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For the first time, you may open a pack of baseball cards and find one that contains a swatch from a cap worn by Bryce Harper. Or Buster Posey. Or Andrew McCutchen. Or Marcus Stroman. New Era Cap and Topps announced on Friday a first-of-its-kind baseball card set that will appeal to both cap lovers and baseball-card collectors. They’re making a limited-edition set of cards that feature the nine New Era…

For an arena that will soon play host to more than 17,500 fans nightly, the new Golden 1 Center doesn’t make a huge first impression. Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive may have likened his team’s new arena to the Roman Colosseum, and it may be a much-needed cultural centerpiece for a city that desperately needs one, but the arena feels almost modest in its proportions. Except for what’s underneath. Construction…

The year started off with a flourish as Denny Hamlin narrowly edged Toyota teammate Martin Truex Jr. to win the closest finish in Daytona 500 history, a margin of victory measured by a scant 0.010 seconds. Twelve races later NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series is set to begin its second half in a similar tone, with the Toyotas holding the top positions and those not in the Joe Gibbs Racing camp…

Baseball appears set to return to the Olympics for the 2020 Tokyo Games. Major leaguers may balk. “It’s not going to happen. I don’t think it’s fathomable,” Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw said. Astros shortstop Carlos Correa wasn’t sure he’d play for a gold medal even if he could. “2020 will be my year before free agency,” he said. “We’ll see in 2020 what my situation is, and we’ll…

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…