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Finding bravery and heroism among athletes isn’t common. They’re just playing sports, after all. Entertainers, absolutely. Good role models, possibly. Heroes? Not usually. An exception: Jason Boulais, a senior at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort, who also pitches for the baseball team. Boulais’ gotten mixed results so far this season, and his overall ERA isn’t where he’d like it to be. But it’s not on the field where…

For a list of all the latest deals, check out the transfers page. TRANSFER GOSSIP Former Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye, 29, is a £10m target for Arsenal after failing to nail down a place at Paris St-Germain . (Sunday Mirror)  Manchester United have been offered the chance to sign Germany international midfielder Sami Khedira, who is out of contract at…

We’re just one day from the opening of the 2015 MLB season, but some of you still haven’t completed your fantasy baseball draft. My colleague Creg Stephenson and I will be writing about fantasy baseball happenings throughout the season. We can’t promise you’ll dominate your league, but we feel like we have some tips to help out. This post deals with prospects and when they’ll be called up to the…

Jon Bieniewicz’s widow, Kris Bieniewicz, addresses the court as she gives the last victim’s impact statement and holds up a soccer “red flag.”(Photo: Todd McInturf / The Detroit News) Detroit — The wife of a Detroit-area soccer referee filed a $51 million lawsuit Friday against a hot-headed player who is in prison for throwing a punch that killed her husband during a game last summer. The figure represents $1 million…

The Major League Baseball season starts Monday, with many a pinch of tobacco between many a cheek and gum. Not everyone is happy about this (about the chewing tobacco, that is). The San Francisco board of supervisors is considering a measure to put chew off-limits at every ball field in the city, including AT&T Park, where the world-champion Giants play. A bill introduced February in the California Assembly would do…

Jon Bieniewicz’s widow, Kris Bieniewicz, addresses the court as she gives the last victim’s impact statement and holds up a soccer “red flag.”(Photo: Todd McInturf / The Detroit News) Detroit — The wife of a Detroit-area soccer referee filed a $51 million lawsuit Friday against a hot-headed player who is in prison for throwing a punch that killed her husband during a game last summer. The figure represents $1 million…

Los Angeles Angels outfielder Josh Hamilton will not be disciplined by Major League Baseball for his latest problems involving cocaine and alcohol. Team officials responded by saying they were surprised and disappointed. Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto said he disagrees with the ruling by an arbitrator appointed under MLB’s joint drug program with the players’ association. MLB said earlier Friday that it disagreed with the ruling. Hamilton, a five-time All-Star…

I came up with the idea for the original 30-game road trip while I was a member of the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, a college club that was designed to reduce all sports decisions to Moneyball-style minutia. I devised our road trip itinerary using a computational technique called linear programming. I wanted to visit all 30 parks in 30 days, and I wanted to build in enough time in each…

For a list of all the latest deals, check out the transfers page. TRANSFER GOSSIP Manchester United are ready to make a £50m bid for Liverpool forward Raheem Sterling, 20, who has stalled on contract talks at Anfield. (Sun – subscription only)  The Sun back page United will also step up their chase for Germany defender Mats Hummels,…

For a list of all the latest deals, check out the transfers page. TRANSFER GOSSIP Manchester United are ready to make a £50m bid for Liverpool forward Raheem Sterling, 20. (Sun – subscription only)  The Sun’s back page on United move for Sterling Manchester United will also step up their chase for Germany defender Mats Hummels, 26, after…

The U.S. women’s hockey team will play Canada in the World Championship final Saturday, for the 16th time in 16 editions of the competition dating to 1990. The U.S. trounced Russia 13-1 in its semifinal in Malmo, Sweden, on Friday. The Americans outscored four opponents by a combined 30-6 en route to the final, including a 4-2 win over Canada in its group-stage opener last Saturday. The U.S. roster at…

Jon Bieniewicz’s widow, Kris Bieniewicz, addresses the court as she gives the last victim’s impact statement and holds up a soccer “red flag.”(Photo: Todd McInturf / The Detroit News) Detroit — The wife of a Detroit-area soccer referee filed a $51 million lawsuit Friday against a hot-headed player who is in prison for throwing a punch that killed her husband during a game last summer. The figure represents $1 million…

Just six races into the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, and already there have been enough surprises and plot twists to make this one of the most interesting campaigns in years. Call it the good, the bad and the ugly. There’s already been lots of all three. To wit: The good: Kevin Harvick has followed up his championship season with two victories, three runner-up finishes and six top 10s…

This dude right here—who seems to be feeling pretty good about the fact that he just exited a hockey brawl down a shirt, jacket, and tie—is named Andrei Razin, and he’s the head coach of a hockey team in Russia’s minor league. He ended up this way after scrapping with opposing head coach Alex Zhdahin, who was getting into the face of one of the referees over a call. Here’s…

India may bid for the 2024 Olympics, hoping to host the event for the first time in almost seven decades as an independent nation. According to local media reports, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, who won a landslide victory last year, is keen to hold the Olympics in the emerging Asian power. Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee president, will meet Modi later this month in Delhi. The Times of…

Buena Athletics Director Dave Albertson defended his high school baseball program after the reigning state champions posted a 52-3 victory over Pleasantville on Thursday. The Chiefs used 26 players in the contest, pounded out 26 hits in the game and scored 20 runs in the third inning. Albertson said he has not fielded any phone calls of complaint from Pleasantville coaches, parents or administrators but that he understands his program…

Baseball is changing. I suppose that’s nothing new — baseball has always been changing, but now novel technologies and team philosophies are reshaping the game to a near-unprecedented degree. Pitch tracking, new kinds of defensive positioning, hyper-specialized relief pitching — all are altering the tactical landscape of MLB. FiveThirtyEight’s season preview is about some of those changes. Tons of season previews concentrate on the teams — our friends at Grantland…

The more I think about it, the more appalled I am that we even knew that Josh Hamilton faced a possible suspension from baseball. Not that I would have declined to report that he met with league officials in New York about a disciplinary issue, or that he suffered a relapse involving cocaine, if I had been first with either piece of information. Both developments qualified as news, and it…

The NFL Draft is now just a few weeks away, which means that a whole new crop of former college football stars is about to get paid! But while we as fans only think about the cool side of being a pro athlete — the cars, vacations and women — there is a very real, and much darker, side. It’s one filled with everyone from friends, family members and agents…