getty Page 39 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Spurs Made The Mistake Of Thinking LeBron Had Something To Prove
LeBron James is, if nothing else, hyperaware of expectations. Some players use that for individual motivation, others fail under the pressure, but James, on occasion, twists it into a game plan. You saw that last night down the stretch, as the Spurs appeared convinced James would seek personal redem...

"The Ball," From <em>Soccer In Sun And Shadow</em>
From Eduardo Galeano's classic, now available as an ebook. We'll have excerpts throughout the week....

Honduras Don't Stand A Chance, But They Won't Play Like It
Calling Honduras a minnow isn't fair. Sure, Honduras are likely to ultimately be outclassed and eliminated in the group stage. But the two Group E teams that advance after playing the Central American side won't be leaving the experience behind them in the knockout stages. They'll have been pushed t...

Why Ecuador's Inspiring Trip To Brazil Won't Have A Happy Ending
If you're looking for a last-minute underdog to support, this is your team. ...

Even France Couldn't Mess This Up...Right?
In theory and on paper, France are stacked. The spine of this team is ridiculous. Their keeper is incredible. They have more powerful, quick, shockingly young center backs than they know what to do with. The center of their midfield is an embarrassment of riches nearly on par with Spain's and Italy'...

Actually, LeBron James Was Drinking Gatorade Last Night
Brand fights are the worst of all fights, Gatorade's sustained trolling of LeBron James's cramps due to a supposed lack of proper hydration lacked some pretty key context: James had been drinking Gatorade all night....

Definitive Proof That God Is Swiss
When the World Cup groups were drawn in December, many of the top seeds—Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina—were perennial giants. A few—Colombia, Uruguay, Belgium—raised a few eyebrows for, if nothing else, their novelty as a world superpower. One country in particular, Switzerland, didn't seem to be...

Visitors To Hell: How Two Minor Leaguers Earned Their Medals Of Honor
The walls were plywood. The ramp was steel. On June 6, 1944, Joe Pinder fought seasickness in a cramped troop carrier, waiting to take his place on Omaha Beach. On March 8, 1945, Jack Lummus grew impatient in an Iwo Jima foxhole, after 36 hours pinned down by sniper fire. Both men had once made a li...

Rashad McCants Made The Dean's List At UNC Without Attending Classes
Rashad McCants, who starred on the 2005 North Carolina championship team, comes clean about his experience at UNC—and says academics could hardly have been more of a sham. He claims he skipped classes, had his papers written for him, and that Roy Williams and the athletic department "100 percent" kn...

NBA Players' Union Calls Lack Of A/C "Completely Unacceptable"
About midway through the third quarter, Spurs Sports & Entertainment released a thoroughly unsatisfying statement about the broken air conditioning at the AT&T Center. It read:...

LeBron James Leaves Game 1 Due To Cramp, Because He's Human
You won't believe this. LeBron James, a human being, suffered a cramp and had to leave Game 1 of the Finals. He clearly can't win when his team needs him, or something. Stupid involuntary muscle spasms....

"The Referee," From <em>Soccer In Sun And Shadow</em>
From Eduardo Galeano's classic, now available as an ebook. We'll have excerpts throughout the week....

Overmatched, Costa Rica Can Still Make It Rough For Everyone Else
Do they have any shot? Not really. But that doesn't mean Costa Rica can't put the fear of God into the Group D favorites for a half or so....

Italy Great; Sky Still Blue
Regardless of how you feel about a shirtless, flexing Mario Balotelli, the luxurious follicles that sprout all around Andrea Pirlo's head, or Lorenzo Insigne's textbook giocatore look of prison-chic with a €1,000 weekly hair budget, Italy do not enter this tournament as a "sexy" team. Somehow, one o...

Which Hockey Leagues Have The Most Fights?
The NHL has a lot more fights than, say, the NFL, but how does it stack up against other levels of hockey competition? To find out, Simon Garnier of Graph Zoo pulled data from the (hilariously '90s) site dropyourgloves.com and put together a neat graphic on "fights per game" across almost 100 active...

Former MLB Player, Manager, And Coach Don Zimmer Dies At 83
Don Zimmer, a presence in MLB who had most recently served as a baseball advisor for the Tampa Bay Rays, has died. He was 83....

My Anger Therapy
Here's an excerpt from Bosnian-American writer, MacArthur "genius" fellow, and Howler contributor Aleksandar Hemon's new e-book, The Matters of Life, Death, and More. It'll give you a little taste of how seriously this World Cup debutante nation takes its soccer....

The Stanley Cup Will Come Down To The Best Team Vs. The Best Player
The Rangers and Kings are in the Stanley Cup Final because of depth, since this is not basketball, where a small number of very good or great individual players can drag a team to postseason success. You need top-flight players to win championships in hockey, obviously, but just as necessary are low...

"The Manager," From <em>Soccer In Sun And Shadow</em>
From Eduardo Galeano's classic, now available as an ebook. We'll have excerpts throughout the week....

Dammit, Greece Are Going To Try To Win Ugly Again
Greece has a pretty good domestic league that produces a handful of pretty good players who represent their pretty good national team. In the gauntlet that is European international competition, pretty good usually isn't enough. This year, though, Greece made it through the fire to earn a spot in th...