barryap Page 441 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Should Brent Musburger Apologize For Calling John Carlos And Tommie Smith "Black-Skinned Storm Troopers" 44 Years Ago?
John Carlos and Tommie Smith, each raising a fist on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, have become an icon of that decade, and that climate, and of the changes that were a-coming. They're heroes now, but that the time they were seen by many as traitors, and agitators, and by at least one up-and-...

Six-Year-Old Sends Brandon Jacobs $3.36 To Stay With The Giants
Brandon Jacobs is not what you would call a great running back. But that doesn't matter when you're six years old, and you attach yourself to a player for the least rational of reasons. Maybe young Joe saw Brandon Jacobs score a single touchdown on a particularly formative viewing day. Maybe Joe's p...

Why Do Players Choke? Oddly Enough, Because They Hate Losing.
The New Yorker poached science writer Jonah Lehrer from Wired, and what do you know? His second piece is sports, and it is timely. Lehrer seeks to explain the plague of every duffer and NBA superstar since the beginning of time: Why do we choke? Why do we freeze up under pressure? Why do things that...

Yankees Tickets Are A Dollar, Seats Are Empty, And They're Trying To Blame StubHub
I'm going to tell you something, and then I'm going to ask you a question. The Yankees are having attendance issues. They aren't selling enough tickets, and for the ones that are being sold, they're being undercut by StubHub, which offers them for well below face value. Now the question: do you feel...

One More Clueless L.A. Media Moment: "Kings Goalie Jonathan Swift"
The Stanley Cup itself will be at the Staples Center tonight, and the Kings look all but unstoppable. (Up 3-0, Kings merchandise is flying off the shelves, because L.A. is filled with more bandwagoners per capita than any other North American city.) You'd think by now the local media would have go...

Claude Giroux Says Ilya Bryzgalov Will Be The NHL's Best Goalie Next Year
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Giroux kind of has to say that....

Last-Place Runner Heroically Finishes Last
Meghan Vogel was courageously bringing up the rear of the 3,200-meters at the Ohio state championships when another runner collapsed ahead of her. Eschewing the riches and glory that would have come with finishing 14th out of 15 runner, Vogel halted to help McMath to her feet. The crowd came to it...

Dick Vitale Weighs In On The Death Of Al Qaeda's No. 2
Dipsy-doo drone-a-roo, baybee! [Twitter]...

Math! Says Hero Ball Doesn't Work
Some interesting research from the TrueHoop gang today, meant to address the non-flop-related issue of the 2012 playoffs: Who should be taking those crucial last shots? If the choice is between a covered superstar and an open non-superstar, the numbers say: give it to the open man....

Our Readers' Run-Ins With Virgil, Pro Wrestling's Saddest Man
Yesterday we discovered the wonder and depression of Lonely Virgil, a single-serving Tumblr chronicling the descent of the onetime WWF and WCW "superstar" into a deserted wastleland of comic conventions and indie show parking lots. And then we heard from readers. You people have met Virgil over the ...

Jonathan Papelbon Found Not Guilty Of Thoughtcrime
Pap’s not mad at you, AAA-callup umpire D.J. Reyburn. He’s just disappointed. Disappointed that you’re so bad at your job. You “probably need to go back to triple A.”...

Do Mets Fans Wish Someone Else Had Thrown Their First No-Hitter?
It's the love-in that dare not speak its name: Are Mets fans disappointed that Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets history?...

The Porn Actor Who Dismembered His Lover And Mailed Body Parts To Politicians? He Made This Sergei Fedorov Tribute Video
Luka Magnotta was a sometime gay porn actor and male escort. He posted a series of videos showing himself killing kittens. He killed an acquaintance, also on video, and cut him up, eating some pieces and mailing others to political parties. He was on HFBoards. Of course he was on HFBoards....

"Let's Clean This Thing Up. Let's Not Hurt The Game": Red Auerbach's Anti-Flopping Video
It was the mid '70s, and Red Auerbach wanted to teach the basketball world to stop flopping. To get his message across, he called in a dream team of Elvin Hayes, Clem Haskins, Wes Unseld, Paul Silas, Mike Riordan, and referee Mendy Rudolph, who was named head of officials and inducted into the Hal...

The Internet Has Uncovered The Single Saddest Former Pro Wrestler
Mike Jones spent most of his 25-year career wrestling around the world. His only brush with what could charitably be called "fame" was a four-year stint in the WWF as Virgil, the sadsack "bodyguard" of the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase. He rarely wrestled, instead settling for escorting DiBiase to...

Twitter Banned From Jerry Sandusky Trial, Which Starts Next Week
Jury selection will begin tomorrow in Jerry Sandusky's trial, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Lawyerin' Joe Amendola's latest motion to postpone proceedings. That leaves opening arguments on track for next week. But John Cleland, the presiding judge, made a pair of rulings today will hav...

Dirk Nowitzki Is The Teutonic Tambourine Man
His season over, last night Dirk was in Grand Prairie, Texas, to catch indie-folk band the Avett Brothers. Naturally, he was invited on stage to join in on "I Killed Sally's Lover." Dirk was handed a tambourine, and proceeded to rock right the fuck out. (Fun starts at the two-minute mark. [Cosby S...

NFL Referees Are Officially Locked Out
The NFL's contract with the referees' union expired on May 31st, and last-minute talks between the sides broke down. Rather than rush back to the bargaining table, the league has announced it will start hiring and training replacement officials—and that's the biggest bargaining chip of all, of cours...

Hockey Killed Derek Boogaard
Hockey doesn't show up on a toxicology report. The coroner will tell you that it was too much alcohol and too much oxycodone that stopped Boogaard's heart on an early morning last May, and the NHL will tell you the same. But it was hockey that caused Boogaard to turn to pills, hockey that caused him...

Idaho State Hoops Gets Its Own Pay-For-Play Scandal
Something very strange and secretive is going on in Pocatello. NCAA investigators have swarmed Idaho State's campus to see if a whistleblowing former coach is right, and a booster has been paying off recruits and JuCo coaches to play basketball for the university....