It’s not extravagant, but it’s a lot of money for defenders, who haven’t historically (i.e. until a year or two ago) commanded that much in transfer fees. Part of it is an increasing appreciation for good defense skills, but mostly it’s just that fees are continuing to skyrocket: Ronaldo’s recording breaking €94…

Barça was legally obligated to release Neymar for that amount of money, saying No wasn’t even an option for them. If you want to indict them for that, then you basically have to tear down the whole club and transfer system.

In sports, you’re worth what they’re willing to pay you (or pay for you).

Stupid football jargon is basically all on Madden, Jaws is just continuing the tradition.

Never back anything, you mean.

I don’t think it’s a generational thing, though - if you spend enough time writing about baseball it turns you into the kind of folksy, nostalgic jackass that doesn’t vote for somebody just because even Babe Ruth didn’t get 100%.

a) It’s not about medals, it’s about instrumentalizing young peoples’ bodies

I assumed it was just a polite way of saying “white”.

When the NFL lost its value as right-wing virtue signalling, that’s when I switched to XFL® 2.0!

You have to figure at least 50% of the people with blank violation fields are also related child abuse, just not to the point that it qualifies for 9.2 (a) iii.

The USFL collapse was instrumental in getting remotely talented players to break the strike so the on-field product didn’t turn completely to shit. Hypothesis: the XFL2 is a red herring to ensure the same thing happens around the time of end of the current CBA (expires in 2020).

If the Hall administration has something to do with this, it’s with their terrible idea to put membership in the hands of a notoriously conservative, sentimental, and cantankerous bunch of jerks in the first place.

The “everybody” they were famously assholes to includes our dear friends in the sportswriting community, and I see no reason why they should forget, either.

I misread that as ‘corpletely’. Also not wrong.

“Not willing to sacrifice himself when the chips are down.”

For their whole careers Bonds and Clemens were dicks to reporters and this is their way of getting the last laugh. They’ll get in at some point, but why not enjoy watching them get taken down a peg first?

If you’re not exposing your kids to atonal minimalism and musique concrete, why even have them?

Q: How are an apple and a lawyer alike? A: They both look good hanging from a tree.

Supposedly that’s how a lot of “lawyer jokes” got started - it was no longer socially acceptable to use the N-word, let alone tell explicitly racist jokes, so they just replaced it with “lawyer” and suddenly no one complained any more.

Can you imagine getting a card for that in the mail? “Invitation to Sexual Touching! RSVP Regrets Only!”