Say hello to “Spot” and “Pepper.” They’re big baseball fans who never stop moving and never get tired of singing for the Fukuoko SoftBank Hawks. But these are baseball fans with a difference — they’re robots. Professional baseball returned to Japan on June 19, though coronavirus restrictions prevented fans from attending. So the Hawks came…

As qualification for Euro 2016 got underway, few would have earmarked Portugal –– a nation rarely short of footballing talent but with no major trophies to show for it — as the tournament’s eventual champion. But before a ball had been kicked, coach Fernando Santos prophesied an unlikely victory. “From the first moment, the first…