confirmed on the other side by the other team involved in it," said Simms. "There was talks a little bit between Cleveland and Seattle and Cleveland giving that first pick in the draft for Russell Wilson. …

data-mm-id=”_8k833n951″>One of the many ripple effects of the NBA deciding to restart its season down in Orlando starting July 30 is that whatever happens will have a much bigger impact on the following season. The league's proposed schedule to begin the 2020-21 season would give very little recovery time in comparison to a regular offseason, and not just for the champions. Every player on the 22 teams set to participate in the bubble playoffs would have a maximum of three and a half months to rest, which is the minimum in regular seasons. This is why Jayson Tatum and other stars still on their rookie deals are working towards some kind of insurance in case they suffer a catastrophic injury that would significantly impact their next contract. For Tatum, Pascal Siakam, Donovan Mitc…

data-mm-id=”_1ys44dp8t”>The NBA has kicked Houston Rockets forward Danuel House out of the Orlando bubble for a violation of health and safety protocols. Per a release from the league, House had a guest — who was not authorized to be on the campus — in his room for "multiple hours" on September 8.Here is the NBA's statement following his eviction from the bubble:NBA statement on Houston’s Danuel House being kicked out of the bubble. pic.twitter.com/WoNBSLgq24— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) September 11, 2020If that story is true then House absolutely should have been kicked out of the bubble. The league has strict rules for who can and can't enter the bubble and if House violated them there is no reason for him to remain. There's a pretty damn good reason …