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In Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Saturday morning, past the children splashing in the playground and downhill from the picnic area where eager locals laid out blankets and set up barbecues, 42-year-old former Major League All-Star Cliff Floyd made his return to baseball on a field with no home run fence, no foul lines, and no scoreboard in front of a scattered crowd of about 50 — many of whom just…

And just like that, in a morning news conference followed by an afternoon press release, it was over, an unceremonious death that didn’t befit the massive dream. No more comparisons with Paris and Rome, no torch-lit opening event nearly a decade in the offing, no transformation of entire swaths of the city that were nothing more than unheralded tow lots seven months ago. Continue reading below There’s a way to…

The U.S. men’s national team doinked its way out of the Gold Cup this July, dropping its semifinal match against Jamaica and farting away the third-place game with Panama, thus allowing eternal rival-to-the-south Mexico to sashay its way to another GC title. If you’re a USMNT fan, this was a fairly disappointing turn of events. What the hell happened? The women’s team rolled tide over the World Cup final, Carli…

The reason Boston’s residents didn’t want to be Athens is the same reason the residents of Oslo or Krakow or Stockholm don’t want to be Athens. Hosting an Olympics is a corporate sinkhole sucking billions of dollars and a city’s future into a bottomless abyss of excess. The internet is clogged with slide shows of empty, broken, useless stadiums built in the euphoria of a coming Olympics or World Cup…

Love is in the air . . . and on the track. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Daniel Hemric and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East driver Kenzie Ruston are getting married. Hemric popped the question during a weekend getaway on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.  Hemric drives the No. 14 Chevrolet Silverado for NTS Motorsports and Ruston drives the No. 4 Toyota Camry for Rev Racing. Congrats from…

The architects whose controversial plans for a dramatic £1.3bn Tokyo Olympic stadium were scrapped by the Japanese government over concerns about costs hit back on Tuesday, claiming it was not the design at fault but rapidly rising construction costs. London-based Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) warned the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, that ditching their award-winning design team and their knowledge risked the stadium not being completed in time for the…

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i The sporting options in Finland are everywhere. Here, two people take advantage of the ice on Lake Hiidenvesi to get some exercise. Sami Uskela/Flickr In Helsinki, sports facilities pop up all over the place, sometimes in some pretty odd nooks and crannies. One bomb shelter hosts an archery club, another an underground swimming pool and an ice hockey rink. Though they hardly need it, there’s a national plan in…

Jon Gruden looks at the present and predicted future of youth sports. It makes him cringe. The Super Bowl-winning coach and current ESPN football analyst got involved with the Sports Matter program through the DICK’s Sporting Goods Foundation last year. In just more than a year, Sports Matter has repaired fields, bought uniforms and equipment as part of DICK’s $25 million multiyear commitment. More needs to be done, Gruden says,…

Facts can be your best friend or your greatest enemy—it all depends on the situation. Of course, sometimes “the facts” aren’t really the facts, which makes knowing how to separate the good from the bad as important as knowing when to use them. This obviously applies to almost any part of life, but it is essential to holding your own when talking about sports or staying afloat in a high-stakes…

Juice is power. Juice is influence. Juice is also subjective. Each summer, sports columnist Steve Politi ranks the most influential people in New Jersey sports — a list that includes team owners, coaches, politicians and athletes from all levels of competition. No. 1 on the Juice List will be revealed July 29. Today: Nos. 2-5. Last year’s ranking in parentheses 5. Chris Christie (3):Okay, you can insert a wisecrack here…

When Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos acquired Josh Donaldson last offseason, it was because he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Same thing with Troy Tulowitzki. Just as Anthopoulos wore down Athletics GM Billy Beane, he wore down Rockies counterpart Jeff Bridich, according to major-league sources with knowledge of the talks. Anthopoulos first asked the Rockies about Tulowitzki during the winter, but the Rockies would not take back shortstop…

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i The sporting options in Finland are everywhere. Here, two people take advantage of the ice on Lake Hiidenvesi to get some exercise. Sami Uskela/Flickr In Helsinki, sports facilities pop up all over the place, sometimes in some pretty odd nooks and crannies. One bomb shelter hosts an archery club, another an underground swimming pool and an ice hockey rink. Though they hardly need it, there’s a national plan in…

The Bachelorette At around 8:00 p.m. ET on Monday, June 22, I found myself in an awkward position. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team was kicking off a critical game against Colombia at the Women’s World Cup in Canada, and I am one of the sports editors of this very website. The game, by any reasonable measure, should have held my complete and undivided attention. But I’d be lying if I…

facebook twitter googleplus tumblr pinterest Gone are the days when arcade sports video games complemented their simulation counterparts. Games like “NBA Jam,” “NBA Street,” “NFL Blitz,” “NHL Hitz” and “MLB Slugfest” are a rarity now. Not only were these left-of-center titles very creative — the league-licensed simulation games are hamstrung by rules and restrictions — but they acted as a way to draw in novices who were new to gaming or had minimal…

The gamble just wasn’t worth it The people got this one right. Boston’s Olympic bid, which came to an abrupt end on Monday, never attracted high enough approval ratings in Beantown. Both the United States Olympic Committee and Boston’s political leaders realized that moving forward in the face of widespread public opposition to the bid would embarrass everyone long-term. Might as well cut bait now. It was a mess, but…

Buddy Baker is facing the end of his life with the same courage he demonstrated during a long NASCAR career, when he sometimes drove at more than 200 mph. “I’m right with The Man Upstairs,” Baker said Saturday when I visited him along with Humpy Wheeler and Waddell Wilson at the Baker home on the western shore of Lake Norman near Terrell. “If I feared death I never would have…

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Former MLB pitcher John Smoltz used some time during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech at Cooperstown on Sunday to warn of the “epidemic” of Tommy John surgeries, particularly among young baseball players. “It’s an epidemic. It’s something that is affecting our game,” Smoltz said during the speech. Smoltz, who had a 21-year career in the MLB from 1988 to 2009, noted that he is currently the only player…