book Page 47 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
In-Denial Paterno Fan Gets Facebook Smackdown From His Mother
"A douche friend of ours put up this status," says the tipster who sent along this screengrab yesterday afternoon. Adam took it down quickly, but not before his mother could weigh in....
How Michael Jordan And Nike Teamed Up To Conquer The World
It's easy to forget that there was once a time when Michael Jordan wasn't considered the greatest basketball player ever. But Jack McCallum remembers that time, and describes it (and how Jordan changed things) here, in an excerpt from his new book Dream Team, which we wrote about two weeks ago. The ...
What Happens When ESPN Accidentally Allows Write-In Votes On A Facebook Poll
Open Facebook polls are one of the underrated treasures of the internet. Instead of being bound to the only "logical" or "possible" answers, ESPN allowed fans' imaginations to run wild. Asking who will win tonight's Home Run Derby, ESPN didn't limit voters to just eight boring choices—and lo, Josh H...
Padres Fan Gets Hit By Foul Ball Because Of Mark Zuckerberg
All Travis Decker wanted to do was let his friends know he was at a Padres game. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, Travis Decker can tell all his friends that he was at a Padres game. Also thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, Travis Decker can upload the picture of the giant welt he will surely have on his clavicle...
If You're In New York City Tonight, Go Listen To Some Fine Writers Praise And Scorn The Yankees
This month's edition of Gelf's terrific Varsity Letters reading series brings together Rob Fleder (he edited Damn Yankees, in which this appeared), Steve Rushin, and our man Alex Belth (who profiled George Kimball here in December), and, if you so choose, you, dear reader! 7:30 p.m. tonight at Pacif...
How R.A. Dickey Fixed His Own Glitches And Found One In Baseball
Before the 2012 season started, Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey published his memoir, Wherever I Wind Up. It was the best baseball book I'd read in ages. And now that literary surprise dovetails with a baseball one: Dickey, after back-to-back one-hitters, is pitching better than anyone else in baseba...
Company Paid To Monitor College Athletes' Twitter And Facebook Accounts Has A Sock-Puppet Business Address IRL
Last month, we met three firms that colleges are using to monitor athletes on Facebook and Twitter. It's ethically and procedurally dubious work, so you might assume the companies would be extra-scrupulous about how they run their own businesses....
How Not To Be The Biggest Asshole In Media: 4 Lessons I Learned From Meeting Jay Mariotti And Reading His Awful Book
It's been almost two years since Jay Mariotti last wrote a sports column or appeared on ESPN. In that time, sports media's ur-controversialist—a pioneer of the sportswriters-being-dicks-on-television genre—has pleaded no contest to misdemeanor stalking and assault-related charges stemming from a hai...
Here's That Picture Of The Denver Broncos' Playbook D.J. Williams Tweeted
The guys over at Sportsgrid, via SB Nation, have the art for you. If you're unaware, D.J. WIlliams is a guy with a bad track record who tweeted the above picture of his new team-provided iPad as a message informing fans that he was studying and learning a new position. It showed some defensive form...
The Birth Of The Magical 1971 Macon High Ironmen, Baseball's Version Of <em>Hoosiers</em>
Despite—or perhaps because of—their ragtag roster and hippie manager, the 1971 Macon High Ironmen found themselves in the Illinois state baseball championship. Chris Ballard first chronicled the team in a long piece for SI in 2010, and he's explored them in even more depth in One Shot at Forever. In...
What Boxing Writing Can Teach Us About Everything: A.J. Liebling On Moore-Marciano
Between the Victorian era and the Sixties, boxing was a regular and prominent feature of American life. Knowing something about the fights—being good with your hands, or maintaining an opinion about the welterweight division or fixed bouts or how to beat a southpaw—was a very common piece of equipme...
Bobcats Facebook Poll Goes Poorly
Charlotte's official Facebook page put up a poll, which could have been fun. It was an inane question, sure—"what pick will the Bobcats get in the lottery"—but it could have been a window into the fanbase's level of pessimism. The Cats have the best odds, so anyone picking anything but "No. 1 overal...
Everybody Loved Grantland
Excerpted from Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter....
Source: Sarah Phillips Steered Business To A Bookie Who Was Probably Nilesh Prasad
So far, we know that former ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips and her partner, Nilesh Prasad, hijacked a 19-year-old's Facebook page, misrepresented their connections to ESPN, and engaged in some sort of minor-league hustle at a Corvallis, Ore., T-Mobile store. To that list, let's add another, more seri...
The Perfect Comic-Book Movie. <em>The Avengers</em>, Reviewed.
1. The Avengers is a superhero movie so fun, full of so much pure fanboy-wank joy wrapped up in an accessible, relentlessly entertaining package, that I'm not sure anybody needs to make any more comic-book movies; this one might wrap it up. (One suspects they'll still find a way.) Made by and for—bu...
What Movies From the '90s Will Critics Include In <em>Sight & Sound</em>'s Top 10 (AKA The Only Poll That Matters)?
These days, there are so many film polls and online Top 10 lists that the idea of ranking movies can seem rather old hat. But amid all that list-bait, there is one movie poll taken more seriously than all others: Sight & Sound's once-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. The British film ...
If You're In New York Tonight, Come Listen To Sportswriters Talk Dogs, Kids, And Fandom
This month's edition of Gelf's terrific Varsity Letters reading series brings together Josh Dean (he wrote this and appears in the above video), Mark Hyman (a chronicler of youth sports), Matt Wasowski (read about him here), and, if you so choose, you, dear reader! 7:30 p.m. tonight at Le Poisson ...
Joss Whedon: Revenge Of The Nerd
Five years ago, Joss Whedon's career wasn't going so well. The man behind the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel had recently written and directed Serenity, a big-screen version of his short-lived series Firefly. It was his feature directing debut, and it was a commercial disappointment. No...
Joe Posnanski's Book On Joe Paterno Will Be Finished Before The Sandusky Trial
Joe Posnanski didn't go to Happy Valley to write about the unhappy end of Joe Pateno's life and career. He intended it as an eternal Father's Day gift, a sappy and sentimental picture of the aging lion in repose. It was originally scheduled to be released in time for Father's Day, and Posnanski said...
What <em>The Avengers</em> Means For The Future Of Comic-Book Movies
Tomorrow, Marvel's The Avengers will open in certain parts of the globe—not the U.S., which won't see the film until May 4—and Marvel's four-year odyssey of laying the groundwork for this action blockbuster will finally be over. It's been an impressive run commercially, if not always critically. (Ca...