Ray Ratto

1 week ago | defector.com | Ray Ratto

There was a time not that long ago when the West Sacramento Athletics were positioning themselves to replace The Hunny Club as the pride of Yolo County, which would have been a true festival of inner conflict for the region. By "not that long ago," we mean May 5. Since then, the A’s have clarified their position.

1 week ago | defector.com | Ray Ratto

Late in the New York Knickerbockers' conprehensive but semi-drab 111–94 beating of the Indiana Pacers, TNT analyst Stan Van Gundy took his inner grump for one final walk around the broadcast by saying something along the lines of, After Game 4, people were asking why Jalen Brunson couldn't be a little more like Tyrese Hailburton, and after Game 5 they'll be asking why Tyrese Haliburton couldn't be a little bit more like Jalen Brunson.

1 week ago | defector.com | Ray Ratto

Stuart Skinner offers little in the way of championship onomatopoeia, which is to say his name does not suggest athletic greatness. It suggests the secretary-treasurer of the chess club, or an unprepared con artist trying to spontaneously impersonate Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg. But Skinner owns, for now, the Stanley Cup fate of the Edmonton Oilers, and by extension the possibility that a Canadian team might win it all for the first time since 1993.

1 week ago | defector.com | Ray Ratto

The end of this clip is why Paul Maurice is the greatest coach of all time in any sport, in one specific category: lectern domination. The whole thing is worth a watch, as all his pressers are, pregame, postgame or even off-day, but the last 10 seconds are killer, especially if you keep in mind that his team just lost a chance to clinch a trip to the Stanley Cup Final by playing a game he admitted he "didn't like."His secret is simple. He doesn't view the interview process as a proctology exam.

2 weeks ago | defector.com | Ray Ratto

The Pittsburgh Pirates scored more than four runs in a baseball game for the first time in a month, but because they are the Pittsburgh Pirates, the price of that victory was not only that it was actually another defeat, but that anyone who went to PNC Park to watch it had to sit through a one-hour, fifty-minute rain delay to find out that they can still make five runs look like two.