eog Page 19 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Why These Four Countries Are The Only Ones Not Trying To Qualify For The World Cup
Yesterday, the road to the 2014 World Cup kicked off with the first AFC qualifying round. (Technically, Montserrat and Belize played their first match two weeks ago, in Trinidad and Tobago because Montserrat doesn't have an acceptable stadium. The game drew 100 spectators.)...

Lamar Odom Turns To Video Games For His Hoop Dreams
OK, maybe this is rock bottom for Page 2, but there's an excellent mental image in here: Lamar Odom last week playing as Lamar Odom in NBA 2K11 against the Mavericks, and his opponent letting him win....

Figure Skating Is Much More Tolerable When Routines Are Super Mario-Themed
Here's Tatiana Volosozhar and partner Maxim Trankov doing their graceful skating thing at the 2011 World Championships in Moscow earlier in the week. No Beethoven. No Handel. No terrible 70s ballads. Just Mario....

Aaron Rodgers Got Shafted In The Madden Cover Vote
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: forget the Super Bowl MVP — it's down to Peyton Hillis and Michael Vick....

<em>Barkley Shut Up And Jam!</em> Predicts The Thunder-Nuggets Series, And More
SB Nation's Jon Bois has gone and done something brilliant again: a complete simulation of the first round of the NBA playoffs, using "the worst" — or is it best? — of 1990s basketball video games. [SB Nation]...

<em>Madden</em> Moves Its Release Date To The End Of August
Traditionally arriving by the first or second Tuesday of August, Madden NFL 12 will be released three weeks later, Aug. 30, in a move EA Sports says will carry into… [Kotaku] ...

PETA Protests The Michael Vick Madden Cover That Doesn't Exist Yet
When ESPN and EA Sports announced that they would team up to let fans select the Madden 2012 cover boy, we predicted that the angry loud people would quickly sound off about the selections. The pool is now down to 16 selections, and the shit-stirring has begun: in a totally unoriginal outcome, the ...

Vote For The Most Deserving Madden Cover Athlete, Or Just Stir Up Shit
Madden NFL 12 is the most important video game of all time, topping previous title-holder Madden 11, which usurped the title from Madden 10, etc, etc. Same game, a couple new features, and most notably, a new cover athlete. The Madden Cover jinx is a thing of the past, but it's still quite the honor...

This Wu-Tang Clan Super Game Boy Commercial Was Banned For Being "Too Ill"
In 1993, members of the Wu-Tang Clan produced a 40-second spot for Nintendo's Super Game Boy. Filmed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1993, it featured a beat by Prince Paul, voice-over from RZA and ODB, and a work of graffiti from the COD Crew. A member of COD found the old video and uploaded it to V...

Greg Jennings Responds To Fan's Religious Experience As Greg Jennings On Madden
Back in October in the virtual realm, Packers WR Greg Jennings scored a 99-yard touchdown on a broken leg in Madden. The gamer's voice-over went viral — it has been viewed over four million times on YouTube — but Jennings himself hadn't yet responded to the most famous play of his career. At ESPN ...

Women Are Getting Topless In <em>Tiger Woods PGA Tour</em>
A British woman says her user-created golfer randomly teed up sans shirt. EA says the game must've been hacked. You can take Tiger off the cover, but you can't keep his sensibilities out of the game. [The Sun (NSFW), via Wired Playbook]...

The Unreal Genius Of <em>Football Manager</em>, Greatest Video Game Ever
Football Manager 2011 is the latest entry in the famously addictive series of "realistic" soccer simulation games. Brian Phillips explains the appeal and what it tells us about sports fandom in the time of Brett Favre's penis....

Punch-Out With Your Cock Out
A German (of course) AIDS awareness organization has released COCK OUT, in which players slip on a motion-sensing digital condom and use their thrusts to pummel a virtual HIV....

The Media Pearl-Clutching Over Kobe Bryant's <em>Call Of Duty</em> Commercial Has Begun
This is the commercial. This is Tim Keown's ESPN.com column, which is straight out of the Cokie Roberts "Oh noes! Blowjobs!" school of punditry. WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN BEING USED FOR RHETORICAL EFFECT BY ANOTHER COLUMNIST GROUCHING ABOUT POP CULTURE?...

Latest Madden Update Agrees With Shanny About McNabb
The week 9 Madden 11 update is announced, and Donovan McNabb's stamina has dropped eight points. Sounds like EA trusts Mike Shanahan more than anyone in their right mind should....

Soccer Showboating Is Much More Synchronized Than Regular Showboating
The Czech 3rd League must be home to a lot of smack talk to warrant what Lisen did to Jihlava B during Sunday's game: after shouting "kotoul"—Czech for "roll"—the Lisen players to engaged in choreographed gymnastics. [The Spoiler]...

"Thriller" On Ice Much Better Than "Thriller" In Filipino Prison
You know, agility-wise. We're not sure why someone would perform the "Thriller" dance on the ice, but when you think about it, why wouldn't you perform the "Thriller" dance on ice? [Puck Daddy]...

Searching For Big Country: An Outsize Guide To The New <em>NBA Jam</em>
This is a story about the new NBA Jam for the Nintendo Wii. It is also a story about the 1990s, the NBA's waning cultural cachet, Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, Asian-Jewish relations, Roenick in NHL '94, nostalgia, and God....

A Brief History Of <em>FIFA</em> And <em>Pro Evolution</em> Soccer
Following on from the unnecessary video game references in yesterday's posts, The Spoiler thought this was too good to be hidden away in the link dump....

The Nerdiest Thing You'll Ever See
This is...this is just excellent. And keep in mind, Deadspin commentariat: this is how the rest of the world sees you....