i Page 7644 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

To Watch Tonight
Jesus is guest-hosting Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader this week! ... • MLB: Los Angeles Dodgers at Chicago Cubs (8 p.m., ET). I plan to switch back and forth between the two broadcasts on every pitch. [ESPN2 and WGN] • NBA: Eastern Conference finals, Game 5, Detroit at Boston (8:30 p.m., ET). B...

ESPN Confusingly Rids Itself Of Mark Madden's Vileness
Hiring a "shock jock" at a radio station always comes with a certain amount of risk. The lines of good and bad taste are usually drawn up arbitrarily, and punishment for crossing this imaginary line is usually enforced when a certain segment of listeners, advertisers, or executives are personally of...

NBA Playoffs: Celtics-Pistons, Game 5
Basketbawful has pulled out some 20-sided dice, a bag of chicken gizzards, and the Skull of Destiny to give you the inside skinny on tonight's NBA playoff game. (And there's one skinny thing that had better not be at the game...)...

Carlos Guillen Would Like To Borrow Your Cooling Ointment And A Large Cushion
Anyone who's ever had the misfortune of being stricken with a dreaded hemorrhoid flare-up can attest to how painful it is. When it first appears, the general swamp ass-y, hiney spider feeling reaches about a "5" on the uncomforability scale. But the longer it lingers, it quickly shoots up to about a...

Brucemania Energizes A Weary Nation
The only thing we really know about Jay Bruce so far: He likes enormous hats. Look at that thing. You could keep your wallet and keys in there. But other than that he's just about perfect; at least according to Reds' fans. It's Brucemania! Here's how firmly it's taken hold on Day One: Reds bloggers ...

Welcoming The Pill In A Leathery Embrace ... No!
Slate's Robert Weintraub, like many of us, loves the old purple prose of early 1900s sportswriting, the Grantland Rices, the men who painted epic tales of warriors, grizzled combatants and lardywarks too manly to wear gloves. In an occasional series, Weintraub writes about the week's best baseball g...

Kristen Bell Would Do Naughty Things To Chris Osgood
I've had that dream again: Elle Bishop from the TV show Heroes is taking a sponge bath in the Stanley Cup. What does it mean? Actually, it's based in truth: Actress Kristen Bell is a big fan of the Detroit Red Wings — specifically of Chris Osgood — and would also like to get some time alone with the...

How A Gay Anthem Became America's Favorite Ballpark Sing-A-Long
Ever wonder how "YMCA" — a song that's about anonymous gay sex, after all — became such a big hit at our nation's ballparks? Well, wonder no longer: Jeff Pearlman, writing in Spin, has your answer in a "YMCA" oral history. (So to speak.)...

Which Speller Will Have The Best Chance At Bagging Erin Andrews?
In commemoration of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, A.J. Daulerio's Cultural Oddsmaker makes a brief return. Email him to let him know what you think....

Shalom For MVPs!
• It's unlikely, but ... two Jewish MVPs? [Jewish Journal] • Ombudsing "Around The Horn." Yipes. [Small White Ball] • How the Penguins' playoff run has been like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. [King Of Cartoons] • No more Big Monday with Gonzaga. [Storming The Floor] • Loving that Jay Bruce. [Diamond Hogge...

Michael Jordan Finds A New Underwear Buddy
It is perhaps fitting that the greatest athlete of our generation — sorry, the generation before ours — has spent the last three years pretending to scout for the Bobcats and making underwear ads. Sure, hey, who doesn't hang out with Kevin Bacon, playing pool and tossing packaged briefs back and for...

Media Approval Ratings: Keith Olbermann
Yes, yes, we know: Keith Olbermann isn't exactly a "sports" personality anymore. (Though he's still breaking sports news from time to time.) But Olbermann not only still does plenty of sports — it just doesn't seem like it right now, because the NFL's in the offseason and the politics world, most de...

Washington Little Leaguers Don't High-Five Like You And I Do
I used to wonder about the Washington State Little League motto: "Revenge is a dish best served cold." Nothing about honesty and fair play? But now it makes perfect sense. And I used to think that the post-game handshake line wasn't worth recording ......

ESPN's Featured Comment Of The Day
ESPN scoured its message boards this morning to find its cleverest, boldest, most enlightening comment, and chose this one above all others ......

The World's Biggest, And Most Stylish, Bobcats Fan
Big, serious, all-compassing salutations to Bobcats Baseline, which came across this beautiful piece of American ingenuity: It's a Charlotte Bobcats Crown Victoria....

You Can Own Babe Ruth's Hair
We don't know about you, but we've grown tired of your traditional baseball cards, with their stats and biographical details and pithy anecdotes. We would like our baseball cards to include actual human hair, so that we might clone our favorite players and raise them as pets. Is there any way that c...

Oye Como Va! Twice The Santana Means Twice The Fun
Please do not confuse Johan Alexander Santana Araque, pitcher for the Mets, with Ervin Ramon Santana, pitcher for the Angels. One is from Venezuela (chief exports: Petroleum, bauxite and aluminum) and one is from the Dominican Republic (predominant religion: Roman Catholicism). Unfortunately, we ar...

Only People Not Upset About The Foul Call: The Spurs
Of all the discussions and analysis of the foul-or-not-a-foul that probably cost the Spurs the Western Conference Finals last night, the one thing we can't get our minds around: Brent Barry was taking the last shot? Brent Barry? The guy who ruined the dunk contest? That Brent Barry? Well, jeez, no ...

The Foul That Wasn't (But It Really Was)
The NBA Closer is written by Matt McHale, who can't wait to see how David Stern fixes tonight's Pistons-Celtics game in favor of Boston. When he's not coming up with new NBA Finals conspiracy theories, he can be found humming a jaunty tune at Basketbawful. Enjoy!...