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By: Laken Litman | March 30, 2016 1:01 pm Follow @LakenLitman

Iker Casillas and Sara Carbonero started a relationship in 2010 The pair caused a media frenzy when Casillas kissed the sports reporter on the lips following an interview after winning the 2010 World Cup  Expecting their second child, the pair have married in secret in Madrid The ceremony took place in the Madrid town of Boadilla del Monte Couple invited no guests with only two witnesses as required by law According…

View photo . Yao averaged 19 points, 9.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game across parts of eight seasons. (AP) Former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, a transcendent 7-foot-6 Chinese icon, has been elected for enshrinement into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016, league sources told The Vertical. Yao had been nominated and enters the Hall of Fame under a newly created Direct Elect International Committee….

Media playback is not supported on this device Highlights: England reach World T20 final England powered into their second World Twenty20 final as they hammered New Zealand by seven wickets in Delhi. Batting first, the previously unbeaten Black Caps raced to 89-1 after 10 overs, with Colin Munro blasting 46. But England came back superbly to restrict them to 153-8, with Ben Stokes taking three wickets at the death as…

The U.S. men’s soccer team will not be joining the U.S. women in Rio. On Tuesday, the U.S. Under-23 men’s squad fell to Colombia 2-1 in Frisco, Texas, losing the Olympic playoff 3-2 on aggregate. The teams are made of U-23 players because men’s soccer at the Olympics consists of mainly U-23 members and three allowed over-age players. After having secured a 1-1 draw in Colombia last week, a 0-0…

Chris Bassitt’s first Major League Baseball pitching start came for the Chicago White Sox in late August 2014. He was 25 years old, just slightly older than the average age for a pitcher’s debut in the league. He had gotten the phone call notifying him of the start only two days earlier, and it had taken him completely by surprise. He spent the next 48 hours in an emotional and…

There will be a new player in Major League Baseball dugouts this season: the iPad. Apple Inc. and MLB signed a multi-year agreement to equip every team with iPad Pro tablets to help coaching staffs make better use of data. Teams will be able sift through performance stats from current and past seasons, weigh potential pitcher-hitter matchups, look at “spray charts” showing where a player is likely to hit a…

Baseball sure loves a manufactured controversy, especially if the terms “respect,” “class,” or “the right way” are involved. No team attempts to uphold the unwritten rules of the game quite like the Kansas City Royals. Last year, the Royals cleared benches six times — five times in April alone — and despite ending the season as World Series champions, the Royals are keen to clear the benches again to start 2016. You…

Ballpark food menus are devolving into train wreck mashups promoting little more than excess for the sake of it. They sound fun, in a let’s wait in line for 40 minutes in order to do something horrible to our stomachs like a day at Disneyland sort of way. Some are actually pretty clever, such as the Milwaukee Brewers’ Pulled Pork Parfait. That’s a logical combo of tasty items not normally…

South Carolina ran out of late-inning magic Tuesday night against the College of Charleston, falling 6-5 in 13 innings at Founders Park. The Gamecocks (23-3) rallied from a two-run deficit in the ninth inning and a one-run deficit in the 12th, but John Jones grounded out with two outs and the tying run on second in the 13th as the Cougars outlasted No. 5 USC. The result ends South Carolina’s…

The red warning lights that flashed in the face of the United States national team on Friday night in Guatemala City never even flickered on Tuesday in Mapfre Stadium. The U.S. romped to a 4-0 victory over Guatemala in front of 20,624, helping the Americans write themselves a new lease on their World Cup qualifying lives. In what amounted to a must-win game in the semifinal round of CONCACAF qualifying,…

The U.S. men’s soccer team will not be joining the U.S. women in Rio. On Tuesday, the U.S. Under-23 men’s squad fell to Colombia 2-1 in Frisco, Texas, losing the Olympic playoff 3-2 on aggregate. The teams are made of U-23 players because men’s soccer at the Olympics consists of mainly U-23 members and three allowed over-age players. After having secured a 1-1 draw in Colombia last week, a 0-0…

Jurgen Klinsmann cannot make up his mind about what he wants from the American soccer culture. Back in 2014, Klinsmann urged U.S. soccer fans to get on the level of European soccer powers that shame their players and coaches after poor performances. He said via FTW’s Laken Litman: “We’re not there yet. But in the big leagues in Europe and South America, if you miss a shot, you’re held accountable…

The Mexican Soccer Federation launched a campaign Tuesday urging fans to refrain from anti-gay chants that drew fines from FIFA earlier this year. It may be a tough fight, judging by the plea’s failure to deter fans at a Mexican national team game Tuesday night. Called “Embraced by Soccer,” the campaign consists of a couple of 30-second videos in which popular stars including forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, captain and defender…

3:20 PM ET print The Sprint Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway this week, and while the participants of the most notable wreck from November have tried to move on, no one will forget that race anytime soon. Many would view the Nov. 1 race as the ultimate in NASCAR retaliation and vigilante stock-car justice, an act that resulted in NASCAR’s harshest penalty ever to a Sprint Cup driver for…

There will be a new player in Major League Baseball dugouts this season: the iPad. Apple Inc. and MLB signed a multi-year agreement to equip every team with iPad Pro tablets to help coaching staffs make better use of data. Teams will be able sift through performance stats from current and past seasons, weigh potential pitcher-hitter matchups, look at “spray charts” showing where a player is likely to hit a…

Baseball sure loves a manufactured controversy, especially if the terms “respect,” “class,” or “the right way” are involved. No team attempts to uphold the unwritten rules of the game quite like the Kansas City Royals. Last year, the Royals cleared benches six times — five times in April alone — and despite ending the season as World Series champions, the Royals are keen to clear the benches again to start 2016. You…

By the time the season is over, the four baseball teams in the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League will have faced each other three times. Baseball purists probably hope there will be some closer games than the first ones. Columbia River scored 10 runs in the second inning and rolled to a 13-1 win over Prairie in a game shortened to five innings. Kelso, meanwhile, topped Fort Vancouver 23-1….

With Opening Day almost here, we’ll look at the inside story of baseball’s most valuable commodity: the arm of the pitcher. Kansas City Royals’ Edinson Volquez throw during a spring training baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Monday, March 28, 2016, in Surprise, Ariz. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) Guests Jeff Passan, lead baseball columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Author of the new book, “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the…