ac Page 940 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A Little Greedy, And Exactly Right: Red Smith On Secretariat
Red Smith is the most respected sports columnist we've ever had. In his prime, Jimmy Cannon, Smith's friendly rival, was certainly as well-known. Cannon, the Voice of New York, was an emotional, colloquial writer whose reputation, unfortunately, has faded. But Smith endures. What is it about his wri...

Justin Gatlin Just Beat Usain Bolt In The 100-Meter Dash
Justin Gatlin had been talking a lot of shit heading into his showdown in the 100 meters with the world's fastest man. "I like talking about it, I like getting into the feel of it, so I’m sorry, Usain,” Gatlin said. At tonight's Golden Gala in Rome, Gatlin backed up his words....

The Nuggets Have Fired George Karl, And That Is Weird
According to Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski, the Denver Nuggets have fired George Karl, who had one year left on his contract. The decision was apparently made because the Nuggets did not want to give Karl the contract extension he had been pushing for. Whatever the reasons behind Karl's departure, one ...

<em>Hockey Night In Canada's</em> Pregame Video From Last Night Is Tremendous
I'm a sucker for a well-produced pregame video. A few nicely timed cuts here, a couple of dramatic gazes there, and a haunting score to tie it all together can make me feel like I'm about to watch the most important sporting event history (I'm pretty sure I have watched this one more than a dozen t...

Shane Battier Says Getting Benched Was Like Eating A "Turd Sandwich"
Hey, Shane Battier, how did it feel to spend all of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on the bench?...

Weirdo Rookie Umpire Fills Left Field With His Chewed Gum
Major-league umpires are kind of the worst. Blown close calls we can grudgingly abide, but blown not-all-that-close calls punctuated by ego trips, well, not so much. And yet that's what umpires do! Jordan Baker, a minor-league umpire who has filled in on Dana DeMuth's crew over the past week, keeps ...

How Many NBA Pundits Predicted A Spurs-Heat Finals?
Republished with permission from PunditTracker....

The Black Berets: Red Smith On The Olympic Black Power Salute
Red Smith is the most respected sports columnist we've ever had. In his prime, Jimmy Cannon, Smith's friendly rival, was certainly as well-known. Cannon, the Voice of New York, was an emotional, colloquial writer whose reputation, unfortunately, has faded. But Smith endures. What is it about his wri...

Shane Battier Was Reduced To Toweling Off LeBron James Last Night
During the regular season, Shane Battier was a key cog in the Miami Heat's small-ball offense. His willingness to guard bigger power forwards and his ability to cause matchup problems on the offensive end with his three-point shooting were big factors in the Heat's success. But his inability to gua...

Deacon Jones Is Forever Terrifying
What is there to say about the late Deacon Jones, who coined the term "sack," who had one of the best nicknames in all of sports (the "Secretary of Defense"), and who remains among the most fearsome pass rushers to ever play football? Lots, actually. (See here, here, and here.) But we'd rather just ...

Dwyane Wade Finds His Game, With Help From The World's Best Wingman
Dwyane Wade heard it all. He heard LeBron not-so-subtly call him out after Game 5, saying he needed more help. He heard Reggie Miller call the team "the Miami Cavaliers" during Game 6. Wade responded, grumpy knee and all, with his best game of the postseason. This is how a superteam is supposed to w...

The Miami Heat Predictably Advance To The Finals
After all the buildup and nonsense over the weekend, of course this series would end in a Miami blowout. What could have been a dramatic will the Heat be able to pull together? kind of game turned into a Miami romp over the Pacers. The Heat won 99-76 thanks to a typical LeBron James performance, an ...

Young Heat Fan Makes Believers Out Of Miami Crowd
This excitable scamp was just shown at Game 7 and is the spiritual and visual yin to Filomena Tobias's yang. The enthusiasm and anticipation are palpable and Miami is clearly feeding off the support; halfway through the third quarter the Heat hold a 15 point lead. He's made believers of us all. ...

Gregg Popovich's Yearbook Entry: "His Future Plans Include Happiness"
"Popo" played four years of basketball at the Air Force Academy, where in 1970 he earned a bachelor's degree in Soviet studies. But doesn't this tell us so much more about where the young cadet was headed in life? It's basically a droll outline for every one of his eventual encounters with sideline ...

Top Recruit Says Coach Promised Him A Meeting With Michael Jackson
Da'Shawn Hand is the No. 1 ranked high school football player in the country, and he recently sat down with CBS Sports' Bruce Feldman to talk about what life as the prize of the Division I recruiting circuit has been like. It sounds like he's been meeting some pretty dumb people....

Navy Is Investigating A Rape Allegation Against Three Football Players
No charges have been filed, but according to The New York Times, the Naval Academy has confirmed the existence of an ongoing inquiry into allegations that three football players raped a female midshipman at an April 2012 off-campus party. One of the three players has had his graduation and commissio...

Nonplussed Pat Riley Makes For The Best Photobomb
Why are these fans so happy? Their seats to Saturday's Game 6 in Indianapolis were four rows from the very top of the arena, but they snuck down to near courtside. Right in front of a decidedly bemused Pat Riley....


One Reporter's Reflections On Covering John Tortorella, Bully
Dave Lozo used to write for NHL.com. He doesn't anymore, so he's free to tell you exactly what it was like to cover the Rangers for four years under John Tortorella. Spoiler alert: scary at first, then almost pathetic....

Maloof Family Thanks Sacramento In Newspaper Ad
Years of prayers were finally and officially answered: as of Friday, the Maloofs are no longer NBA owners. Sure, they drove the team into the ground, and sure, they did everything possible to sell the franchise to an owner who would move it from Sacramento, and sure, just two weeks ago George Maloof...