Coco Gauff kicked off her 2024 U.S. Open with an easy victory over little-known Varvara Gracheva, but can the top-ranked American overcome a challenging summer to successfully defend her title? The third-seeded Gauff opened the tournament at +1000 by DraftKings to win the women's title. That's well behind top-ranked Iga Swiatek at +400 and No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka at +210. Sabalenka fell to Gauff in last year's final and is seeking to add a U.S. Open to her pair of Australian Open titles. The Belarusian star leads the draw with 19 percent of the total bets and 31 percent of the money backing her to claim the trophy at DraftKings. Swiatek is next with 16 and 24 percent of the action, respectively. The clay-court star did claim the U.S. Open title in 2022 and added a fourth F…
The MLB suspended Dodgers starter Trevor Bauer for two seasons over sexual assault allegations Friday. The allegedly terrible person is gone (for now), and baseball is better off without him, that’s for sure. The suspension comes after a legal case in which he was never charged criminally, but in it he was accused of punching and choking a woman into unconsciousness during two sexual encounters. He has repeatedly denied the claims, saying the rough sex was consensual. Bauer is appealing the suspension and, according to his tweet, he expects to win. “In the strongest possible terms, I deny committing any violation of the league’s domestic violence & sexual assault policy,” he posted to Twitter. “I am appealing this action and expect to prevail. As we have througho…
Today marks the first full day of baseball’s Winter Meetings, that wonderful annual gathering in which baseball executives text each other trade proposals in closer physical proximity to one another than is usually the case while baseball writers repeatedly get drunk at the same hotel bar. This special event comes with its own vocabulary. Here, then, is a guide to all the terms one might need to know: Kicking the tires on: This term uses the popular baseball slang “tires,” which is another term for “knees.” In this scenario, the interested team is kicking the player in question in the knees repeatedly to analyze his capacity for pain. Making strong push for: The team demonstrates its strength to an attractive free agent by inviting him to watch the general manager move a foot…
This is the most sportswritery thing I’ll ever write, but all season long the Golden State Warriors won as a team. Sure, Stephen Curry was the MVP of the league, but he was far from a one man band. Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andrew Bogut all won league-wide awards. After two stagnant season, Harrison Barnes improved leaps and bounds. Andre Iguodala agreed to come off the bench. David Lee didn’t complain once about getting his minutes snatched. Shaun Livingston played every position from point guard to power forward. Marreese Speights carried the offense for surprisingly long periods of time. I still don’t know what Leandro Barbosa is doing most of the time, but it worked. The coaching staff was part of this team, too. Rookie head coach relied upon Alvin Gentry to guide his …
This handsome gentleman is Darius Johnson, a high school running back in Kansas. This season, he ran for more than 1,000 yards and is beloved by his teammates. He has had a difficult life, though; he has sickle cell anemia, his mother died of cancer when he was 10 and, oh yeah … he's legally blind. No, seriously: According to his uncle, he can only see two feet in front of him when he's on the field. That makes him a terrible driver, but it does still exceed the nearsightedness of Ron Dayne, so that's something. He says contacts, glasses, Lasik, nothing works, nothing helps, and that his site is supposed to get worse. He's a senior, and even though he hasn't been recruited by any major universities, we are pretty sure he's gonna get a call from Ron Zook…
After a 13-year run at Auburn that was equal parts success and scandal, Tigers athletic director Jay Jacobs made use of the Friday news dump to announce that he will retire either next June or whenever Auburn hires his replacement. In a note titled, “A Word From Jay Jacobs,” the former Auburn offensive lineman wrote that “the last several months have been a particularly difficult time,” adding that he “prayerfully decided” that the time for him to step down has come. Jacobs’s full letter can be read here. An excerpt: The last several months have been a particularly difficult time. Across several sports, a series of controversies have arisen. They have begun to take their toll and have raised questions about why Auburn must endure such problems. As I have always done, I ha…
data-mm-id=”_mnj3giywn”>Before the written word, stories were spoken and passed down from generation, like a game of Telephone carrying the stakes of understanding who we were, who we are, and where we are going. Then came the furious scribbling, a way to preserve thoughts for the future. Countless scholars have studied history attempting to cull what's really important from the ashes of one civilization and the towering edifices of another. Many worthwhile things have been authored. Wars and peace have been achieved through varied interpretations. Loose lips have sunken ships and rising tides of encouragement have risen all hopes. One thing we can all agree on is that Semisonic was the entity most capable of reaching into the human condition and distilling it into a sentence. In …
data-mm-id=”_bk3oiuzyo”>“Jimmy Garoppolo, podium 10.”When those four words boomed from the speakers inside the darkly-draped Super Bowl media interview tent outside of Hard Rock Stadium, there was an instant stampede. Over a dozen men shouldering bulky television cameras swung their equipment around (injury to innocent bystanders be damned) and ran the 10 or so feet from wherever they were standing to podium 10. Long camera wires were unfurled on the ground in every direction behind them. Reporters– some carrying smaller cameras, some with selfie sticks, others with iPhones waving in their hand– followed suit. Elbows were thrown. Feet were stepped on. Disparaging remarks were muttered. Arms were used as wedges to get closer to the podium. Within 10 seconds, over 70 media members …
data-mm-id=”_gop04kslp”>Derrick Jones Jr. walked away as the winner of the 2020 Slam Dunk Contest, but it wasn't without controversy. Aaron Gordon jumped over the 7'5" Tacko Fall for his final dunk and received only a 47 out of a possible 50 points. Dwyane Wade, one of the judges for the contest, was asked about the score following the contest after many believed Gordon was robbed. Here's what he had to say: “I wasn’t the only one who gave him a 9, let’s talk about that!” ?@DwyaneWade responds to those saying he was biased as a judge in the Dunk Contest. @stance pic.twitter.com/FkBvJ6IWl7— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) February 16, 2020"I mean, it took nine rounds. It wasn't biased. It got to the point where I wasn't the only one who gave …
data-mm-id=”_f4zsiytwb”>Barry Bonds was feared like few hitters in baseball history during his prime slugging years in the early-to-mid-2000s. Nothing proved that more when, on May 1st, 2004, Bonds set an MLB record when he was intentionally walked four times in one game. The Giants were playing the Marlins at home. Bonds was in the early stages of his second consecutive MVP season; about a month into the season, he was batting .463 with a 1.111 slugging percentage. He was, without a doubt, the most feared hitter in baseball. Miami treated him as such by choosing to walk him four times in five at-bats. No one has yet to top that number in one game to this day. We'll never see teams treat any other individual player like they did Bonds again. He holds just about every record for wa…