ew Page 2567 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

This Petition Demanding The Washington Redskins Change Their Name Probably Won't Work
There are several petitions making the rounds on the Internets imploring Washington Redskins' owner Dan Snyder to change the nickname and mascot of Washington's NFL franchise, but one in particular, hosted on signon.org is gathering steam on Twitter. Per the petition:...

Middle Eastern Group Preparing $2.25 Billion Bid To Buy Arsenal FC
It's been a rough day/year/decade for Arsenal FC and their fans. The Gunners lost arguably the most important match of their season today to London rivals Tottenham by a score of 2-1, and unless a slew of miraculous things all happen in tandem, Arsenal looks a certainty to finish the season without...

Sixth-Grader Hits Half-Court Buzzer-Beater
With two seconds left in a 33-33 tie in the Central Louden Loudoun (VA) Basketball League's championship game, Team Red attempted to inbound the ball but it was picked off by Alex, of Team White, who promptly drained it from half court....

Arsenal Fans Throw A Banana On The Pitch
It's being reported as a banana thrown at Gareth Bale, but that does not really make much sense. Not that racism makes sense, but usually the racist European soccer fan reserves his banana-related taunts for black players. As you see in the video, the referee clearly picks up a banana thrown on th...

Rodman: Kim Jong Un Wants Obama To Call Him
Dennis Rodman is back from his whirlwind tour of North Korea and he comes with some interesting news: Kim Jong Un is basically Mikey from Swingers....

A Performance Of The Ages
On Saturday, No. 3 Duke beat No. 5 Miami 79-76 in a revenge match for Hurricanes' January throttling—"they even slapp[ed] the floor in an apparent jab at the Blue Devils' tradition"!—and as Coach K. said, it was our privilege....

The Islanders And Nassau County Are Getting Divorced, So It's Time To Pay Up
This we knew, but now things are getting ugly. Even setting aside the actual product on the ice for a moment, the recent history of the Islanders in Nassau County has been miserable. A terrible lease for a terrible arena has kept them shackled in a county that can't afford to pay for anything even ...

The Philadelphia District Attorney Trolled Andrew Bynum's Bum Knees
Today Philadelphia's district attorney got on the Twitter to muse about opening an investigation into Andrew Bynum's lack of contributions to the local basketball club. This fellow Seth Williams did so because Bynum, a very talented and thus very expensive professional basketball player, has earned ...

The NFL Appears Totally Ready For An Openly Gay Player, So Long As You Overlook Its Teams And Players
One of the most unintentionally hilarious sentences currently in print can be found on this SB Nation post by Robert Wheel, a.k.a. Bobby Big Wheel, called "What the NFL can do to support gay players." Beneath, a comma-spliced subhed reads: "The NFL is ready for a gay player, the problem is the rest ...

Rick DiPietro's AHL Tenure Is Not Going Amazingly Well
The other day, Barry reflected on the difficulty of Rick DiPietro's career as of late, and how at times his story has veered hard from farce to tragedy. For a rich man who plays a game for a living—when he's healthy enough to do so—hard luck has befallen DiPietro with maddening consistency....

World Number One Rory McIlroy Walked Off The Course Because He Was Having A Mental Breakdown His Teeth Hurt
Yesterday, reigning PGA champ Rory McIlroy walked off the course at the Honda Classic in Florida after a day of subpar golf, eight holes into a second round for which he was already seven strokes over par. As reporters trailed him on his way out, he said he was in a "bad place mentally," which doesn...

North Korea Invented Its Own, Totally Different Way Of Scoring Basketball Games
Dennis Rodman's bizarre visit to North Korea has led to many dissections of North Korea's strange relationship with basketball—or rather, the Kim family's strange relationship with basketball—and one happy consequence is the opportunity to remember that, despite the Kim family's love for the NBA, th...

Here's A Photo Of UCLA Head Coach Ben Howland, In A Tracksuit, Playing Beer Pong With Students Last Night
From the game day campout live-blog at the Daily Bruin (and via Twitter), here's a picture of notoriously sorta grumpy UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, looking extremely relaxed last night in advance of today's game against #11 ranked Arizona at Pauley Pavilion (9 p.m. EST, ESPN)....

Alex Rodriguez Only Gave $5,090 Of The $403,862 He Raised For Charity To Charity
The Boston Globe dug through the world of shady athlete charities this week, and while many of their findings were disappointing (if not surprising), we'd be remiss if we didn't highlight one charge in particular. It's been a while since anyone thought Alex Rodriguez was a stand-up guy, but this see...

Twitter Loves The Orlando Magic, Has Never Heard Of The Arizona Cardinals
The Wall Street Journal has helpfully assembled the sort of slow-news-month story that lets you forget that none of the four major sports (five, if you include college football) is playing many meaningful games at the moment. In it, the incomparably named Stu Woo compiled the Twitter follower counts...

Four Things You Can Learn About The NBA By Skimming Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Research Papers
The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is under way in Boston and, though we sent no intrepid reporters to Dorkapalooza this year, the conference happily made its research paper finalists publicly available on its website. Let's blearily page through and see if we can't learn a few things. (We're foc...

Steve Buckhantz Couldn't Tell Whether That Game-Ending Shot Went In Because The Owners Moved Him To The Cheap Seats
We all had a good laugh when Washington Wizards play-by-play man Steve Buckhantz dusted off his patented "dagger!" call despite Trevor Ariza's (very nice looking) airball to end the Wizards' game on Wednesday night. The misplaced enthusiasm was funny but, as we noted at the time, you couldn't really...

The U.S. State Department Actually Clarified That Dennis Rodman "Has Never Been A Player In Our Diplomacy"
In case you were wondering:...

Reports: Joe Flacco—That Joe Flacco—Will Soon Be The Highest Paid Player In NFL History
Yep, Joe Flacco. The big-armed oaf. The doofy bridegroom. The guy whose dad said he was "dull" four times in two sentences five days before the Super Bowl. That guy. No, not the plumber who stripped the washers off your sink and left his wrench on your kitchen table—I mean the guy who backed up Tyle...

How To Cook Bacon, Eggs, And Toast: A Guide For Infomercial Skeptics
So I had the occasion, brain-fried and worked-over and at best quasi-sentient by the end of some long recent day, to plop my faltering attention on some cable channel well outside the familiar rotation and there, eventually, to be captivated—horrified, really, the gape-jawed half-smiling horror of e...