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NASCAR announced Wednesday that the sanctioning body has issued warnings to several teams — including five in the Chase for the Sprint Cup — following last weekend’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Most impacted are Chase driver Brad Keselowski and non-Chase driver Tony Stewart who will lose their pit selections for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway as a result of their respective teams accumulating four…

It was an extra-special weekend for Cristina Tortolano. The 11-year-old from Rhode Island celebrated both her love of hockey and her mighty courage during the Rhode Island Columbus Day Invitational Tournament, one of many events held nationwide during IIHF World Girls Ice Hockey Weekend. A creation of 1998 United States Olympic teammates Vicki Movsessian-Lamoriello and Sara DeCosta-Hayes, the tournament hosted more than 70 girls teams from…

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David Banks/Getty See Also How would you like one of the world’s smartest computers to sift through gads of baseball stats and help you pick the perfect Fantasy Baseball team, then personally advise you on which players to play or bench all season long? In November, you’ll be able to do just that, an IBM spokesperson tells Business Insider. That’s when a new Fantasy Baseball beta service will launch from baseball…

Guinness World Record-holder Isao Machii is a master of laido, a Japanese sword-based martial art, and he’s been using his swordplay skills to slice speeding objects for a few years now. The latest stunt from the man deemed a “modern-day samurai”? Cutting a 100 mph baseball in half while standing about 30 feet away from where it was fired. You can see it all go down in the two-minute clip,…

The roar began almost immediately when the ball came off Kyle Schwarber’s bat Tuesday night, the fans jumping to their feet in celebration before the ball disappeared somewhere above the right-field video board at Wrigley Field. Before long, Major League Baseball’s Statcast technology had the metrics on the epic home run. Exit velocity: 112.5 mph. Launch angle: 35 degrees. Max height: 136 feet. Projected hang time: 6.7 seconds. Projected distance:…

  At the Washington Nationals’ home opener in April, Duane Dargin, 9, stood in the center of the diamond beneath sunny skies waiting to throw out the game’s ceremonial first pitch. Just one year earlier, Duane had never before held a regulation baseball in his hand, nor had he played baseball a day in his life. Duane’s neighborhood, predominantly African-American and near some of the poorest sections of Washington, is…

ENLARGE The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are probing whether the business model of daily fantasy sports operators violates federal law, according to people familiar with the matter. FBI agents from the Boston office have been contacting customers of DraftKings Inc. to ask them about their experiences with the Boston-based company, one person familiar with the matter said. The probe is in the preliminary stage, two…

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(Photo: The Associated Press) TOKYO (AP) — IOC vice president John Coates is pleased with the “balanced package” of proposed additional sports for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and expects that skateboarding will soon be represented by a single international federation to push its case for inclusion in the games. Baseball-softball, surfing, skateboarding, karate and sports climbing were recommended for inclusion last month by the Tokyo organizing committee. A final decision…

I had a friend named Owen Wells who passed away in 1993. Owen was a fine basketball player, good enough to play at the University of Detroit and then to be drafted by the Houston Rockets in the fifth round of the 1974 draft. He left the NBA after only one season, and then Owen became a basketball nomad. He played in Australia. He played in Italy. He played in…

For a list of all the latest deals, check out the transfers page. Jurgen Klopp was not Liverpool’s first choice to replace Brendan Rodgers as manager, says ex-Spurs boss Harry Redknapp, who claims Carlo Ancelotti, formerly of Chelsea and Real Madrid, was their number one pick. (Daily Mirror)  Wednesday’s Sun back page Everton’s 33-year-old defender Phil Jagielka, who captained…

President Barack Obama does not hide his allegiance to the White Sox. He certainly didn’t on Tuesday night when he saluted Chicago’s other baseball team for winning a playoff series. Congrats @Cubs – even @whitesox fans are rooting for you! — President Obama (@POTUS) October 14, 2015 Some White Sox fans might tell the POTUS “Speak for yourself,” but Obama knows which way the winds are blowing in the Windy City…

The Cubs are baseball’s biggest party now, a crazy mix of bonus babies and spare parts, led by a mad-scientist manager who loves giving the middle finger to unwritten rules and an Ivy League executive who can casually namedrop rock stars without sounding obnoxious. The Cubs have been playing (mostly bad) baseball at Wrigley Field for 100 years, but they had never seen anything like this before, clinching a playoff…

UCLA history professor Joan Waugh is one of the country’s pre-eminent scholars on American history in the latter half of the 19th century and in particular the Civil War. She’s also a lifelong baseball fan who during her class “United States History 1865–1900,” spends one lecture focused on how baseball became American’s national pastime. On, Sept. 21, C-SPAN aired a recording of Waugh telling the story of baseball from the…

(Photo: The Associated Press) TOKYO (AP) — IOC vice president John Coates is pleased with the “balanced package” of proposed additional sports for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and expects that skateboarding will soon be represented by a single international federation to push its case for inclusion in the games. Baseball-softball, surfing, skateboarding, karate and sports climbing were recommended for inclusion last month by the Tokyo organizing committee. A final decision…

Something strange happened this week, just as sports fans settled down to watch playoff baseball and “Monday Night Football,” firing up their second screens for replays, snark and analysis. The Twitter accounts for two popular sports sites were suddenly deactivated, rendering unavailable two high-profile sources for quick video replays of licensed network broadcasts of games. The move by Twitter came in response to complaints from the National Football League and…

I had a friend named Owen Wells who passed away in 1993. Owen was a fine basketball player, good enough to play at the University of Detroit and then to be drafted by the Houston Rockets in the fifth round of the 1974 draft. He left the NBA after only one season, and then Owen became a basketball nomad. He played in Australia. He played in Italy. He played in…