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Bryce Harper’s campaign to “Make Baseball Fun Again” is admirable and important. But while Harper, fast becoming baseball’s most recognizable superstar at only 23 years old, rightfully seizes an opportunity to make his sport more entertaining and less stuffy, he’s hardly the first slugger to dare enjoy himself on the field in recent seasons. For Boston fans, David Ortiz has been making baseball fun for more than a decade. The…

Last June the World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced that it had officially applied for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games, which will take place in Tokyo, Japan. Thursday, the International Olympics Committee announced that it will recommend both sports be added in a vote by the general assembly in Rio de Janeiro this coming summer the night before the 2016 games begin. According to The Associated Press, IOC…

We enter Day 4 of the DII Baseball Championship in Cary, North Carolina. Wednesday’s games feature a win or go game against Cal Poly Pomona and Central Missouri at 11 a.m. followed by Lander and Southern Indiana at 3 p.m. ET. MORE: Nine players to watch at the DII championship The games will be played at the USA Baseball complex, which has served as the site for…

Bryce Harper’s campaign to “Make Baseball Fun Again” is admirable and important. But while Harper, fast becoming baseball’s most recognizable superstar at only 23 years old, rightfully seizes an opportunity to make his sport more entertaining and less stuffy, he’s hardly the first slugger to dare enjoy himself on the field in recent seasons. For Boston fans, David Ortiz has been making baseball fun for more than a decade. The…

SAN FRANCISCO – The Pac-12 Conference announced today the baseball All-Pac-12 honors for the 2016 season, as determined by a polling of the Conference coaches. CALIFORNIA’s Brett Cumberland was voted Pac-12 Player of the Year, while OREGON STATE’s Logan Ice was tabbed Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. Fellow Beaver Nick Madrigal was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year while WASHINGTON’s Troy Rallings was voted Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year….

SCHEDULE FRIDAY Game 1: No. 2 UNCW vs. No. 3 Duke, 1 p.m. Probable pitchers: UNCW- Ryan Foster (12-1, 2.41 ERA); Duke- Brian McAfee (7-4, 3.40 ERA) Game 2: No. 1 USC vs. No. 4 Rhode Island, 7 p.m. Probable pitchers: USC-Clarke Schmidt (9-3, 2.96 ERA); RI-Tyler Wilson (12-1, 2.08 ERA) SATURDAY Game 3: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, Noon Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2…

A paper published in April calculated the probable number of Zika cases during the Olympics, using dengue transmission during the 2008 outbreak as a model. It found that, on the low end, there would be 1.8 cases per one million tourists, and on the high end, 3.2 cases per 100,000 tourists. So the concern is not necessarily that tourists will fall ill while they’re at the games. (Though everyone seems…

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Late in 2014, Nike’s soccer footwear team met with Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, better known as Neymar Jr. At the meeting the Brazilian soccer star, who plays professionally for FC Barcelona, mentioned that he loves Michael Jordan. And of course he does. Neymar Jr. is 24 years old—what child of the 1990s didn’t worship Jordan? But today, Neymar has something unprecedented to show for his fandom: the NJR x…

The TV ratings for the Stanley Cup playoffs have not been good. Monday’s Game 1 of the Final got a 2.8, well off the 4.2 of the opener a year ago, crushed by Game 7 of Warriors-Thunder. The final numbers for Game 2 likely won’t be much better with the game banished from NBC to NBCSN thanks to not the Warriors, but the extreme jungle gym competition that is American…

Turkey’s Adem Kilicci and Russia’s Yekaterina Gnidenko A Turkish boxer and a Russian cyclist have been provisionally suspended after doping samples from the London 2012 Olympics returned positive retests. Boxer Adem Kilicci and track cyclist Yekaterina Gnidenko both tested positive for steroids, their sports’ governing bodies said on Thursday. Olympics chiefs announced last week that 23 competitors at the London Games had failed retrospective doping tests. Retests focused on athletes…

Bryce Harper’s campaign to “Make Baseball Fun Again” is admirable and important. But while Harper, fast becoming baseball’s most recognizable superstar at only 23 years old, rightfully seizes an opportunity to make his sport more entertaining and less stuffy, he’s hardly the first slugger to dare enjoy himself on the field in recent seasons. For Boston fans, David Ortiz has been making baseball fun for more than a decade. The…

All roads lead to Omaha as the NCAA baseball tournament gets underway this weekend, starting from the south and east. Thirteen of the 16 four-team, double-elimination regionals taking place from Friday through Monday will be hosted by SEC (seven) and ACC (six) schools, with the other three in Texas and Louisiana. The distribution of sites this year reflects how the balance of power at the top of the sport has…

The Twins are bad. It’s exceedingly obvious to everyone the Twins are bad. You could ask the world’s biggest Twins’ homer—which many, apparently, believe is me—and they would tell you the Twins are bad. This isn’t rocket science at this point. I know the Twins fucking suck. So why are you here? Why do you watch the Twins? Why do you care? I’ve gotten many angry things lobbed…

We all want to be in charge of our favourite baseball team. It’s why Franchise mode exists on console games and why games like Out of the Park Baseball and Strat-o-Matic baseball (among others) are so popular. Well this year Strat-o-Matic has come out with a new product that throws a different spin on controlling your ballclub. In SOM’s Baseball Daily product, you are able to be John…

Often, when I’m asked to give a speech on strategy at some company event or conference, I find that one of the other speakers is a former professional sports player. In that capacity, I’ve happily attended the talks – with much interest – of a famous ice-hockey and a famous table tennis player, some rowers, and a freeskier; I’ve listened to the fascinating tales of a professional BASE jumper whose…

RELATED: All points penalties for 2016   Three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams have been issued P3 penalties coming out of the Charlotte race weekend, which resulted in their respective crew chiefs being suspended for at least one race, according to the NASCAR penalty report released Wednesday evening. Additionally, a P2 penalty was handed down to Tony Stewart .   The Roush Fenway Racing No. 16 (Greg Biffle), Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 (Kurt Busch) and JTG Daugherty Racing No….

Since five members of the U.S. women’s soccer team filed a complaint earlier this year alleging pay discrimination, the U.S. Soccer Federation has disputed their claims in media interviews and statements.  On Tuesday, the governing body issued its most comprehensive rebuke in a 20-page letter filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency responsible for investigating the players’ allegations.  The letter insists that those claims are “false,” and…

8:15 PM ET Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment NASCAR suspended three crew chiefs Wednesday for violations at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Greg Biffle crew chief Brian Pattie was suspended for two races for illegal body measurements, and one-race suspensions were given to Kurt Busch crew chief Tony Gibson and AJ Allmendinger crew chief Randall Burnett after their cars didn’t have five secure lug nuts on each wheel following Sunday’s Coca-Cola…

9:51 PM ET Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment In theory, the idea of professional boxers competing in the Olympics sounds fun and interesting. Who wouldn’t want to watch national dream teams of fighters going for gold in Rio de Janeiro this summer? For years it has always been just fantasy. But on Wednesday, AIBA, the organization that overseas amateur boxing, voted overwhelmingly to allow professionals to compete in the…