tom-scocca Page 14 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Maryland's Football Helmets Are Awesome, And They Didn't Rip Off A Bunch Of Roller Derby Girls
Nobody—OK, maybe Craggs—is more skeptical and mistrustful of the University of Maryland/Under Armour marketing-and-football partnership than I am. I'm on the record predicting shame and ruin for the athletic department in its pursuit of buzz and glory....

Bartolo Colon-O-Meter: Plagued By Indecision
Bartolo Colon, the Yankees' veteran pitcher and embodiment of struggle against the all-consuming void, pitched again on Saturday. Or did he? He came in on a three-game losing streak; the Yankees won; he is still on a three-game losing streak. His line: 6.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 7 K, 1 BB, 2 HR....

Steve Carlton Really Was A One-Man Team In 1972
Joe Posnanski presents a backhanded defense of the old-fashioned statistic of baseball pitchers' wins today. True, the "winning pitcher" depends on his teammates playing defense and scoring runs for him; yes, great pitchers in bad circumstances can produce feeble win totals, and bad pitchers for gre...

Fox Sports Does Humiliating Whiteface Routine
This is a Fox Sports segment making a joke about how schools from America's interior West are joining the previously mostly-coastal conference formerly known as the Pac-10. Students on the West Coast are not like students in Colorado and Utah, you see....

Introducing Deadspin's College Football Top 25 Or So
Some people hate college football. Some people are obsessed with criticizing college football. The Deadspin College Football Top 25 Or So loves college football. We love college football so much, we will spend the season ranking the sport according to its own logic, even where that logic might seem ...

Venus Williams Drops Out Of U.S. Open
Three days into the U.S. Open, Venus Williams has withdrawn from the tournament, saying she suffers from pain and fatigue caused by an autoimmune disorder called Sjogren's Syndrome....

What ESPN Will Be Talking About Today: Your Complete Source For Complete Yankees Complete Red Sox Completely
We condense your morning SportsCenter to its essence....

Hurricane Irene's Path Of Destruction And Inconvenience, All-Sports Edition
Philadelphia and Vermont got deluged; Manhattan got rained on a little. Hurricane Irene was big enough and changeable enough to have been terrifying and deadly in some places, and boring in others. How did it all affect American sports and recreation?...

Bartolo Colon-O-Meter: Conquered By Optimism
How can hope be the enemy of human endeavor? That was the question facing Bartolo Colon Sunday afternoon, as the Yankees pitcher-philosopher took the mound against Zach Britton of the Baltimore Orioles—veteran against rookie, righty against lefty, metaphor for inexorable despair against metaphor for...

Escape From Bristol: An Update On The Condition Of Our ESPN-Infiltrating Correspondent
After a bout of questioning from ESPN executive vice president Norby Williamson, Deadspin's Tommy Craggs has been released from Bristol headquarters and sent on his way back to New York. Despite having invited Craggs to the company's state-of-the-union event and having given him a temporary employee...

SPECIAL REPORT FROM INSIDE BRISTOL HQ: LIVEBLOGGING THE ESPN STATE-OF-THE-UNION ADDRESS
In continuation of Deadspin's tradition of extremely close-up coverage of the elephant that is ESPN, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a series of live transmissions from a reporter stationed at ankle level inside the Worldwide Leader's annual all-company meeting. That's Chris Be...

What ESPN Will Be Talking About Today: Authorities Investigate LSU QB, LSU Investigates Other QB Options
We condense your morning SportsCenter to its essence....

Bartolo Colon-O-Meter: It's A Fine Line Between Failure And Non-Failure
What did Bartolo Colon teach us about our place in the universe last night? Special philosophical correspondent David Roher was at the ballpark to witness the veteran Yankee's performance against Oakland, as Colon fell behind the A's 5-0—with two of the runs scoring after he'd left the game, on a do...

Readers: Let's Come Up With A Less Awful Trophy For The Winner Of Iowa-Iowa State
Now that the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Corn Promotion Board have abandoned their ill-fated agrarian-robot-family-allegory design for the Cy-Hawk Trophy, how will the victors in the annual football showdown between Iowa and Iowa State know they've won? Please help bail out the corn i...

Exit Felix Pie; Luke Scott Will Have To Find A New Dark-Skinned Teammate To Throw Banana Chips At
Baseball's most discomfiting buddy comedy is near cancellation: Yesterday, the Baltimore Orioles designated outfielder Felix Pie for assignment, effectively ending his role as the some-of-my-best-friends-are-black clubhouse foil for redneck performance artist Luke Scott. ...

Dear Grantland: Why Won't You Let Yourself Be Loved?
In the absence of a comment space on ESPN's Grantland website, Deadspin continues to supply a space for Grantland readers to share their feedback. Please send corrections and comments to [email protected], subject "Dear Grantland."...

ESPN's Ian O'Connor Confuses His Job Duties With Eli Manning's
Did you hear what Plaxico Burress did at the Meadowlands last night? He did nothing. The ESPN.com caption this morning was "Plaxico Burress shines in his first game back in the NFL, scoring a touchdown against the Bengals on Sunday." This is a stupid lie, born of boredom and fraud: Burress's first g...

Bartolo Colon-O-Meter: Judgment Without Pity
Bartolo Colon, Yankee pitcher and existential protagonist, found himself beset by 14 men last night. Nine of his antagonists were Kansas City Royals hitters-including Billy Butler, who launched a fly ball to somewhere around the top of the outfield fence in the third inning. Four more of his opponen...

China Would Prefer Not To Dwell On Any Incident That May Or May Not Have Occurred Between Georgetown And The People's Liberation Army
Here's the online front page of the state-run English-language China Daily this afternoon. Welcome to China, Joe Biden! Hey, wasn't that goodwill mission supposed to include a basketball game?...

Dropping In On The Demented Utopia Of The Gathering Of The Juggalos
Alienation as belonging. Titties as currency. And lots and lots and lots and lots of drugs. Our reporter enters the greasepainted world of Insane Clown Posse's notorious fan event, the Gathering of the Juggalos....