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RIO DE JANEIRO – Baseball, in the most half-cocked fashion possible, is returning to the Olympics in 2020. Instead of representing the world, only six nations will be invited. Rather than featuring the game’s best players, its rosters are likely to include American minor leaguers and nobody from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. A multi-Games commitment would’ve given baseball some comfort, but the International Olympic Committee only guaranteed it on…

Yoenis Cespedes(Photo: Mike Ehrmann, Getty Images) New York — In the morning before Yoenis Cespedes’ quad flared up again and ultimately landed him on the disabled list, the outfielder participated in a round of golf Wednesday. The team had been trying to help Cespedes get as close to full strength by giving him time to rest, yet here was the injured outfielder, an avid golfer, opting for physical activity. Though…

Welcome to today’s daily fantasy post! Remember that you can find our posts on the DFS home page, as well as the fantasy page. Bookmark those sites now! Also, please scroll to the bottom of this article to see the latest tweets from Ryan Fowler (@FOXSportsFowler), D.J. Foster (@FOXSportsFoster), Adam Meyer (@FOXSportsMeyer) and me (@jhalpin37). That way, if information surfaces for any last minute changes, you can see our thoughts instantly….

The Olympic Games are finally here. The modern incarnation began back in 1896, but the Olympic tradition harkens back to the ancient Greek festival where a massive municipal infrastructure boondoggle was offered unto the gods as a tribute. Many of the sports appearing at the Summer Games have storied and truly ancient histories, and not just the obvious ones like the discus and javelin events. The race Herodotus presumably called…

The Olympics bring out the most casual of sports fans, for a variety of reasons. Some of those fans are blatantly enthralled by the storylines that network television will beat into viewers’ heads. (Underdog? History-making? A comeback for the ages? We’re bringing it to you every two years, snow or sunshine!) Others are actually thrilled to see the incredible athletic achievements in sports that rarely earn exposure in an online…

Play Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed autoplay autoplay U.S. intelligence has assigned more than 1,000 spies to Olympic security as part of a highly classified effort to protect the Rio 2016 Summer Games and American athletes and staff, NBC News has learned. Hundreds of analysts, law enforcement and special operations personnel are already on the ground in Rio de Janeiro, according to an exclusive NBC News review of a highly…

The Olympics are more than just the world’s premiere sporting event—they’re big, big media business. Just a few years ago, the closing ceremonies at the London 2012 Olympics attracted a staggering 900 million viewers, with more than 219.4 million Americans tuning into the games at one point or another. But what if you want to watch the Olympics without paying for cable television? There are options. Although NBC is offering…

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There have been few moments in my life as memorable as competing in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The chance to represent my country was a distinct honor, as was being part of the community of the Olympics — an event with the rare power to unite the world in the common spirit of competition and athletic excellence. The attention, hopes and energies of the global community uniquely fall…

Coach Ava Benach congratulates Josephine Kanach after the 9-year-old batted during practice June 19 in Washington. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) The four baseball players sprinting between first and second base were covered in red dirt and sweat. Even their ponytails were damp and sticky. “Look, girls, it’s important you’re giving 100 percent,” said Coach Ava Benach, who at 6-foot-3 towered over the young athletes. “You don’t turn your head to…

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Play Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed autoplay autoplay U.S. intelligence has assigned more than 1,000 spies to Olympic security as part of a highly classified effort to protect the Rio 2016 Summer Games and American athletes and staff, NBC News has learned. Hundreds of analysts, law enforcement and special operations personnel are already on the ground in Rio de Janeiro, according to an exclusive NBC News review of a highly…

Media playback is not supported on this device Rio 2016: Biles, Ennis-Hill & Whitlock in BBC team’s athletes to watch The 2016 Olympic Games officially start in Rio on Friday with the opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium. Athletes from 206 nations and a refugee team are in Brazil to compete in 28 sports and be watched by a global audience of billions. The build-up has been dominated by a…

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x Embed x Share SI.com’s Richard Deitsch spoke with Bob Costas about when the NBC fixture might call it quits as primetime Olympic host. Time_Sports Bob Costas says of his 11th Olympics, “I guess if I was a baseball player, they’d say I was a four-decade man.”(Photo: Suzy Gorman, NBC) Bob Costas is a baseball guy through and through. Even when he’s talking about the Olympics, the made-for-TV mega event…

Russia will be able to have a boxing team at Rio 2016, which starts in Brazil on 5 August Russia will have 271 athletes eligible to compete at the Rio Games, says the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This is more than two-thirds of their original entry list of 389 athletes, despite the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) recommending a blanket ban after a doping scandal. Russia’s Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov…

No TV? No problem! NBC is making 4,500 hours of Olympics coverage available at NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app, starting with preliminary soccer events on Wednesday, two days before Friday’s formal start of the Olympics. The online coverage includes every single event live, as NBC continues a practice begun with the London Olympics in 2012 under new owner Comcast Corp. For the first time, NBC is also offering some…

Cesspools, Zika, trash fires, and cat burglars: Rio may well make the world long for the stray dogs of Sochi. This is the International Olympic Committee’s fault, not Brazil’s. It’s unfair and unrealistic to expect a country with far bigger problems to put on a spectacular, mistake-free show. The IOC’s research into Rio’s bid for the 2016 Games apparently consisted of listening to “The Girl From Ipanema” while enjoying a…

Earlier this week, the International Olympic Committee announced the addition of five sports to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo — baseball, softball, karate, skateboarding, climbing and surfing. Surfing’s Tyler Wright was beyond stoked, but others were less enthused about the IOC’s attempts at “bringing the Games to young people.” But concern trolling over the fidelity of the Olympics’ roster of sports overlooks just how capricious the traditional selection process has…

The Summer Olympics are full of some of the most iconic sporting events of all time. But what about the little-known sports that could use some much-needed love? These 16 sports aren’t so famous but they are, in fact, Olympic events. Race walking, also know as speed walking, debuted at the 1908 Games. Today, race walking seems to be at it most competitive, with every Olympic record being broken at…