2 Page 343 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Radio Host Who Wouldn't Stick To Sports
Matt Jones, host of Kentucky's highest-rated radio program and co-founder of the scrappily independent Kentucky Sports Radio blog, describes himself as a "somewhat liberal, mountain, Eastern Kentuckian white guy." He adds, "There aren't a lot of those." This puts him at odds with his listeners, whos...

The SEC Really Does Benefit From Media Bias In Polls
This past week, four of the top five teams in the Associated Press College Football Poll hailed from the SEC West Division. Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, among others, wondered aloud whether ESPN's ownership of the brand-new SEC network, which launched this year, might be responsible for such a coinci...

All Of Madison Bumgarner's Game 5 Strikeout Pitches, At The Same Time
Giants ace Madison Bumgarner's line last night was filthy, and in the course of earning the complete game he picked up eight strikeouts while walking zero. Here is a video featuring a composite of all eight of those strikeout pitches, similar to what we did with Clayton Kershaw's no-hitter....

2015 Oscar Watch: Yes, It's Time To Start Arguing About This Already
As of this second, we are 122 days away from the 2015 Academy Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris as Billy Crystal growls angrily in the corner and everyone tries real hard not to make a Renee Zellweger joke. That's a ludicrously long time from now, but there won't be a single moment between now...

Old Man In Sweater Knocks Virile Young Man Right On His Ass
That dude's confidence is now toast, because an old man in street clothes just handled him without breaking a sweat....

Not One Single MLB Expert Predicted A Royals-Giants World Series
It's deja vu for the Major League Baseball pundits: For the second consecutive year, not one of the 64 pundits we tracked pegged the World Series correctly before the season began....

Report: To Escape Qatari Heat, World Cup Matches Might Start At 1 A.M.
Despite overwhelming evidence of corruption, it doesn't look like Qatar will be losing its 2022 World Cup hosting privileges. Which still leaves that little problem of how to play in the heart of a Middle Eastern summer. One new proposal involves pushing back start times into the night and early mor...

French Player's Premature "Salute" Celebration Backfires Spectacularly
Here's a soccer story told in photos, with the moral being that you should never celebrate too early, lest you get burned so hard, your children's children will still need regular applications of salve....

Cristiano Ronaldo Scores 95th-Minute Goal To Lead Portugal Over Denmark
Of course he did....

Havoc At Serbia-Albania As Match Interrupted By Flag-Carrying Drone
Officials suspended today's Serbia-Albania Euro 2016 qualifier in Belgrade after a drone carrying a large banner with the Albanian flag entered the stadium late in the first half and sparked a brawl between the two squads....

Diego Costa's Targeting System Is On The Fritz
Diego Costa's scored nine goals so far this year for Chelsea, but has yet to find the net for his adoptive country of Spain. He had the perfect opportunity to do it against Luxembourg at today's Euro 2016 qualifier, but somehow put the ball, uh, really wide of the target. Blame it on server lag....

Madison Bumgarner's Curveball Made Hitters Look Dumb Last Night
Madison Bumgarner accomplished a very specific feat in last night's Game 1 NLCS win: The Giants lefty broke the record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched with 26.2 after he exited the game against the Cardinals. It was entertaining to watch him work his way through the lineup, but obviou...

Pac-12 Officiating Coordinator Tony Corrente Resigns
The Pac-12 announced Wednesday night that Coordinator of Football Officiating Tony Corrente resigned. The official explanation is "personal and professional reasons," and San Jose Mercury News reporter Jon Wilner's source told him that Corrente was not forced out, and that the resignation caught...

Yusmeiro Petit Was Essentially The Giants' Second Starter Last Night
Yusmeiro Petit has a weird position on the Giants. He was passable as a spot starter, but couldn't earn a place in a strong San Francisco rotation. The Giants don't need him to close out games, either, and Petit is capable of pitching longer than only an inning. But last night, in the longest MLB ...

Iowa State A.D. Is Madder Than Hell About Big 12 Officiating
Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard gave a bizarre press conference today. With Cyclones' head coach Paul Rhoads standing a few feet away, Pollard goes after Big 12 refs for costing Iowa State football games. The Cyclones fell to 1-4 today after a loss to Oklahoma State. One particular play...

Top Female Soccer Players Sue FIFA Over Bullshit Artificial Turf
After weeks of pleading with FIFA to change its mind about playing the 2015 women’s World Cup on field turf instead of grass and being met with nothing but stubbornness, a handful of women’s soccer’s biggest stars have filed a lawsuit against FIFA to try and force the organization to put the upcomin...

A's-Royals Confused The Hell Out Of Gamblers
Last night's AL play-in game was the kind of protracted back-and-forth that makes a baseball game genuinely exciting. It also drives bettors nuts. Here are the implied winning percentages, which are modeled off of live betting on Betfair by Gambletron 2000. ...

Seriously, Nobody Wants To Host The 2022 Olympics
Norway's ruling party just voted against funding Oslo's 2022 Winter Olympics bid, essentially forcing the city to drop out of the race. It's just the latest in a long series of cities and countries who have given an emphatic "no" to hosting the Olympic quagmire....

Alleged Striker Fails To Score Easiest Goal Ever
Philipp Hofmann of Kaiserslautern could've done anything else with the ball here and scored. He could've barely tapped it in almost any direction and it would've gone in. He could've tripped over in his wind-up and his face would've bungled it in. His only job was not to do exactly what he did....

FIFA's Independent Investigator Wants His Corruption Report Released
FIFA hired an outside investigator to conduct a probe into allegations of bribery in the bidding process for the Russia and Qatar World Cups. That investigator, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, has finally submitted his findings to FIFA with the expectation that they would eventually be released to...