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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment With five teams playing for the final three postseason spots and all the action unfolding at the same time, we know you couldn’t possibly watch every minute of baseball’s Sunday sprint to the finish. There’s no need to worry, though: We’ve got it all covered for you. Blue Jays hold on, and the playoff field is complete The Blue Jays held on for a…

Photo Credit: Getty Images / Jim McIsaac It’s the last day of baseball’s regular season, and all division titles have been clinched for the better part of a week now, but the wild cards leave plenty of meaningful matchups today. Three spots are open, with some home-field advantage up for grabs in the American League, so six of today’s 15 games have postseason implications on the line. And they’re all…

ISTANBUL—For nearly four years, Said Alpsoy recruited dozens of Turkey’s top soccer stars into the network of supporters of the reclusive Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Mr. Alpsoy spent hours counseling rising stars in Turkey’s most popular sport, many from poor families, on how Mr. Gulen’s teachings could help them stay grounded and cope with the lures of fame. In return, they donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the…

If any coach, player or parent feels inclined to lose their composure and start yelling at football official Thomas Harris, trying to provoke a response, good luck. He has been trained to be cool under pressure. That’s because when you’ve gone through Navy boot camp and served in a nuclear submarine as a sonar technician, you’re ready for anything. Harris, 42, is a first-year football official and part of a pilot…

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment With five teams playing for the final three postseason spots and all of the action unfolding at the same time, we know you can’t possibly watch every minute of baseball’s Sunday sprint to the finish. There’s no need to worry, though: We’ve got it all covered for you. Follow along as every thrilling moment of the regular season’s final day unfolds. So about that…

When Derek Jeter retired two years ago, it was the “end of an era” in baseball. David Ortiz will call it quits whenever the Red Sox finish their season and you’ll hear those same four words used. It’s the same when Peyton Manning or Tom Brady retires or when a league changes television networks (like when Fox grabbed the NFC from CBS in the mid-’90s), its playoff format or major…

8:34 AM ET Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment If you’re a careful reader, you’ll note the headline above reads “playoff baseball.” It’s not really playoff baseball yet, but it feels like it. Saturday’s games in St. Louis and San Francisco and Philadelphia and Seattle and New York and Boston were certainly filled with tension and drama. Four of those six games were decided in the eighth inning or later….

Photo Credit: Getty Images / Jim McIsaac It’s the last day of baseball’s regular season, and all division titles have been clinched for the better part of a week now, but the wild cards leave plenty of meaningful matchups today. Three spots are open, with some home-field advantage up for grabs in the American League, so six of today’s 15 games have postseason implications on the line. And they’re all…

Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton identified a complex problem, and addressed it with a deceptively, elegantly simple solution. How to address the growing problem of boys stopping reading, while keeping them engaged enough to tear eyes away from videogames and television and the plethora of immediate entertainment 21st century life is set up to provide? Their answer was to write a football book, in name only—football presented in an entertaining,…

The latest sports phenomenon sweeping the globe wasn’t represented at the Olympic Games in Rio; it doesn’t require an intense physical training regimen or even traditional sports equipment. We’re talking about e-sports — competitive video gaming — and the opportunities for huge windfalls for players and advertisers are immense. Corporations plan to spend $325 million on sponsorships and marketing of e-sports this year, hoping to reach gaming’s huge millennial demographic as the…

I hate golf. It’s the sport of Donald Trump. It’s the sport of environment trashing. It’s the sport of rightwing suburbia (Fidel Castro’s affection for the game was, I’m sure, just a case of knowing the enemy). And it’s a sport that’s really a leisure industry (though some of the outfits are rather dishy). But there is one too often neglected aspect of the game that even I have to…

Patriots quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is inactive for Sunday’s game against the Bills, meaning rookie Jacoby Brissett will his second straight start.  ESPN’s Adam Schefter first reported the news. Garoppolo injured his shoulder in Week 2 and missed last Thursday’s game against the Texans. Brissett is the only active quarterback, leaving wide receiver and former college quarterback Julian Edelman as the backup.  Brissett, a third-round pick from NC State, made his…

Joe Allen scored his first goal for Stoke in last weekend’s meeting with West Brom Stoke snatched a point at Manchester United as Joe Allen capitalised on a spill from David de Gea to punish the hosts’ lax first-half finishing. After a string of saves from Lee Grant before the break, United made the breakthrough when substitute Anthony Martial swept home a curling shot. It appeared to be a fatal…

It’s doubleheader day at Dover International Speedway, which will host both the NASCAR XFINITY and Sprint Cup Series on Sunday. The Drive Sober 200 XFINITY race originally slated for Saturday was rained out, so it will start this morning at 10 a.m., with the Citizen Soldier 400 Sprint Cup race going on as previously scheduled  at 2 p.m. Track officials announced that fans can stay and watch both races with…

  As news of the attack unfolded, NASCAR officials tried to find out if anybody in the industry was hurt or killed, a daunting task considering the dearth of information, the collapse of cell phone communications and how spread out the sport was. Some NASCAR officials had remained in Richmond, Virginia, following the previous race, and others worked at various locations across the country, including at a test in Kansas….

8:34 AM ET Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment If you’re a careful reader, you’ll note the headline above reads “playoff baseball.” It’s not really playoff baseball yet, but it feels like it. Saturday’s games in St. Louis and San Francisco and Philadelphia and Seattle and New York and Boston were certainly filled with tension and drama. Four of those six games were decided in the eighth inning or later….

BOSTON – The retired numbers on display at Fenway Park invoke memories of Pedro Martinez (45), Carl Yastrzemski (8), Ted Williams (9) and other Boston Red Sox greats. Williams may have been the best of them all. But he was not the most valuable player ever to wear a Boston uniform. That man will play his final regular season game Sunday afternoon at Fenway. No one has meant more to…

2:19 AM ET Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email print comment If you’re a careful reader, you’ll note the headline above reads “playoff baseball.” It’s not really playoff baseball yet, but it feels like it. Saturday’s games in St. Louis and San Francisco and Philadelphia and Seattle and New York and Boston were certainly filled with tension and drama. Four of those six games were decided in the eighth inning or later….

BOSTON – The retired numbers on display at Fenway Park invoke memories of Pedro Martinez (45), Carl Yastrzemski (8), Ted Williams (9) and other Boston Red Sox greats. Williams may have been the best of them all. But he was not the most valuable player ever to wear a Boston uniform. That man will play his final regular season game Sunday afternoon at Fenway. No one has meant more to…