Sports
What to Watch in the N.C.A.A. Women’s Championship Game
Since then, Staley has recruited in addition to or higher than UConn Coach Geno Auriemma, has come near matching his wage, and has made her group a constant menace for a deep run within the match.
She has not returned to the title recreation till now.
If she will be able to win the Gamecocks their second championship, this system’s standing as a powerhouse will probably be confirmed; in the event that they lose, it could be seen as proof that UConn’s dominance persists regardless of all the expansion that has occurred across the sport.
Can South Carolina rating sufficient?
South Carolina is aware of the important thing to its recreation is a suffocating protection. The query is whether or not its guards, who underperformed in among the early rounds, can provide you with sufficient factors to remain forward of the Huskies.
Destanni Henderson and Zia Cooke sank essential 3-point pictures in opposition to Louisville, however the Huskies held Stanford — sometimes a powerful group from behind the arc — to simply 4 triples within the semifinal. The Gamecocks guards should get inventive to complement Aliyah Boston’s constant and prolific scoring.
Aliyah Boston will in fact be a focus.
Boston gained this 12 months’s Naismith Trophy earlier this week, and that implies that this 12 months’s and final 12 months’s (Bueckers) finest faculty basketball gamers will compete for the sport’s most vital prize.
Boston, a 6-foot-5 ahead, has performed remarkably over the previous two video games, padding the field rating however extra crucially enjoying with poise and management. She has prevented fouling out of frustration and located methods to make groups pay for double- and triple-teaming her.
She might want to summon that energy and persistence another time this season if the Gamecocks are to beat the Huskies.
If the Ultimate 4 video games are any indication, this championship recreation will probably be a bodily one. South Carolina hasn’t been significantly efficient from the free throw line this season, making simply 67.7 p.c of its pictures. However the Gamecocks made a better proportion of their possibilities in opposition to Louisville, principally because of Boston’s spectacular consistency. In what seems to be a tightly fought matchup, benefiting from these alternatives will probably be vital.
Sports
LIV Golf star posts bizarre motivational message as next event looms
LIV Golf’s Anthony Kim posted a bizarre motivational message on social media on Wednesday as he prepared for the series’ next event at Andalucía in Spain next week.
Kim made a reference to working harder than a crackhead as he posted early on X.
“Good morning. Does a crakhead (sic) ever let a day go by w/out finding a way to get high? NO. I would know,” he wrote. “Not gonna let a crakhead (sic) outwork me today. 1% better today lessssgoo!!!”
Kim is tied for last in the LIV Golf standings. In Nashville last month, he finished 46th in the standings, posting an even score in 54 holes. He was 48th in Houston and 53rd in Singapore, dating back to early May.
He disappeared from the PGA Tour years ago and his return to the professional ranks was highly publicized back in January.
HAYDEN SPRINGER ETCHES HIS NAME INTO PGA TOUR HISTORY WITH EPIC JOHN DEERE CLASSIC 1ST ROUND
The last time Kim competed before joining LIV Golf was at the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship when he was 26 years old. He withdrew from the tournament due to injury, which was his third straight withdrawal.
One month later, Kim had surgery to repair his left Achilles tendon, and then he wasn’t heard from in the golf world as many wondered whether he would be back at all.
Kim also dealt with tendinitis in his left arm and a left thumb injury during his 122 starts on the PGA Tour.
He was open about his battle with addiction in an interview on LIV Golf Plus in April.
“Golf is important to me and not important to me at the same time,” Kim said, per ESPN. “I’ve had some very dark moments. I’ve had some very low moments. I’ve felt very alone, even when there’s a million people around. I needed to get my mind straight and figure out what my purpose was on this planet.”
Fox News’ Scott Thompson contributed to this report.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Sports
Opinion: End the blows against the beauty of baseball
The following confession may come as a shock to those who know me: I am now a conservative. When it comes to baseball, that is.
I watched the blown check-swing call that allowed the Dodgers to win a game against the Rockies last month in an improbable comeback and to the fury of Colorado fans. The ump’s clear mistake will only add to demands that check-swing calls be included in the instant replay protocol.
But check-swing subjectivity is a fundamental part of the way baseball is supposed to function: humanly, in sublime, sometimes maddening imperfection. MLB interventions to “fix” it — larger bases, the ghost runner at second base in extra innings, batters limited to one timeout per at-bat and, worst of all, the pitch clock — are blows against the beauty of the game.
Admittedly, these changes seem to be quite popular. Games had been running longer and longer with incessant pitching changes, dawdling batters and, yes, replay reviews. But what monstrous hubris to think we know better than baseball’s Original Framers! Ninety feet between bases, 60 feet, 6 inches between pitching rubber and home plate — these are divinely induced measurements. Start messing with tradition and the heart of the game is lost to hyper-regulated “reality.”
Baseball is not reality. It is myth performed by real bodies. And imperfection, which is also the unexpected, beyond the reach of metrics, is where the magic comes from — magical triumph and magical heartbreak, larger than life, operatic.
There is no doubt that soccer is the “beautiful game,” but baseball gives it a run for its money. Its own beauty has resulted from the gradual accrual of tradition, which has given us a poetics.
Languor is one of baseball’s essential characteristics. Seemingly nothing happens for long minutes; no one scores, no “bang-bang” double plays, just lazy fly balls and dribbled grounders; you are swayed by the lullaby of sun and beer into a somnambulant state.
And then “just like that,” as Vin Scully used to say, there’s a majestic home run blast, a leaping catch, a fierce duel between pitcher and batter, a spectacular strikeout. The explosion of affect is all the more powerful for having emerged so suddenly from the caesura. (Soccer fans experience a version of these symphonic changes of tempo on the pitch.)
Baseball’s temporality is inseparable from its physical dimensions, the space-time of the game. The vast swath of grass between outfielders, the closer quarters of the infielders, the tunnel of focus that connects pitcher, batter, catcher and umpire.
The imperfection of umpires is indispensable in the gestalt. Video appeals rob us of the opportunity to yell at the ump to get glasses, or suffer much worse things. A blown call can lead to simultaneous jubilation and heartbreak, with the losers rending their garments and smarting from the insult of being “robbed.”
All as it should be.
I say: Bring back smaller bags and keep stealing a base a rare art! I say: No more ghost runner (what did he do to deserve to be there?) and go on all night with punch-drunk players if that’s what the game demands. And most of all I say: Smash the pitch clock with an Adirondack bat. The timer is an abomination under baseball heaven, depriving us of the organic crescendo of tension in an epic at-bat in the late innings of a close World Series game (Kirk Gibson, 1988).
When I interviewed Scully after the Los Angeles riots-uprising of 1992, I asked him what he‘d said on the air about the chaos unfolding that first night, as a game was underway at Dodger Stadium. “I didn’t say a word,” he told me. He thought first of his responsibility to the fans and their safety — what if he caused panic? And he added: “There should be one place left where the rest of the world doesn’t intrude.”
He might as well have said baseball is sacred. Not to be messed with. Not even (as if it were possible) by history itself.
On all this, I come down as far more conservative than, say, old-school, bow-tied traditionalist George Will, who for once approves of the “progressive” in the form of the new rules he thinks augur a return of baseball to its one-time status as national pastime. The game, awash in play-by-metrics, Will has argued, is bloated not by poetic languor but by analytical ennui.
True that, Mr. Will. We agree about baseball’s slow death-by-numbers. At the end of the day, all the measurements miss the point — the ineffable beauty of a summer afternoon ever so slowly turning to night at the ballpark.
Some of us know when a cure is worse than the disease.
There is a reason baseball was famously the preferred sport of American literati in the mid-20th century. And the pitch clock wasn’t part of the poetry.
Rubén Martínez is a literature professor at Loyola Marymount University, the author of numerous books and co-creator and executive producer of the performance piece “Little Central America, 1984.”
Sports
Pat Bertoletti crowned hot dog eating champion amid Joey Chestnut's absence
The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest has a new champion, as Pat Bertoletti ate 58 hot dogs.
Bertoletti’s victory comes as Americans across the nation are celebrating Independence Day. Thousands of fans descended on Conley Island to watch competitive eaters wolf down as many hot dogs (and buns) as possible in a 10-minute time span during the hot dog eating contest.
However, this year’s slate of competitors was noticeably missing one high-profile contestant — 16-time champion Joey Chestnut.
He was reportedly barred from competing in this year’s event. Chestnut recently signed a deal with Impossible Foods, a rival of Nathan’s that has launched a vegan wiener, the New York Post reported.
JOEY CHESTNUT GEARS UP FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY HOT DOG COMPETITION FACEOFF AGAINST HUNGRY SOLDIERS
Instead, he will compete against soldiers at a U.S. Army base in El Paso, Texas, beginning at 5 p.m. ET.
Chestnut’s absence left the traditional Brooklyn event wide open for a new winner in the men’s division, with eaters from around the world competing for the highly-coveted mustard belt.
Last year, Chestnut, of Indiana, chewed his way to the title by downing 62 dogs and buns in 10 minutes. The record, which he set in 2021, is 76.
He was initially disinvited from the event over a sponsorship deal with Impossible Foods, a company that specializes in plant-based meat substitutes.
Major League Eating, which organizes the Nathan’s Famous contest, has since said it walked back the ban, but Chestnut decided to spend the holiday with the troops anyway.
Chestnut said he would not return to the Coney Island contest without an apology.
Impossible Foods will also donate to an organization supporting military families based on the number of hot dogs eaten at the event, a spokesperson said.
Fox News’ Ryan Morik contributed to this report.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
-
Politics1 week ago
Popular Republican and Trump running mate contender makes first Senate endorsement in 2024 races
-
News1 week ago
Toplines: June 2024 Times/Siena Poll of Registered Voters Nationwide
-
Politics1 week ago
Fox News Politics: Trump Ungagged…Kinda
-
Politics1 week ago
Obama again stepping into role as Joe's closer ahead of Trump v Biden rematch
-
News1 week ago
Iowa floodwaters breach levees as even more rain dumps onto parts of the Midwest
-
News5 days ago
Video: How Blast Waves Can Injure the Brain
-
Politics1 week ago
The many faces of Donald Trump from past presidential debates
-
Politics1 week ago
Mike Kennedy advances past crowded GOP primary to secure nomination for open Utah House seat