[In] two years it'll be on par with the NHL. |
| | | | | Street baseball, Havana, 2010. (Marco Zanferrari) | | | | | | | “[In] two years it'll be on par with the NHL.”
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| rantnrave:// Cuban baseball crisis: You read a headline about ESPN tweeting a link to a video about FIDEL CASTRO and sports using the phrase "Savior and scourge," and having to take down the tweet because it hit an extremely sensitive nerve in advance of today's game between the TAMPA BAY RAYS and CUBA's national team, which ESPN will broadcast. You assume it was the not-exactly-press-friendly CUBAN government complaining about the word "scourge." But no, it turns out it was AMERICANS (and, to be fair, CUBAN-AMERICANS) complaining about the word "savior." To say today's game is being played under incredibly polarizing conditions would be an understatement. CUBAN-born LUIS TIANT will throw out the first pitch, and it wasn't an easy invitation for him to accept. ESPN contributor DAN LE BATARD, who has CUBAN roots, blasted the network (and DEREK JETER, and PRESIDENT OBAMA) in a column for the MIAMI HERALD. "There still is no freedom there," says RENE AROCHA, the first player ever to defect from the CUBAN national team (he won 11 games for the ST. LOUIS CARDINALS in 1993)... A CUBAN baseball explainer... CUBAN baseball in crisis... Fantastic CUBAN baseball visuals... WHITE SOX first baseman JOSÉ ABREU, who defected in 2013, returned in DECEMBER and saw his 5-year-old son for the first time in nearly three years. He expresses no apparent anger; but he does very much hope for a permanent reunion. One likes to think this week's visits by some baseball players and their president will help make that possible... Speaking of WHITE SOX and their sons, our latest REDEF SportsSET collects the best reporting and essays on ADAM and DRAKE LAROCHE... The single best proposal ever for fixing the NFL's catch rule. The single worst, um, description an NFL official has ever offered for said rule. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Outside the Lines examines Fidel Castro's love of sports. Castro loved sports the way he loved his Cohibas. | | |
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| To understand where the NFL is going when it comes to women--which is a better, more progressive place--you have to understand where it's been. You have to know that there are female heroes from the NFL past who shaped the NFL present. | | |
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| Like the rest of baseball, Dallas Keuchel was initially dubious of the Astros' ways. This was before he won the American League Cy Young award and the downtrodden franchise was suddenly rejuvenated. This was late 2013, when Keuchel was a former seventh round pick with an ERA floating above five and Houston was a laughingstock. | | |
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| Drone racing has amassed passionate fans around the world. These entrepreneurs now want to make it a mainstream sport. | | |
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| White Sox designated hitter Adam LaRoche stunned the baseball world by walking away from the game when the team told him his 14-year-old son could no longer spend every day in the clubhouse. Is he heroic, selfish or just a good dad? | | |
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| Robert Booker, a Detroit native currently serving a 30-year sentence for distributing crack cocaine, has been down for almost two decades. In that time, he's played thousands of games of chess. I saw it firsthand when I was on the yard with Booker at FCI Gilmer, a medium-security prison in Virginia. | | |
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| "We're more popular. Pay us more." | | |
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| Sometimes, for better or worse, you don't need to actually do much to make a name for yourself. Three days on set, distilled into five-and-a-half minutes on screen, can win you an Oscar. You can publish one book, follow it up more than half a century later with a first draft of the same book, and... | | |
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| No sport is more relatable than basketball. Players are quite literally exposed: We hear their interactions, read their body language and facial expressions, and interpret their style of play as a window into their personalities. It's also a social sport where relationships unfold in real time and chemistry reigns supreme. | | |
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| Yes, the student-athlete plight is real, and yes, our collective obsession with the NCAA Tournament will continue unabated. | | |
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| The best professional wrestlers know how to make an entrance, whether it's Stone Cold Steve Austin's shattering glass, the Undertaker's church bell "gong," or the Rock's "If you smell what the Rock is cooking." That's certainly true for the WWE's three-man tag champions the New Day, who have turned their entrance into a spectacle unlike anything else in the company. | | |
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| BOCA RATON, Fla. -- As the NFL's annual meeting unfolds this week at a tony resort here in South Florida, the function also serves as something of an introduction to Joe Lockhart, the former press secretary in the Clinton White House, who started Feb. | | |
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| NEW YORK -- The lights dimmed at Madison Square Garden. Sirens blared. Smoke billowed out of the fog machines. Flame shooters shot up in the air. No, it wasn't an introduction for a New York Rangers or Knicks game. | | |
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| On Sunday it was announced that the New Orleans Pelicans will shut down Anthony Davis for the rest of the season. 14 games in all. For Davis, it’s another season shaken by injuries. He’s never played more than 64 games in a season since entering the league in 2012. Head coach Alvin Gentry tried to offer some positivity despite calling this a “terrible year.” | | |
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| Turns out there aren't many incentives for a lot of teams to tank this season. | | |
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| Little Leicester, with a budget that's a fraction of the Premier League titans, is well on its way to winning the title. How is this happening? Roger Bennett takes a look at their stunning transformation from relegation candidate to title contender. | | |
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| At first glance, the news that Daily Fantasy Sports operators DraftKings and FanDuel have reached a settlement to halt operating paid contests in New York immediately may seem like a decisive blow to the DFS industry. | | |
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| Star college player Ben Simmons told ESPN that he will indeed declare for the NBA draft. The 6-foot-10 LSU freshman averaged 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game this past season for the Tigers but failed to be productive away from the rim. [Possible No. | | |
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| White Sox slugger Jose Abreu talks about reuniting with his 5-year-old son nearly three years after defecting from Cuba. | | |
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| We’ve been obsessed with chasing that which is faster than us since the dawn of humankind -- even that elusive 733 Express. | | |
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| © Copyright 2016, The REDEF Group |
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