ap Page 1475 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

ESPN Proceeding With World Domination Plans
Big huge story in Business Week this week looking at the challenges facing ESPN Networks and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer as the network looks for more opportunities to grow. (Because that's what ESPN needs: To be bigger.) The story is a fascinating look at a company — and a leader — th...

Tony Parker: The Only Cool Spur (And Frenchman, Actually)
Great NBA blog FreeDarko.com — Darko's current mood is "enraged," by the way — has made a pretty amazing find: A rap song featuring Fabolous, Spurs point guard Tony Parker and some French rapper named Booba. This is pretty fantastic for several reasons — you can download the song here — not least ...

Brokeback Mountain Update: Inscrutable Brit Slang Edition
We still can't quite get enough of these still-percolating Peyton Manning-Kenny Chesney rumors. To get you up to speed, British gossip site Popbitch reported that one of the main reasons for the Zellweger-Chesney divorce might have been his "friendship" with Manning. We then uncovered an old quote...

Blogdom's Best: Philadelphia Phillies
More than any other sport, baseball lends itself to individual blog obsession. Every Major League Baseball team has several blogs obsessed with chronicling the ins-and-outs of everything. Deadspin salutes these modem-addled souls and proudly presents Blogdom's Best, given to the most outstanding b...

Woody Paige Bites The Hand That Fed Him
After pointing out last week that "Cold Pizza"'s Woody Paige had been reduced to eating dog food live on camera, we've heard some more news about everybody's favorite "columnist."...

Blogdome: Wrapping Up The Baseball Season
• A frustrating, exhilarating and typical day to be a Philadelphia sports fan. [Philadelphia Will Do] • Cardinals blogs all get together and fret about the postseason. "So, awesome. No pitching, no relief, no health, and our manager's a nutjob." We feel their pain. [Viva El Birdos] • You should all ...

The Legacy Of Shapiro
We've looked at what departing ESPN big momma Mark Shapiro did right during his reign atop the network and at what he did wrong. The real question is what the network will do now that the man responsible for its radical facelift over the last few years has gone. There will be no real "replacement"...

Leftovers: Keep FEMA Away From Boston
• Boston police plan crowd control for Yankees-Red Sox series — FEMA offers bottled water. [Metroblogging Boston] • Save another spot in that anger management class: Pacers' Harrison pleads no contest to brawl. [Indianapolis Star] • Panthers tied to indicted doctor face tests, making it the first te...

Mark Shapiro's Many Missteps
As we continue to glance backward at ESPN alpha dog Mark Shapiro's tenure, we take a look back at some of the more serious missteps during his reign....

Saying Goodbye To ESPN's Mark Shapiro
After a reign that changed the culture of the world's largest sports entertainment network, ESPN executive vice president Mark Shapiro has now left the network to work for Redskins owner Daniel Snyder with his new venture with Six Flags. Ignoring all "Quite Frankly With Yosemite Same" jokes for a ...

Bad Time To Think Of Peyton
Just an update on our Peyton Manning/Kenny Chesney/Brokeback Mountain item from yesterday: We were doing some searching, and we found this pretty damning story from Chesney, via Anecdotage:...

Blogdome: Bill Simmons Edition
• Sports blogger goes after Bill and Chuck for trashing sports bloggers. [The Mighty MJD] • In full book promotion mode, Bill shows up on blogger radio show and actually predicts the Yankees to win. [Mr. Irrelevant] • The Phillies might be pretty much done in the playoff chase, but hey, look, they'r...

Peyton Manning Going All Brokeback Mountain On Us?
OK, now this be should be filed under "Complete Random Rumor From Gossip Newsletter That Knows Nothing About American Sports," but the pure notion of it is so hysterical that we can't help but bring it to your attention....

Yeah, Red Smith Totally Used To Eat Weird Crap
OK, so we were just watching the rerun of this morning's episode of ESPN2's "Cold Pizza" — we can only watch the same "SportsCenter" so many times before our soul starts to collapse into powder — and we saw Hometown Columnist Woody Paige eat a whole canister of dog food....

Michigan Courts Make Society Safe Again
We know it's amazing that sports have been able to continue in the 10 months since the Pistons-Pacers brawl at The Palace in Detroit, but somehow, someway, athletic endeavors have been able to stagger on. In another example of the brutal ramifications of the actions of everyone involved, the three...

24 College Avenue "Mystery" Solved
Yesterday, we openly speculated who the heck that band "Autologic" that plays on Page 2's endless "serialized novel" 24 College Avenue. Another reason we love you, readers: You came through....

ESPN Can't Name That Band
We accidentally clicked on the newest installment of "24 College Avenue — the "serialized novel" by Page 2er Jim Caple that inspired by his weird tour of colleges last year — and we realized, fast, that we had forgotten to turn the sound down on our computer. Out of nowhere came this awful noise, ...

About Last Night ...
What you missed while in the tub reenacting the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack ... • MLB: Bonds hits 705th homer, is ordered to stitch actual asterisk to his uniform. • NFL: Brady's late-night carousing catches up to him in Patriots' loss to Panthers. • PGA: Some guy named Jason Gore wins s...

There Are Fake People On Page 2, And They're In College
Uh, we're just going to go under the assumption that Jim Caple's "serialized novel" 24 College Avenue is the setup to a joke, and the "three times a week throughout the school year" is the punchline. You know, the kind of inappropriate joke that a boorish friend tells too loudly at a dinner party...

Blogdome: Ripping Favre
• So, hey, now that we think about it ... Brett Favre was kind of a dick to Javon Walker. [Sports Frog] • Hot new hockey site launching later today, by tapped-in anonymous blogger. Hey, it's a growth industry; hockey can't get any less popular. [HockeyBuzz] • Ryan Howard is the Dontrelle Willis of h...