Mark Madden stories, Page 3

Paul Skenes has been pulled twice while pitching a no-hitter: Once after six innings May 17 at Chicago, then Thursday after seven innings at Milwaukee. That speaks as loudly to baseball losing its romance as it does to Skenes’ dominance. A no-hitter used to be a pitcher’s pinnacle. That’s been...

Pittsburgh Pirates owner Bob Nutting said GM Ben Cherington would have the flexibility to add players (and payroll) before the July 30 MLB trade deadline if the situation dictated. The situation dictates, however marginally: The Pirates are three games out of the National League’s third and final wild card. The...

How we ruin sports (one in a series): We are saturated with sports: Too many sports, leagues, teams and games. Demand (or lack thereof) doesn’t matter. All we ever get is more. Not better. More. How many times does spring football have to fail before it never gets resuscitated again?...

Bryan Reynolds got the biggest contract in Pirates history: eight years, $106.75 million. It was signed two years ago. Reynolds makes a lot. But only by Pirates standards. Not by MLB guidelines. Right now, he’s looking like a bargain. The switch-hitting outfielder wrapped up a 25-game hitting streak with an...

If you watch ESPN at any point during the Worldwide Leader’s six hours of nonstop yelling and mugging each weekday, there’s an overwhelming chance you’ll hear one of these subjects discussed at length: • LeBron James/the Los Angeles Lakers. • The Dallas Cowboys. • Aaron Rodgers. • The Pittsburgh Steelers...

The Penguins are going to slowly rebuild. Like president of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas said, the Penguins won’t “strip it down to the studs,” not least because that’s impossible given the number of no-movement clauses and untradable contracts Dubas must cope with. So, for the immediate future, the only hope...

The Pittsburgh Penguins’ offseason started with a whimper. Nothing epic. Nobody wants to trade for Tristan Jarry. I’m amazed Reilly Smith fetched second- and fifth-round draft picks from the New York Rangers with the Penguins keeping just $1.25 million of his $5 million salary cap hit. President of hockey ops/GM...

For decades, we’ve been wondering when the U.S. would make its breakthrough in international men’s soccer. Now, after the latest disaster, a ham-fisted 2-1 loss to Panama in the Copa America on Thursday that saw the U.S. down to 10 men after a stupid red card in the 18th minute,...

Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final drew 7.7 million TV viewers in the U.S., the NHL’s biggest audience in five years. The WNBA game between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese this past Sunday, thought of as a breakthrough for women’s pro basketball, was watched by 2.3 million. It was...

What will be remembered most? That Connor McDavid had eight points in Games 4 and 5 to rally Edmonton back from a three-games-to-none deficit in the Stanley Cup Final or that he had zero points and didn’t look the part in Games 6 and 7? McDavid won the Conn Smythe...

They say the standings never lie. But sometimes they do. In the National League, nine teams are within four games of each other in the race for the second and third wild-card spots. One of those teams is over .500, another at .500. The rest have losing records. All of...

Three games into this year’s Stanley Cup Final, it was a big nothingburger. Florida was poised to complete a three-season journey from 2022 Presidents’ Trophy winner to losing the ’23 final to grabbing the Cup via sweep. For Connor McDavid, Edmonton captain and hockey’s best player, his wait for a...

The re-signing of goalie Alex Nedeljkovic makes zero sense for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Unless they trade starter Tristan Jarry. Nedeljkovic is reasonably priced at $5 million over two years. (I thought he could get more elsewhere.) He’s a solid journeyman-level goalie. But retaining Nedeljkovic, 28, forms a crowd at the...

It’s squeaky bum time in Sunrise, Fla. It’s not just the humidity. The Edmonton Oilers fulfilled captain Connor McDavid’s wish to “drag them back to Alberta,” “them” being the Florida Panthers. Florida led the Stanley Cup Final three games to none and appeared ready to flick the Oilers aside and...

Refreshing sports notes! I hope they’re not too messianic or a trifle too satanic. • If Cam Heyward ends his career elsewhere, why is that such a big deal? Did some great things individually. Stand-up community guy. But his record in playoff games is 1-7. Nick Bonino accomplished more for...

The world of competitive eating was split asunder this past week when the annual July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest at Coney Island banned 16-time winner Joey Chestnut because he’s endorsing a vegan frankfurter. Only in America. But Chestnut rebounded quickly: He will go one-on-one with six-time winner Takeru...

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ game plan for 2024 seems to be combining elite defense with a big-time running game as designed by new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith when he had that job at Tennessee. When Smith had Derrick Henry in his prime. Not Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren running behind an...

The Pittsburgh Steelers signed coach Mike Tomlin to a three-year contract extension Monday. It runs through 2027. I’m not angry, because it was inevitable. I’m just dumbfounded. Because everybody says retaining Tomlin is the obvious and correct move. But I don’t see one good reason to do so. When Tomlin...

Pittsburgh has a new baseball hero. It’s Mitch the Pitch, and he’s at the top of today’s rotation of refreshing sports notes! • Forget Skenes day. The most exciting day in the Pirates rotation is Keller day. Mitch Keller has won six straight starts. In those six victories, Keller has...

How we ruin sports (first in a series): Fantasy leagues are bad for sports. Many of you doubtless think fantasy leagues are cool. You’re in three or four. It’s a big part of your life. That’s because you’re pathetic dweebs. You think it brings you and your friends together. What,...

There is legit optimism concerning the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first time in a long time. Paul Skenes is a phenom, Jared Jones isn’t far behind and Mitch Keller is a solid No. 3 starter. Their rotation could win a playoff series right now. The trick is getting there. That’s...

There was minimal blowback to Pat McAfee slurring Caitlin Clark, albeit in oddly complimentary fashion, on his ESPN TV show Monday. McAfee apologized but didn’t mean it. That was confirmed by him humorously referencing what he had said on WWE’s “Monday Night Raw.” The Plum native isn’t sorry about anything...

I knew the WNBA was going to blow it with Caitlin Clark and said so in this space. But I didn’t think they would butcher it this bad, this quick. The groundwork for killing Clark’s buzz got laid when she went to a lousy team that’s not in a big...

As Pittsburgh Steelers fans try to hope their team into being better than the current roster dictates, one piece of wishful thinking just won’t go away: that the Steelers trade for wideout Brandon Aiyuk of the San Francisco 49ers. Aiyuk has the option year remaining on his rookie contract and...

As of Tuesday, MLB’s all-time batting average leader never took a swing in MLB. That’s stupid. Black players being excluded from MLB till Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 is a dark, inexcusable piece of baseball history. It’s also something that can’t possibly be fixed. It’s a wrong...