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(NEW YORK) — Former superstar softball slugger Jessica Mendoza will have a seat at Tuesday night’s Astros-Yankees playoff game that no woman has had before: She will be the first female ESPN MLB analyst in a post-season game. Mendoza said she’s been shocked by the outpouring of support from both men and women inside and outside the game. Tennis great Billie Jean King and her ESPN colleague Eduardo Perez told…

DraftKings, along with competitor FanDuel, have seen exponential growth in the past year.(Photo: Stephan Savoia, AP) The daily fantasy sports industry has two choices right now: Take steps to regulate itself in strict and transparent fashion, or start writing goodbye notes. It’s that simple. Unless the powers that be recognize they’re no longer working out of somebody’s basement or the back room of a bar, where rules and regulations are…

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Kevin Harvick does a burnout after winning the AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.(Photo: Patrick Smith, Getty Images) CHARLOTTE — Kevin Harvick’s celebration following his complete thumping of the field Sunday at Dover International Speedway has raised some eyebrows in the NASCAR garage. During Harvick’s post-race burnout, where drivers create a smoky celebration by spinning their tires, he backed his car into the interior wall and blew the rear tires off….

Rio de Janeiro (CNN)Security has been stepped up along Rio de Janeiro’s popular beaches after swarms of robbers attacked beachgoers and local residents responded with more violence. Just 10 months before the Olympic Games kick off, groups of young thieves have swept through the popular Ipanema and Copacabana beaches grabbing wallets and cell phones. National television broadcast images of the incidents, setting off panic. In the videos, victims and police…

This article originally appeared on Men’s Journal. Baseball’s postseason begins Wednesday night, when the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros face off in the most un-baseball of baseball games – the winner-take-all Wild Card, with one team moving on to the Divisional round, and the other heading home. Sidebar ‘New Girl’s Jake Johnson Won’t Watch a Cubs Game With You » That kind of one-game, do-or-die drama used to be rare. It’s happened only…

If you don’t play daily fantasy sports—sometimes called DFS—you’re missing out on an increasingly popular and largely unregulated form of the fantasy sphere. While there is little to suggest that the popularity of DFS will recede anytime soon, recent allegations of insider trading and skepticism about the distinction between DFS and sports betting could spur governmental intervention. Any such intervention would be unwanted by the two largest DFS companies: DraftKings…

Daily fantasy games could generate an estimated $2.6 billion in entry fees this year, a 41 percent increase from last year, according to research firm Eilers Research. Amid the DraftKings and FanDuel advertisements that may encourage inexperienced players to jump in with the allure of big money, the industry has also come under criticism that most of the cash ends up in the hands of a few top players….

Sports tourism is a $9-plus million dollar industry according to Talty O’Connor, who brought his SportsEvents Media Group event to northwest Louisiana this week through the efforts of the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission. Speaking at the Shreveport Convention Center on Tuesday morning, O’Connor said there are more than 40,000 sporting events nationwide annually that move from venue to venue. “We have 66 rights holders for events from destinations across the country…

IBM Watson, which has competed on “Jeopardy!” and created recipes for a new Chef Watson cookbook, has a new career calling: becoming a sports coach for some elite athletes. In a partnership involving the Irish biomarker analysis company Orreco and the Oregon Track Club, “Coach Watson” will help to optimize the performance of the elite runners in one of America’s top running clubs. In many ways, the Coach Watson initiative…

Rio de Janeiro (CNN)Security has been stepped up along Rio de Janeiro’s popular beaches after swarms of robbers attacked beachgoers and local residents responded with more violence. Just 10 months before the Olympic Games kick off, groups of young thieves have swept through the popular Ipanema and Copacabana beaches grabbing wallets and cell phones. National television broadcast images of the incidents, setting off panic. In the videos, victims and police…

Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s okay, though, we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you each…

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Indians have re-organized their baseball operations department to match a growing trend around the big leagues. Chris Antonetti, after five years as general manager, has been promoted to president of baseball operations. Mike Chernoff, who just completed his 12th season with the Indians, has been promoted to general manager. Derek Falvey, who has been with the organization for eight years, has been named assistant general manager….

(Kathy Willens, AP) Leading off Playoff overview: Contests at FantasyScore will combine multiple MLB playoff games, sometimes over more than one day. The rules, however, remain the same. Starting lineups consist of two pitchers, plus a hitter at every position. Wild-card round: The one-game American League playoff will be played on Tuesday night in New York and the NL game will be in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Registration for the combined wild-card contest will close at…

“When you see a player,” Martínez argues, “you’ll watch his warm-up, the way he speaks to the referee, the way he speaks to other teammates after missing a chance, the way he celebrates a goal, the way his teammates react when he scores. Data might help you narrow the margin of error, but the decision is still a feeling. It’s a gut instinct.” What managers may not realize is the…

BLOOMSBURG — Soccer star and 2015 World Cup winner Carli Lloyd was at Bloomsburg University Monday as part of several appearances in the area. Lloyd spoke before a crowd of about 1,500 people at Bloomsburg University’s Haas Center. The Olympic gold medalist said she likes to share her journey to the top. “Everybody has a dream and dreams are within you and the only way to fulfill those dreams is…

TOKYO (AP) A pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s most popular baseball team, has been suspended for betting on games, including those involving his own team. Satoshi Fukuda bet on 10 Nippon Professional Baseball games and 10 major league games in an attempt to win back money he lost gambling on high school baseball games in August. The NPB games included three or four involving Yomiuri. In all, Fukuda is…