as Page 1991 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Italian Club Invokes MLK In Letter Begging Obama To Send Kobe Over
Just over a week ago, the Italian basketball club Virtus Bologna reported that it was working "very intensely" with Kobe Bryant's representatives to bring the Lakers star overseas during the NBA lockout. There were multiple points at which it was "almost a done deal." This week, the almost-done-deal...

Chad Ochocinco Hopes You'll Be Patient If He's On Your Fantasy Football Team
After five games, New England Patriots wide receiver has caught nine passes for a total of 136 yards. Somehow, this ties into the time he lost his virginity....

A Short, Strange Lesson In NHL Economics, With Professor Sean Avery
Yesterday, Minnesota placed winger Eric Nystrom on waivers. The Wild clearly wanted to move his $1.4 million salary, and any player picked up on waivers gets split between his old and new teams. So at a more palatable $700,000...there were still no takers for Nystrom....

The Real Reason For The NFL's Passing Explosion
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....

When The World-Record Holder For The Hardest-Hit Squash Ball Drills You In The Back, It Will Leave A Hole (Video)
Cameron Pilley is a native of Australia who is currently the 16th-ranked squash player in the world. Last week, he set a world record for hitting a squash ball, variously reported at 173 or 175 miles per hour, depending on whether you believe this or what Pilley had to say in the video (not that it ...

Fantasy Sports Are Going To Take Over The World, According To Fancy Infographic
Fantasy sports now account for "$800 million, or about 18%, of the $4.5 billion sports industry," and the "estimated 32 million of North Americans ages 12 and older" who participate are essentially subsidizing sportswriting! So, uh, please—keep doing what you're doing. [Co.Design]...

Crazed Fan Swarms Minnesota Lynx During Championship Parade In Pedestrian Mall
The Minnesota Lynx won the 2011 WNBA championship today, after defeating the Atlanta Dream, 73-67, for a three-game sweep in the finals. They were feted by a parade in downtown Minneapolis this afternoon: 15,000 fans came out to Nicollet Mall, and 4,500 more joined the team at the Target Center. All...

Your Rangers-Tigers ALCS Game Three Open Thread
The ALCS arrives in Detroit tonight with the Texas Rangers up 2-0 on the hometown Tigers. Colby Lewis (postseason: 1-0, 1.50 ERA) is pitching for the Rangers; Doug Fister (1-1, 6.52) for the Tigers. But, Lewis had problems with the Tigers this year, and Fister notched a big win over the Rangers, so...

The Tobacco Farmer With The "Ol' Soupbone" And The Baseball Achievement That Will Last Forever
SI's Chris Ballard and Kotaku's Owen Good have teamed up to tell the story of minor-league pitcher Jack Swift, whose last-chance season and remarkable feats from 60 years ago are only now becoming known. You should go read it. [Sports Illustrated]...

Rex Ryan Responds To Reports Of Wide Receiver Mutiny
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: Lieutenant Bligh Rex Ryan says everything's hunky-dory....

BC Athletic Director: ESPN Is The Kindest, Bravest, Warmest, Most Wonderful Company I've Ever Known
Gene DeFilippo, addressing this: "I spoke inappropriately and erroneously regarding ESPN's role in conference expansion." [@PeteThamelNYT]...

ESPN Is Now Trotting Out Anyone It Can To Tell You It Had Nothing To Do With Boning The Big East
The folks in Bristol are getting a little defensive over those rather inconvenient comments made by Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo, who said ESPN had influenced the ACC's decision to expand by swiping Pitt and Syracuse from the Big East. An unnamed spokesman for the Worldwide Leader has already i...

Good Luck Charm? Cardinals Play-By-Play Broadcaster Might Have Wet Himself During His DWI Arrest
Two Sundays ago, Fox Sports Midwest's Dan McLaughlin was arrested for driving drunk after he crashed into a stop sign in Chesterfield, a suburb of St. Louis. He was suspended from work, even though FSM doesn't carry postseason games so his year was effectively over. That mugshot, on the left, is the...

Great Seats, Better Mullet
Your morning roundup for Oct. 11, the day we discovered protest-themed condoms. H/T to KingCuyahoga and Cory. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Watch Nelson Cruz Hit A Grand Slam To Win Game 2 Of The ALCS
Cruz sent it flying over the left field wall with the bases loaded in the 11th to give the Rangers a 2-0 series lead over the Tigers. Cruz had previously tied the game with a homer in the 7th....

Texas A&M Doesn't Know What Feces Look Like
What's worse than vandalizing a rival school's team buses, flinging shit all over? Saying your rivals did just that, when the truth is much more prosaic and less poopy....

Mike Shanahan Once Ordered Elvis Grbac To Drill Al Davis In The Head With A Pass
Al Davis had plenty of respect within the NFL power structure, as we learned this weekend. Those of us who knew him only as a craggy-faced Jamarcus-loving iconoclast now know of him as something better than that, a powerfully transformative figure. But he still had enemies. Among them: onetime Raide...

Did ESPN Bone The Big East Because They Wouldn't Sign A TV Deal?
Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo, who was part of the ACC's expansion committee that lured Pitt and Syracuse away from the Big East, says something that shouldn't be a big shocker: realignment is about money. But to see it put so blatantly, and to see the four-letter network invoked so unapologetica...

The Impact And The Darkness: The Lasting Effect Of Peter Gent's <em>North Dallas Forty</em>
At the climactic moment in the climactic game near the end of the 1979 film North Dallas Forty, Delma Huddle, having reluctantly let the team doctor shoot up his damaged hamstring, starts upfield after catching a pass, then suddenly pulls up lame and gets obliterated by a linebacker moving at full...

SprtsCntr: Stephen A. Smith Pushes The Panic Button On The Eagles
What is ESPN prattling on about right now? We condense your morning SportsCenter to its essence....