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It took some time for our shock to subside, the dust to settle and for the pieces to be confirmed, but once all of that fell into place yesterday, the huge trade of Erick Aybar and the Angels‘ top prospects in exchange for Braves SS Andrelton Simmons finally began to make plenty sense to us here at Halos Heaven. Yes, many of us would miss Erick Aybar, and the promise…

Dusty Baker shouldn’t have been the Washington Nationals’ choice as manager. Not after original head coach Bud Black bailed because of a reported low contract offer. This isn’t a knock against Baker, no indeed. In fact, Baker is overqualified to even be in this particular discussion. But despite Major League Baseball preaching the “gospel of inclusion” with regards to hiring more minority candidates, the numbers tell a different story. When…

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Media playback is not supported on this device Message could not be stronger – Coe Russia’s athletics federation has been provisionally suspended from international competition – including the Olympic Games – for its alleged involvement in widespread doping. The IAAF took action after the publication of an independent World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report that alleged “state-sponsored doping”. Its council members voted 22-1 in favour of Russia being banned. “This is…

This week’s report by the World Anti-Doping Agency into sport in Russia makes devastating reading. It concludes that Russia ran a huge state sponsored doping programme, sabotaged the London 2012 Olympics, and should be banned from athletics. Some details are extraordinary. Intelligence agents were smuggled into Moscow’s scandal-hit laboratory to intimidate staff. But for anyone who has followed the changing role of sport under Vladimir Putin, the report is hardly…

So this is it. We are down to the final race before the championship race next Sunday in Homestead. Only one driver, Jeff Gordon, is locked into that race. There are three positions yet to be filled and we won’t know until this Sunday’s race what names to write in those positions. To me there are three drivers who have to throw a “Hail-Mary” pass to even have a chance…

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BOCA RATON, Fla. • There was a time, not too long ago, before the advent of Runs Saved and route efficiency when defense was solely in the eye of the beholder, not bytes in a database. Baseball offered monochromatic and misleading stats like errors and fielding percentage to audit its fielders. But as the business of baseball has become more analytics-driven, evolving from Moneyball to today’s Big Data, a good…

A photo of Slade Russo(Photo: Courtesy) There’s a different kind of baseball tournament in Waxahachie this weekend. More than 40 teams will be there, playing for the one kid who can’t. Steve and Beverly Russo lost their son six months ago, in a 4-wheeler ATV accident. Slade was 13 years old, and he loved baseball. “Steve would sit on the couch and toss him the ball till he broke the…

BEIJING—China is filled with sports fans, from President Xi Jinping on down. Now Chinese companies are betting big that those fans will pony up to watch their favorite teams. Chinese media and Internet companies have struck big deals in recent months for the rights for everything from the Los Angeles Clippers to Spanish soccer-club matches, often paying many multiples to the prices they paid in the past. The companies are…

I get it. You see a headline like “Real Madrid Star Karim Benzema Charged In Sextape Blackmail Case” or “Transcript: Karim Benzema Helped Facilitate Blackmail Plot Against Teammate Over Sextape” and you aren’t quite moved. Sure, words like sex tape and blackmail seem juicy, but who is Karim Benzema to you, the typical American sports fan? You might know about Real Madrid—though even that is no guarantee—but why, you think,…

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I get it. You see a headline like “Real Madrid Star Karim Benzema Charged In Sextape Blackmail Case” or “Transcript: Karim Benzema Helped Facilitate Blackmail Plot Against Teammate Over Sextape” and you aren’t quite moved. Sure, words like sex tape and blackmail seem juicy, but who is Karim Benzema to you, the typical American sports fan? You might know about Real Madrid—though even that is no guarantee—but why, you think,…

Media playback is not supported on this device Russia doping crisis in 60 seconds Russia hopes to prevent its athletes being banned from next year’s Rio Olympics by claiming “irregularities” around its drug-testing system were down to the sport’s “old leadership”. The country’s athletics federation has written to athletics’ governing body after allegations of “state-sponsored doping” were made by a World Anti-Doping Agency independent report. The response will be discussed…

I get it. You see a headline like “Real Madrid Star Karim Benzema Charged In Sextape Blackmail Case” or “Transcript: Karim Benzema Helped Facilitate Blackmail Plot Against Teammate Over Sextape” and you aren’t quite moved. Sure, words like sex tape and blackmail seem juicy, but who is Karim Benzema to you, the typical American sports fan? You might know about Real Madrid—though even that is no guarantee—but why, you think,…

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Sensible Soccer and Sensible World of Soccer remain two of the world’s most revered football games, decades after their release. Now their creator Jon Hare is reviving them under a new name. Hare has launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise at least £300,000 to make Sociable Soccer, which he describes as “the spiritual successor to Sensible Soccer”. The game is slated to launch in late 2016 for PC, Xbox…

The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is headed for the final elimination race before the title fight at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but all three of the national touring series feature a close championship points battle headed into this weekend’s events at Phoenix International Raceway.  Only four drivers will move on to fight for the Chase for the Sprint Cup at Homestead, but there are still plenty of points positions up…

An athlete attends a training session at the ëYunostë sports ground at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia.(Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky, AP) MOSCOW – With an Olympic boycott ruled out, Russia is planning to at least partially admit it has a doping problem. Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko told The Associated Press on Thursday that there will “not in any case” be a boycott of next year’s Olympics in Rio…