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Baseball season is on the brink of being over and it sure feels like it has been a fictional postseason with the likes of the Cleveland Indians and those Cubs from Chicago making it to the World Series. Seriously, isn’t that the plot of every baseball movie ever? The Cubs or the Indians need a boost from some strange player or mystical being to win their division? They don’t even…

Neil Best Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, then returned in 1985. His SportsWatch column debuted in 2005. Alex Rodriguez has a history of inaccurate public utterances, but in this case you have to admire the guy’s spunk, and his loyalty to a game that made him rich and famous. Last week the Fox analyst predicted baseball will be the No. 1 sport in America again “sometime soon.”…

The pitcher steps back from the mound, his mitt arm extended to grab the ball from the catcher, he turns, he spits, faces the batter to focus on another pitch. The batter steps back from home plate, adjusts his gloves, spits into the dirt and returns to face the pitcher. By the fifth inning, it got to me. By the eighth, I wanted to switch to a different channel or…

What would the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Round of 12 look like had it been acted out by drivers on foot? Well, the folks at NASCAR thought it would be interesting to recreate the Chase with actors dressed as drivers, running through the woods. To that end, they enlisted director Jonathan Taylor, who’s worked on chase and action scenes in franchise films like The Fast and the Furious,…

On the field, the US women’s soccer team has followed up a thrilling NWSL final with a couple of smashing debuts in friendlies against Switzerland. Off the field, the sport is bogged down in the courts and at the negotiating table. The talent pipeline is still intact, a fact US coach Jill Ellis celebrated by calling in a staggering 11 uncapped players for camp. Lynn Williams, fresh from winning the…

Buy Photo New Rochelle defeated Arlington 3-0 in the boys soccer Section 1 Class AA championship game at Lakeland High School in Shrub Oak High School Oct. 29, 2016.  (Photo: Frank Becerra Jr./The Journal Ne) Three of the four Section 1 champions will be in action on Wednesday for the regional semifinals. New Rochelle (Class AA) and Somers (Class A) will be playing at Lakeland High, while Hastings (Class B)…

In what seems a natural fit for both GearWrench and Chip Ganassi Racing, the NASCAR team announced Tuesday that the innovative tool brand will serve as primary sponsor on the No. 1 Chevrolet driven by Jamie McMurray for multiple races in the 2017 season.   GearWrench executives joined Ganassi team officials and McMurray on Tuesday at the prestigious Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas to announce the…

Troy — Troy Athens goalie Mason Maziasz guessed right and saved a shot off the foot of Macomb Dakota’s Brendan Moore to give Athens a 3-2 (5-4) win Tuesday for a Division 1 regional championship. “I can’t even describe the feeling right now,” Maziasz said. “I had to keep my mind focused and help my team get through this.” Last Friday night, Athens (18-4-2) and Dakota (13-4-3) met and played…

Neil Best Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, then returned in 1985. His SportsWatch column debuted in 2005. Alex Rodriguez has a history of inaccurate public utterances, but in this case you have to admire the guy’s spunk, and his loyalty to a game that made him rich and famous. Last week the Fox analyst predicted baseball will be the No. 1 sport in America again “sometime soon.”…

Gail Mazur’s most recent collection of poetry is called “Forbidden City.” Gail Mazur says she’s been obsessed with baseball her whole life. “I grew up in Boston. My dad knew Ted Williams. Being a Red Sox fan is a lifetime mania and an important part of my lore.” In spite of that mania, Mazur says she resisted the temptation to write any poems about baseball because she worried about the…

This is only the start of the conversation. That’s important to remember when you see how far apart Heath Cummings and I are in our initial rankings. The goal isn’t to confuse you but to provide contrasting opinions. And in early November, you might get a little bit of both. For this initial run, we worked independently, retreating to our own separate corners and only comparing notes afterward. Also, these…

On the field, the US women’s soccer team has followed up a thrilling NWSL final with a couple of smashing debuts in friendlies against Switzerland. Off the field, the sport is bogged down in the courts and at the negotiating table. The talent pipeline is still intact, a fact US coach Jill Ellis celebrated by calling in a staggering 11 uncapped players for camp. Lynn Williams, fresh from winning the…

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER A British gymnast and Olympic champion has been banned from the sport for two months after appearing to ‘mock’ Islam in a leaked private video. British Gymnastics said in a statement that Louis Smith and his former teammate Luke Carson were found to have breached the sport’s standards of conduct in a formal disciplinary proceeding. SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER Mr. Smith and Mr. Carson…

Neil Best Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, then returned in 1985. His SportsWatch column debuted in 2005. Alex Rodriguez has a history of inaccurate public utterances, but in this case you have to admire the guy’s spunk, and his loyalty to a game that made him rich and famous. Last week the Fox analyst predicted baseball will be the No. 1 sport in America again “sometime soon.”…

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The BBC are planning to tamper with the hugely successful format of A Question of Sport, the corporation’s iconic and longest-running TV quiz show. The programme, which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2018, was last week put out to tender to independent producers for next year’s series which starts in the spring. The Beeb effectively asked bidders to come up with proposals to revamp all aspects of the programme,…

Patrick O’Beirne is 6 feet 2, 175 pounds, 16 years old and waking up at 4:30 a.m. to work out. A couple weeks ago, he quit the football team at Monrovia High, where he was a kicker. He says his sports career is over even though he’s a junior. “I want to be different,” he said. “I’ve had many coaches tell me I had potential to be a DI kicker….

I thought Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway was a pretty darn good race. There’s really nothing I can point to and say I didn’t like. Mother Nature graced us with unbelievable weather. The grandstands were full and we also saw some very hard racing. And on top of that, we saw two of the masters of Martinsville, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, beating and banging on each other. I think…