fl Page 695 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Andre Johnson's Only Way Out Of Houston Seems To Be Retirement
Wide receiver Andre Johnson had been dropping hints throughout the offseason at his displeasure with the current state of the Houston Texans, and it finally came to a head this week when he reportedly asked for a trade. The Texans quickly denied his request....

LeBron's Team Requested Extra Police At His Home For Announcement
Remember all the way back to yesterday, when police cars were spotted outside LeBron James's home, leading to all sorts of frenzied speculation? As it turns, the presence of those officers actually wasn't a coincidence—his team requested extra off-duty officers for the Bath, Ohio spread specifically...

From <em>Slacker</em> to <em>Boyhood</em>: Ranking Richard Linklater's Movies
Today, Richard Linklater's acclaimed Boyhood (which we love) opens in select cities. (It'll be expanding next week and be practically everywhere by mid-August.) To celebrate, we decided to rank all 16 of the man's commercial features, and what we hope you'll notice is that over a 23-year career, he'...

Tomato-Beer Smackdown: Bud Clamato Vs. Modelo Especial
Last week, Drew Magary issued his Definitive List of Excuses for Day Drinking, a timeless document of unrivaled beauty and precision from which he intentionally omitted brunch, because he likes to leave the odd scrap for the rest of us. So let's address brunch booze....

How Did Metallica Ever Survive <em>Some Kind Of Monster</em>?
Like a lot of boys growing up in the early 1990s, I was fascinated by the hard-rock band Metallica. What drew me was no mystery. They were dark and powerful and commanded the respect of millions. I was nine and lived in fear of having to undress for swim PE. The gap between us was impossible. For ye...

Prince Fielder's Naked <em>ESPN</em> Cover Is Sexy As Hell
One of the most beloved tropes in sports lore is the Triumph of the Unexpected Body. When I think about those stories, I think about cheering on Muggsy Bogues from my friend's living room when I was eight or nine. I knew nothing about basketball, but seeing that small man dart around the court alo...

Great Ape: <em>Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes</em>, Reviewed
Three years ago, expectations for Rise of the Planet of the Apes were understandably low. The director (Rupert Wyatt) wasn't well-known, a lot of people despised the film's star (James Franco) for his Renaissance Man routine, and we all remembered how terrible Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes...

P.J. Hairston Has A Weird Explanation For Why Josh Gordon Had His Car
This is not a thing that normal people do:...

Cruise Control: The Loopy Terror Of <em>Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol</em>
Tom Cruise is not like us. This was always pretty evident, but as recently detailed in this great Amy Nicholson L.A. Weekly story, it became inescapable fact around 2005, when he jumped on Oprah Winfrey's couch. That story is full of convincing evidence that the whole couch episode didn't happen t...

All The Internet Clues That Point To LeBron Going To Cleveland
Though LeBron James has remained totally silent about his free agency plans, the tea leaves are there, if you're desperate and crazy enough to read them. ...

Florida Coach Suspended For "Twerking On Soccer Players" At Party
In the old days, a middle school soccer party used to mean cheap pizza, off-brand local supermarket soda, and having to leave when your mom picked you up on the way back from the mall....

FIFA Is Its Own Metaphor: A Day Inside The Underground Bunker
Excerpted from The Soccer Diaries: An American's Thirty-Year Pursuit of the International Game....

High On Life: The Divine <em>Boyhood</em>, Reviewed.
1. Boyhood makes you want to protect—to save—everyone onscreen. They're not in any sort of peril, at least not plainly so; there are alcoholic dads and neighborhood bullies and some broken hearts, but no one's ever in any danger of being attacked by a bear or anything. But without ever seeming t...

The Best Story Ever Written About Losing
In keeping with the day's theme, below is a classic Esquire profile of Floyd Patterson after his second devastating loss to Sonny Liston, which we reprinted a year ago on The Stacks. No athlete has ever talked so frankly about his own shortcomings as Patterson did with author Gay Talese. He confesse...

All Shock, No Awe: 7-Eleven's Doritos Loaded, Reviewed
Are you repulsed by the idea of eating prepared food from a convenience-store chain most notable for a sludgy cold-sugar drink with the word "slurp" in the name? Are you fundamentally opposed to having your lunch heated in a machine also used to reinvigorate yesterweek's Go-Go Taquitos? Are you not ...

Tony Wroten Nearly Flees From His Own Incredible Shammgod Crossover
Tony Wroten's Shammgod crossover is spectacular, but what we are really here to admire is how damn excited Wroten is about his Shammgod crossover....

The Whitening Of Neymar: How Color Is Lived In Brazil
Originally published in Africa Is A Country....

Fugitive Arrested After Making Dumb Redskins Joke In Newspaper
Here is a tip for anyone that is currently a fugitive: Do not let a newspaper put your picture and full name in print, even if it is in the service of crapping on the Washington Redskins' racist name....

Yes, Referees Are Biased Towards Brazil
Today, Brazil will face off against Germany in the World Cup semi-finals, and they'll do it without their superstar Neymar, who was taken down in Brazil's game against Colombia. FIFA has decided that they won't punish Juan Camilo Zúñiga, whose knee-to-the-back tackle fractured Neymar's vertebrae. Bu...

Political Blogger Hired By Redskins Resigns After Two Weeks
When it comes to attempts to defend the team name backfiring embarrassingly, Washington remains undefeated. Ben Tribbett, a left-leaning political blogger recently hired to "help the team promote a tradition that means so much to so many people," has announced his intention to resign....