a Page 7421 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

ESPN Book To Become Future Major Motion Picture About Bristol Guys Having Fun
According to an insider from one of the major talent agencies, Hollywood has expressed significant interest in turning the Miller/Shales oral history of ESPN into a blockbuster movie. It's in the very early stages but, according to our source, one lucky studio will make a major financial investment...

A Year Ago, Diamondbacks 3B Sean Burroughs Was Drinking 8 Slurpees Daily, Eating Cheeseburgers Out Of A Trash Can
Sean Burroughs, if you'll recall, was once the fraught golden boy of early 2000s NL baseball—the smooth-swinging Padres third baseman who could only hit singles. (His career isolated slugging percentage, .078, is only a fuzz better than Juan Pierre's.) But Burroughs has since resuscitated his pro ca...

Memo To Jonah Lehrer: Mark Cuban Says The Mavs Used Statistics Against The Heat
Jonah Lehrer is still arguing that the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat by ignoring statistics and turning loose the intangible powers of J.J. Barea. Or at least that stat-heads can't prove that wasn't the case:...

Charles Barkley Has Opinions On Things, This Time At A Baseball Game
For a half-inning, Charles Barkley joined the Sportsnet broadcast booth in Toronto. We edited it down to just the highlights (SportsGrid has the entire thing) of Charles holding court on on local food, the Phillies, and other random nonsense....

Jay Mariotti's Long Downward Spiral
A California judge ruled yesterday that there was sufficient evidence against former ESPN talker and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti for a trial on assault, domestic violence, and stalking charges....

Driver Sets New Record For Fastest Lap Around Manhattan
Alex Roy circled the Island of Manhattan in 2001 setting a known record for fastest time at 27 minutes, reaching speeds of 144 mph over the 24.48 mile distance. A new driver's now done it in 26:03. Here's video. [Jalopnik]...

More From The Jay Mariotti Hearings: Pulling Out Hair <i>Extensions</i> Does Not Make It OK
Last night we alerted you to the news that formerly ubiquitous ESPN pundit Jay Mariotti would stand trial in California on charges of felony stalking, domestic violence, and assault stemming from an April altercation. That came after a no-contest plea on domestic violence charges in September 2010....

Wily Mo Pena Spits A Loogie Into His Helmet, Hits Two-Run Walkoff
Via Awful Announcing, here's Baseball MLB Tonight's involved slo-mo breakdown of Willy Mo Pena's pre-game-winning-homerun ritual: he sends a gob of spit and possibly other substances in his helmet, and then he wears the helmet. Babe might be proud. Babe also might be kind of grossed out....

Troy Tulowitzki Scores From First On A Bloop Single, Miguel Tejada Nearly Gets Thrown Out At Home On A HR
I guess what we're saying is that Tulo always hustles, while Tejada is looking to top the Tater Tot Tracker charts....

Dirk Nowitzki Is Big In Germany
Your morning roundup for June 29, the day we started rapping on light poles. Image — of Dirk Nowitzki's triumphant return to his hometown of Wurzburg, Germany — via MSNBC Photoblog....

Drunk Ohio Teacher Resists Arrest, Sprays Cops With Her Breastmilk
We're not sure we know the precise meaning of the term "hot mess," but this just has to be the perfect application. Meet Stephanie Robinette, 30, a lactating charter-school teacher from Westerville, Ohio (a Columbus suburb), who got drunk, disorderly, and weird over the weekend....

Crazy Kids Sync Up Beer Pong Highlight With Nate-Robinson-Over-Spud-Webb Call
Kids these days! So reckless, huh? Turns out they're also quite resourceful when it comes to the machines....

Jay Mariotti Will Stand Trial On Stalking, Domestic Violence, And Assault Charges
"Mariotti allegedly confronted the woman at a restaurant last Sept. 30.... He also is accused of grabbing the woman outside a Venice restaurant around midnight on April 15 of this year, pulling out a chunk of her hair and grabbing her cell phone away as he shouted at her." [BHCourier, h/t tomuban]...

California Minor League Hockey Team Demands Quite A Lot From Those Applying To Be Its Mascot
Inhabiting a mascot's costume can be demanding work. We know that. But who would have guessed that it had so many prerequisites? Tipster Rick alerts us to this ECHL job posting from the Stockton Thunder. They're looking to hire someone to portray Thor, their mascot....

Sasha Vujacic Cheers On His Fiancée, Maria Sharapova, Like An Ass, Too
Tomorrow's New York Times has a feature on Maria Sharapova and Sasha Vujacic, sports' biggest power couple since Shelden Williams tied the knot with that lady. You probably remember Vujacic from the 2008 NBA Finals, when he and his hair nearly derailed Boston's title chase. He's since been exiled to...

One Armand De Brignac Midas Bottle For £120,000! An Unscientific Analysis Of An Enormous Johnson's Epic Bar Tab In London
Atlantic City casino scourge Don Johnson (not to be confused with 80s-era TV scourge Don Johnson) must have seen the damage the Bruins did in the MGM Grand bar in Foxwoods recently. He must have burned with envy. For those of you unaware, Don Johnson has earned the dubious moniker of "The Champagne ...

Hunt For Beejoli Shah, Fabulist Author Of Viral "Quentin Tarantino Sucked My Toes!" Story Begins (UPDATE)
So, friendsicles: how many of you had the email from "beejoli" forwarded to you this morning and have subsequently sent it along to others? Dozens, I bet. Thousands even. Dozens of thousands probably. Its veracity is still unknown but I know Gawker is dutifully trying to track down "beejoli" to see ...

John Calipari Has A Shockingly Logical Plan For Paying Players
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: Calipari on how to pay just the ones that bring in the money....

Grantland's Jonah Lehrer Loves Intangibles So Much He Made A Whole Argument Out Of Them
Aren't sports statistics terrible? Of course they are. Sports has been overrun by number-nerds, and the number-nerds get angry if you point this out. So Jonah Lehrer, writing at Grantland about the pernicious influence of numerical analysis, makes sure not to bring up any actual examples of how numb...

The Right Place At The Right Time: Remembering Lorenzo Charles
In the photographs of that moment, he doesn't show an expression of power, of joy, of triumph or even relief. His eyebrows are arched back, his eyes are wide, his face drawn into a grimace. N.C. State's Lorenzo Charles does not look like a man dunking a basketball, but rather a man returning to Eart...