appic Page 131 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Last Act Of The Notorious Howie Spira
Howard Spira appeared in the Gawker offices one summer day as if summoned from the beyond, which in some sense he had been. He just stood there, anxiously clutching a black plastic bag, his enormous green eyes sweeping the room. His skin had the hue of a life spent mostly indoors and in poor health....
Tony La Russa, Radical Conservative
The Classical launches in November, but the cruel folks behind it love baseball way too much to let the World Series pass without comment. Throughout the series, its writers will do a daily diary for Deadspin. Keep tabs on us @Classical....
The Dumbest Thing About the NFL's Dumb Handshake Controversy
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....
Legends Are Born In October, Then Pulled In The Fifth Inning For A Situational Lefty
Baseball Prospectus's Jay Jaffe has an NLCS stat that, if you're at all like me, will send you scurrying to the far reaches of the cable box on Wednesday in search of something that does not involve Tony La Russa. (I'm serious. I like baseball as much as the next guy, but I'm not wasting my precious...
Al Davis, All-Time Great Asshole
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....
The NFL Player's Existential Dilemma
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....
Bubba Starling, Golden Boy Royals Prospect, Busted For Underage Drinking
From the Kansas City Star: "Outfielder Bubba Starling was one of three Royals' prospects cited last Saturday for underage drinking...Starling, 19, was a multi-sport standout at Gardner-Edgerton High School prior to his selection as the fifth overall pick in the June draft. He chose the Royals over a...
Deadspin's College Football Top 25 Or So: Feeling Cocky
It's time for a new installment of Deadspin's college football rankings. As always, the teams are ranked according to the logic and values of college football, no matter how bizarre or contradictory they may be. ...
How Sportswriters Became Obsessed With NCAA Scandals
The following is excerpted from Daniel Libit's story "The Scandal Beat" in the September/October issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. Read the whole thing on CJR.org....
Deadspin's College Football Top 25 Or So: Lightning Round
It's time for a new installment of Deadspin's college football rankings. As always, the teams are ranked according to the logic and values of college football, no matter how bizarre or contradictory they may be. Starting this week, that includes actual game results. ...
Steve Carlton Really Was A One-Man Team In 1972
Joe Posnanski presents a backhanded defense of the old-fashioned statistic of baseball pitchers' wins today. True, the "winning pitcher" depends on his teammates playing defense and scoring runs for him; yes, great pitchers in bad circumstances can produce feeble win totals, and bad pitchers for gre...
Hurricane Irene's Path Of Destruction And Inconvenience, All-Sports Edition
Philadelphia and Vermont got deluged; Manhattan got rained on a little. Hurricane Irene was big enough and changeable enough to have been terrifying and deadly in some places, and boring in others. How did it all affect American sports and recreation?...
32 Paragraphs About 32 NFL Teams From The 2011 Football Outsiders Almanac
The following is excerpted from the team chapters of the always-excellent Football Outsiders almanac. Buy the PDF for $12 or order the book for $21.95....
ESPN's Ian O'Connor Confuses His Job Duties With Eli Manning's
Did you hear what Plaxico Burress did at the Meadowlands last night? He did nothing. The ESPN.com caption this morning was "Plaxico Burress shines in his first game back in the NFL, scoring a touchdown against the Bengals on Sunday." This is a stupid lie, born of boredom and fraud: Burress's first g...
Knock Out Chris Rix, Win Five Grand: Here's Your Price List For The Miami Hurricanes' Alleged Football Bounties
In Charles Robinson's Miami shitstorm investigation, Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro claims that he issued bounties for in-game achievements and targets. We've compiled them for your convenience. Here are the players who supposedly collected:...
Dennis Rodman's Gym Class Would Like Him To Hurry Up And Finish At The Hall Of Fame
Your morning roundup for Aug. 12, the day after a 15-year-old app developer would have been better off leaving well enough alone. Photo via AP. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....
Tour De France, Stage 19: Like A Punch In The Face
Until yesterday, the 2011 Tour de France had been a bit of a drowsy bore (even Lance Armstrong had admitted as much). Then came yesterday's 18th stage when, like a stag party on Day 3 of a Champagne bender, things lurched inexplicably alive. There was a punishing "stuff of legends" solo attack by ga...
The 100 Worst Baseball Players Of All Time: A Celebration (Part 2)
Here's the second part of the roundup of baseball's low achievers. Part 1 is here....
The 100 Worst Baseball Players Of All Time: A Celebration (Part 1)
This is a celebration. I realize that sounds strange—compiling a list of the worst of something doesn't seem like a joyous occasion. But by worst 100 baseball players I don't just mean the objective worst, the statistical worst, the most physically discomforting to watch. I mean the players whose fa...
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...