dark Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Darko Milicic Is Bread From God, And Other Crazy Things David Kahn Believes
"It was like," Timberwolves GM David Kahn said yesterday, "manna from heaven." By "it," he of course means Darko Milicic, and by "manna" he does not mean "flaky white substance blanketing the ground," even though he should....

Crotch Punch Fulfills Every Crotch Punch's Destiny, Gets Immortalized On Videotape
Here's the video of Seton Hall's Herb Pope doing to Texas Tech's Darko Cohadarevic what a thousand youth baseball bats have done to two thousand youth-coach testicles. [YouTube, via TBL]...

Slipping And Tripping In Warren Sapp's Hometown
You're familiar with Dark Side of the Locker Room. Consider this the THX Edition of Dark Side. Our storyteller is Padgett Powell, author of Edisto, The Interrogative Mood, and the following dispatch from Plymouth, Fla., which was spiked by ESPN....

How A Luger Got Stonewalled Over His Concerns About Whistler's Deadly Track
"What happened in Whistler, what happened to the Georgian athlete," says Werner Hoeger, a two-time Olympic luger, "I thoroughly believe that the [International Luge Federation], Canadian Luge Association, and the IOC are responsible."...

Nodar Kumaritashvili Was "Scared" Of Olympic Luge Course
The Georgian luger told his father before he died that he was "scared of one of the turns," but the luge federation says it's not the track's fault that he failed to "compensate properly" after a bad curve. Awesome. [WSJ/ESPN/DMN]...

No, The Sports Fella Did Not Hope For A Dead Georgian Luger
Thanks to the eighty of you who drew our attention to Bill Simmons retro Winter Olympics column, and his hankering for luge accidents. You can stop now....

Bill Plaschke, Master Of Finding Controversy Where None Exists
Plaschke's manufactured outrage of the day: "there was no makeshift memorial of flowers or cards, there was no visible memory" of Nodar Kumaritashvili. The photo that runs with the story? A makeshift memorial of flowers and cards. [MSTI]...

Canada Limited Luger's Training Time In Olympic Runup
We are reminded that Whistler Sliding Centre was among the venues that Canada refused to let other nations' athletes practice on before February, in an attempt to gain a home-country advantage. [NY Times]...

Track's Safety Was Already In Question Before Fatal Crash
When Nodar Kumaritashvili died in a training run this morning, it came after years of hype of the fastest, most dangerous downhill run in the world. No one wants death, but we all want the athletes to risk it....

Fatal Luge Crash Mars Opening Day
Nodar Kumaritashvili, a 21-year-old Georgian luger, died from head injuries suffered in a brutal crash in training today....

Hennessy, Dog Crap, And A Touching Glimpse Into The Head And Home Of Ron Artest
"Dark Side of the Locker Room" is a compendium of journalists' bizarre, amusing and previously undocumented encounters with athletes (and often athletes' genitalia). Got a story? Send it to [email protected]....

Freed Darko
Milicic and his 0.67 ppg is taking his basketball and going home to Europe after this season. We'd declare him officially a bust, but common consensus already declared that six years ago. [NY Post]...

Coming Soon: Jonathan Papelbon's Dubious Taste In Cinema
"Dark Side of the Locker Room" is a compendium of journalists' bizarre, amusing and previously undocumented encounters with athletes (and often athletes' genitalia). Got a story? Send it to [email protected]....

Reporter Is Unamused By Our Tale Of Minor-League Cock Hijinks
Recently, Giants farmhand Garrett Broshuis shared the story of his teammate's dong-waggling mating ritual, which Garrett likened to the furious, metronomic beating of a toy drum. And now, the reporter for whom the drum was furiously, metronomically beaten is outraged....

Old-School Skunk And The Ripe-Tomato Eyes Of Pete Johnson
"Dark Side of the Locker Room" is a compendium of journalists' bizarre, amusing and previously undocumented encounters with athletes (and often athletes' genitalia). Got a story? Send it to [email protected]....

A Solo On The Toy Drum
You've read our "Dark Side of the Locker Room" series, in which journalists share their bizarre encounters with sports figures and, frequently, their genitalia. Consider this the reverse: Sports figures share their (and, perhaps, their genitalia's) bizarre encounters with journalists....

Pedro Guerrero Beats The Spread
We're bringing back our popular "Dark Side of the Locker Room" series, which you'll remember was a compendium of journalists' bizarre, amusing and previously undocumented encounters with athletes (and often athletes' genitalia). Got a story? Send it to [email protected]....

Did Miguel Tejada Tip Pitches In 2001?
The New York Times seems to think he did, only the paper says so in such a mealymouthed and sidelong way that one starts to wonder if something else is going on here....

Maybe This Is Why They Called Him "The Lip"
We're bringing back our popular "Dark Side of the Locker Room" series, which you'll remember was a compendium of journalists' bizarre, amusing and previously undocumented encounters with athletes (and often athletes' genitalia). Got a story? Send it to [email protected]....