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It turns out the big baseball stars in Wichita for the National Baseball Congress tournament aren’t the only celebrities hanging out at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. A few of their non-athlete celebrity friends have been showing up, too. On Saturday night, “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson was all over the field, throwing out the first pitch clowning around with buddy Adam LaRoche, one of the organizers of an All Star team of…

x Embed x Share American swimmers Missy Franklin, Ryan Lochte and Nathan Adrian reveal some surprising facts about Olympic competition. USA TODAY Sports Gabriele Detti (ITA), left, Mack Horton (AUS), middle, and Sun Yang (CHN) after the men’s 400 freestyle final during the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games at Olympic Aquatics Stadium on Aug. 6.(Photo: Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports) RIO DE JANEIRO — Since when did swimming become like boxing,…

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For those who are unfamiliar with my thought process, I aim to add as many home run hitters as possible to my daily fantasy baseball lineups. One way of doing that is to look at a player’s isolated power numbers (ISO). The ISO statistic removes singles and provides a larger weight for each extra-base hit. I also use the weighted on-base average (wOBA) metric. This stat takes every positive outcome into consideration. Last year,…

It may be set in the world of baseball, but Fox’s new fall drama Pitch is not a baseball show. Pitch follows a young female pitcher (Kylie Bunbury) who defies the odds when she becomes the first woman to play in the major leagues. “It’s a show about a young woman coming of age,” executive producer Dan Fogelman told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s press tour on Monday. “It’s…

By Sam McPherson As the Major League Baseball season moves into its final stages this month and next, all teams are making lineup adjustments after the non-waiver trade deadline. After all, with all the trade activity that went down at the last minute on August 1, pretty much every team had to shuffle its lineup last week to either accommodate new players—or replace traded players. That’s just the nature of…

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USA TODAY Sports’ Martin Rogers on the emotional roller coaster that is defined by victory and defeat at the Olympics. USA TODAY Sports

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China arrived in Rio with big expectations. Its 711-member delegation included the largest squad of athletes ever sent abroad. Swimmer Sun Yang was a national celebrity on the edge of becoming a hero. The woman’s gymnastics team looked militaristically efficient. The country still dominated fringe events like shooting. Then the Games began. So far the thrill of athletic competition and rising medal counts has been replaced by a wave of…

China has vented its fury after subtle mistakes were noticed in its national flag on display at the Olympics, with media, sports officials and the country’s diplomats seeking answers to the apparent mix-up. “I am not nit-picking because of obsessive compulsive disorder, but this is the national flag,” said Cui Yongyuan, a Chinese television presenter. “It is a principle that even primary school students would understand,” he added on Sina Weibo,…

One record seems almost guaranteed to be broken at each Olympic Games—the number of condoms supplied to athletes in the Olympic village. At Rio 2016, the count stands at 450,000, with 175,000 sachets of lubricant for good measure—the largest amount of contraceptives ever delivered to an Olympic Games. The numbers have been climbing ever since they first started handing out condoms at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul. It’s the…

Never mind the waiting game surrounding Paul Pogba’s £100million move to Manchester United — the biggest-money deal to shake up the Premier League is still yet to come into play. Between them, Sky Sports and BT Sport have shelled out £5.36billion to show live coverage of the English top flight, with this the first season of a three-year mega-deal. Among the big changes are new Friday night kick-offs hosted by…

The Williams sisters entered Sunday’s match with a 15-0 career record in the Olympics, having won gold in 2000, 2008 and 2012 Serena and Venus Williams lost for the first time in an Olympics doubles match as their hopes of winning a fourth successive title were surprisingly ended in the first round at Rio 2016. The American top seeds lost 6-3 6-4 to Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova,…

Media playback is not supported on this device Rio 2016 Olympics: Adam Peaty wins 100m breaststroke gold Adam Peaty won gold and Jazz Carlin claimed a silver as Great Britain secured their first medals of the 2016 Olympics on day two in Rio. Peaty, 21, smashed his own world record to win the 100m breaststroke in 57.13 seconds and end GB’s 28-year wait for a men’s Olympic swimming title. Minutes…

The United States, aided by a dominant second leg from Michael Phelps, earned the gold medal in the men’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay, avenging their painful loss to France in 2012. Team USA, which consisted of Phelps, Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Held and Nathan Adrian, beat France by 0.61 seconds to take back the gold. With the win, Phelps extends his records to 23 Olympic medals, 19 golds. Adrian, who was the…

x Embed x Share USA TODAY Sports’ Dan Wolken tells you the five things to watch for during Day 3, August 8, at the Olympics. USA TODAY Sports Simone Biles performs on the balance beam during women’s gymnastics qualifying.(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY Sports) The second day of the Rio Olympics saw some of the best American athletes take center stage. Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles all competed, though for different…

China has vented its fury after subtle mistakes were noticed in its national flag on display at the Olympics, with media, sports officials and the country’s diplomats seeking answers to the apparent mix-up. “I am not nit-picking because of obsessive compulsive disorder, but this is the national flag,” said Cui Yongyuan, a Chinese television presenter. “It is a principle that even primary school students would understand,” he added on Sina Weibo,…

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