ap Page 1549 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Panthers Fan Gets Drenched By All Of The Rain
At least he has that thin plastic poncho keeping him damp instead of soaked....

Which TV Market's Getting Screwed Today? Your Week 16 NFL Viewing Maps
A guide to the best and worst of the NFL slate (and to which fans are stuck with the most of the worst). Maps via 506sports.com....

A Complete Breakdown Of The Year In Touchdown Celebrations
Geoff Foster of the Wall Street Journal has done the lord's work. He went back and watched every touchdown celebration that occurred in the NFL this year for the purpose of creating a comprehensive audit of how NFL players decided to get down after scoring....

Here's Another Insane Christmas Wish List
After our own Drew Magary shared his daughter's crazy-ass Christmas wish list with the world, we received many other lists from parents around the country who also have, uh, imaginative kids. Here's another one, and it's a doozy:...

Bill Belichick Has A Real Soft Spot For Christmas Songs
Does Bill Belichick love Christmas songs? You bet. He loves all of them. They make him smile, because they are so full of merriment. He really likes the ones with the bells. Look how happy he is. Just thinking about Christmas songs makes him happy. ...

The Joy Of Athletes Awkwardly Singing Holiday Songs
Some Celtics players and coach Brad Stevens visited Boston Children's Hospital earlier today, singing Christmas carols with the kids, and thanks to ESPN Boston's Chris Forsberg, there's video. Everyone had fun, except for the little girl on the left of Kelly Olynyk, who seemed suspicious of the whol...

The 12 Best Sports Infographics Of 2013
While 2013 saw plenty of "Snowfall"-inspired graphical masturbation, it was generally a great year for sports-related graphics and data viz. The 12 works below are some of our favorites, listed in order of publication. Sorry for the image fuzziness; click "expand" to get a better look. And let us kn...

Cool Old Map: How Did Your State Get Its Liquor During Prohibition?
The map above—from a 1931 issues of Fortune Magazine—tracks the production and transportation of wine, beer, and various hard liquors in the U.S., right at the tail end of Prohibition. It's an old map but it's new to us; make sure to check out the hard-cider swath of Northern New England, the bootle...

Jack Morris Voter Hates What He Doesn't Understand (Numbers)
You want to list Jack Morris on your Hall of Fame ballot? Fine. You want to vote for Jack Morris and not offer a public explanation? Go for it, it's your vote! But when a BBWAA member announces his vote for Jack Morris, citing as a sabermetrics flaw a specific thing that sabermetrics do very well, t...

What You're Expecting, But More So: <em>Anchorman 2</em>, Reviewed.
1. When did the tide start to turn on Ron Burgundy? It's a strange thing: Since Will Ferrell introduced his greatest creation in 2004, there has been a relentless drumbeat among the public to bring him back, from cameos on Conan to rampant interview requests to the ultimate point where Ferrell and P...

Luis Scola Does Not Appear To Have Control Over His Own Legs
Well, at least he didn't go full Bargnani....

Every Leader Of The Japanese PGA Is Resigning In A Yakuza Scandal
This past spring two officials of the Professional Golfers Association in Japan played golf and dined with a known yakuza mafia don. Naturally Shinsaku Maeda, who was the vice chairman, and Tadayoshi Bando, who was the board director, had to go, and they were expelled in October....

Worst-Case Scenario: Super Bowl Tuesday
Nearly everyone is rooting for snow at the Super Bowl, because snow football is awesome. A little bit of snow, anyway. Today was the "oh god, what if it snows really, really badly and everything is shut down" press conference, and officials revealed their contingency plan: just have the Super Bowl s...

The Problem With Riley Cooper's Redemption
There are two legitimately fascinating stories hiding in ESPN's "Hot Read" on the redemption of Riley Cooper, and neither of them are told. One is buried and glossed over, the other ignored altogether, in favor of a trite and vaguely insulting tale of overcoming self-inflicted adversity....

Richard Ford: Stop Blaming The Game
In 1993, the acclaimed novelist Richard Ford wrote a piece for the New York Times called "Stop Blaming Baseball."...

The Painted Screens Of Baltimore
Rafael Alvarez has more about Elaine Eff's book in the Baltimore City Paper. ...

How Much Will Mike Trout Get Paid?
Any theoretical negotiation starts from this premise: He is 22 years old, and already the best player in baseball. (And if not for Miguel Cabrera's existence, he'd be the best by far.) We have already accepted that the economics of Mike Trout can't rely on past data, because there's nothing comparab...

The Atlanta Braves Are About To Get Teabagged
Originally published at Bloomberg View....

The Inventor of Karaoke Speaks
Daisuke Inoue tells all over at The Appendix:...
