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When Chicago entrepreneur Brian Brundage was indicted on federal fraud charges in December for allegedly operating a multimillion-dollar electronics recycling scheme, he turned his attention to salvaging his side gig: professional sports agent. With a client roster that included Chicago Bears linebacker John Timu and other players, Brundage’s nascent Worldwide Career Management seemed poised to offer him a glamorous alternative to the once-booming recycling business, Intercon Solutions, that was derailed…

Even through the years of NCAA sanctions, Southern California Trojans had a talented roster with future pros. And throughout the last decade, it has usually finished the year in the neighborhood of 10 wins. It’s been the unfulfilled expectations (2012) and falling short in big-time conference contests that frustrates fans and has left college football pundits wary of declaring that USC is “back.”  So when the Trojans started the year…

The Crossover is proud to offer our list of the Top 100 NBA players of 2018, an exhaustive exercise that seeks to define who will be the league’s best players in the 2017-18 season. Given the wide variety of candidates involved and the deep analytical resources available, no single, definitive criterion was used to form this list. Instead, rankings were assigned based on a fluid combination of subjective assessment and…

News & Observer ACC sports writers Andrew Carter and Joe Giglio will talk about UNC and N.C. State when the Raleigh Sports Club meets from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday in Bradley Hall at Highland United Methodist Church, 1901 Ridge Road, Raleigh. During the weekly meeting, Carter, who covers the Tar Heels, and Giglio, who covers the Wolfpack, will offer an inside look at the football teams and their mixed…

What do Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle have in common? Besides all three being in the Baseball Hall of Fame, each of them also sits on a shelf in the office of Rob Bernshteyn, chief executive of San Mateo-based Coupa. Well, they don’t literally sit in Bernshteyn’s office. Instead, Bernshteyn, an avid baseball card collector, has replicas of some of the players’ most-famous cards, to go along with some…

Don Ohlmeyer, one of television’s most successful and honored innovators as a producer and programmer in both sports and entertainment and one of the original producers of Monday Night Football, has died at the age of 72. “It is with heavy hearts we share that Don Ohlmeyer, our beloved husband, father and grandfather, has passed away at age of 72 due to cancer,” Ohlmeyer’s family said in a statement. “Surrounded…

The Cleveland Indians picked up their 18th consecutive win on Sunday night, knocking off the Baltimore Orioles by a 3-2 final score. The Indians had already set a new franchise record by winning 15 games in a row. Their current 18-game winning streak is also the second-longest in baseball over the last 50 years — behind only the 20-game stretch authored by the 2003 Oakland Athletics: 2002 Athletics: 20 wins 2017…

See more of the story In 1966, The Standells released a single titled “Dirty Water,” about Boston’s filthy harbor. The song became the city’s sports anthem and foreshadowed decades of Massachusetts malfeasance. The Boston sports mascot should be Whitey Bulger. Bill Belichick has defied or bent NFL rules, and last week the New York Times reported that the Boston Red Sox used Apple watches and television broadcasts — maybe the…

Hi. I’ll be at this one, recapping from the car on the way back as well. Isn’t it great to have a sister who is willing to drive / too nice to admit that she really doesn’t want to? As the streak continues, the power of superstition builds. I’ve not worn a hat during a game for the entire streak, and frankly hope I never see one again if it…

Stephen Strasburg was first out of the clubhouse and up the dugout steps, and Bryce Harper was right behind him, and that’s just the perfect introduction to the 2017 National League East champions — the two players who best represent the transformation from irrelevant, 100-loss jokes into what the Washington Nationals are now, which is a contender for best franchise in baseball. Strasburg turned to face what was left of…

Statues, mute but eloquent, have been upsetting people lately. In some respects it’s surprising many of these grand historical markers have escaped widespread challenge for so long. But while debate rages over the appropriateness of honoring military and political figures associated with divisiveness and racial discrimination, relatively little is offered as a positive alternative for our public spaces beyond a series of empty pedestals and enhanced museum displays. That’s where…

While much of the attention Sunday was on the season-opening debut of former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo as analyst on the top NFL broadcast team at CBS, a smaller story about the network’s football coverage has gone less noticed. CBS Sports has done a good job of deepening its bench and bringing younger and more enthusiastic play-by-play announcers and analysts to weekly lineups of five and six games — especially…

Melissa Cook and Zach Leonsis. (Aaron Delesie) Knot, tied in style: Zach Leonsis, the son of sports-team owner Ted Leonsis and wife Lynn, married Melissa Cook on Saturday in a ceremony in his parents’ Potomac, Md., back yard. Though obviously, since we’re talking about Washington sports royalty, this was no burgers-and-dogs affair. There were VIP guests aplenty, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, celebrity chef José Andrés, BET co-founder and Washington Mystics…

Hurricane Irma is west of Miami and now projected to rake the Gulf Coast of Florida, but Electronic Arts, whose EA Tiburon studio outside of Orlando makes Madden NFL and NBA Live, is taking no chances. The studio is “taking cover,” Karen Stevens of Electronic Arts’ EA Accessible Twitter feed, said earlier this week, and hopes to be back to normal on Tuesday. Madden Ultimate Team’s twitter feed said yesterday…

Speaking of sports, maybe pro sports teams do not need to hire investment banks to get record sale prices for their clubs. In recent weeks, Bruce Sherman and New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter agreed to buy the Miami Marlins baseball team for $1.2 billion, a price better than many expected, and Tilman Fertitta agreed to buy the Houston Rockets basketball team for $2.2 billion, a record sale price for…

See more of the story In 1966, The Standells released a single titled “Dirty Water,” about Boston’s filthy harbor. The song became the city’s sports anthem and foreshadowed decades of Massachusetts malfeasance. The Boston sports mascot should be Whitey Bulger. Bill Belichick has defied or bent NFL rules, and last week the New York Times reported that the Boston Red Sox used Apple watches and television broadcasts — maybe the…

Just making the fantasy baseball playoffs means you’ve made it over the first hurdle. Now it is time to finish the race. If you give up now, it is like watching a season of “Game of Thrones” but deciding you’ve had enough with five minutes left in the season finale. This is not over until you’re hoisting your league’s trophy or making your friend who lost the league get a…

Melissa Cook and Zach Leonsis. (Aaron Delesie) Knot, tied in style: Zach Leonsis, the son of sports-team owner Ted Leonsis and wife Lynn, married Melissa Cook on Saturday in a ceremony in his parents’ Potomac, Md., back yard. Though obviously, since we’re talking about Washington sports royalty, this was no burgers-and-dogs affair. There were VIP guests aplenty, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, celebrity chef José Andrés, BET co-founder and Washington Mystics…

Speaking of sports, maybe pro sports teams do not need to hire investment banks to get record sale prices for their clubs. In recent weeks, Bruce Sherman and New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter agreed to buy the Miami Marlins baseball team for $1.2 billion, a price better than many expected, and Tilman Fertitta agreed to buy the Houston Rockets basketball team for $2.2 billion, a record sale price for…

See more of the story In 1966, The Standells released a single titled “Dirty Water,” about Boston’s filthy harbor. The song became the city’s sports anthem and foreshadowed decades of Massachusetts malfeasance. The Boston sports mascot should be Whitey Bulger. Bill Belichick has defied or bent NFL rules, and last week the New York Times reported that the Boston Red Sox used Apple watches and television broadcasts — maybe the…