il Page 1351 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

What It's Like When An NFL Linebacker Nearly Knocks Your Head Off
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....

The Best Part Of Sam Gagner's Eight-Point Night: Being Awarded All Three Stars
Sam Gagner gave Edmonton something it hasn't seen since the days of Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey, and something nobody's done in 23 years. Despite a scoreless first period for the Oilers, Gagner scored four goals against the Blackhawks, assisted on four more, and clocked in just the 16th eight-po...

Sam Gagner Tied Gretzky's Oilers Record With Eight Points Last Night
The last time an NHL player had an eight-point regular season game (1988), Sam Gagner wasn't born yet. That he tied an Oilers club record held by legends like Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey makes his performance last night against Chicago that much more glorious. Since we can't depend on you havin...
![Report: Josh Hamilton Had An Alcohol-Related Relapse Earlier This Week [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18j4mq2f6b713jpg.jpg)
Report: Josh Hamilton Had An Alcohol-Related Relapse Earlier This Week [UPDATE]
Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton—the 2010 AL MVP and four-time All-Star whose battle with drug and alcohol addiction nearly ended his baseball career—had a relapse with alcohol at a Texas bar on Monday, reports Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News. ...

"Cut Back To A Wide Shot. Open The Skull": The <em>Faces Of Death</em> Guy Looks Back
John Alan Schwartz was on a California beach, trying to capture something life-affirming on camera. Or something that at least would contrast with death. He had a woman and a baby in a hot tub. This was going to be the final scene of his 1978 movie Faces of Death—a low-budget stunt project that wo...

Gisele Bundchen Sends Email
Gisele emailed some people about the Super Bowl, which her husband is playing in. One of those people forwarded it to the Post, which is how we got to where we are today. In a "disgustingly sappy email" (EXCLUSIVE//MUST CREDIT NEW YORK POST), Bundchen asked for some positive thoughts to be sent "Tom...

Apparently Darko Milicic Never Invests Any Of His Money, Or Even Puts It In A Bank
Former NBA scrub Casey Jacobsen—not to be confused with former MLB scrub Bucky Jacobsen—blogs occasionally for SLAM from Germany, where he now plays for Brose Baskets. His most recent post, where he describes his NBA teammates with senior superlatives, offers a real gem about Darko:...

Man Named Tom Brady Says Thing, Radio Station Reports
"I'm Tom Brady, I'm from Staten Island and I predict Giants will prevail," Tom Brady told some poor reporter at 1010 WINS who drew the short straw. When you're scraping the bottom of Rick Reilly's barrel for Super Bowl week stories, it's probably time to rethink things....

Here's Aston Villa's Ridiculous Own Goal That Put QPR Up 2-0
It's been another mediocre season for Aston Villa, and no play may characterize the struggles of the claret and blue squad than this play, in which Stephen Warnock cleanly lands a header directly into his own net. Villa landed a goal of their own late in the first half to cut QPR's advantage to 2-...

Here's To The Lovable, Impish Bill Belichick
There are two schools of thought on Bill Belichick. One is that he's a humorless football Jawa devoid of empathy or any animating purpose save destruction or creeping MILFs. The other is that he's probably all those things, and that rules, because "he wins games for us!" That latter opinion is proff...

This Is A Kraftwerk Pun On The Cover Of <em>Sports Illustrated</em>
SI, as guest-edited by the old guy on staff at Pitchfork. [Via SI Now]...

ESPN Wonders If "Parody" Is "Attributing" To College Basketball Upsets
Weird Al Yankovic claims no responsibility for influencing college basketball outcomes, but assures us if he had any part he'd attribute the artists whose work he parodied in the attempt. Otherwise, people might get upset. [ESPNU]...

Shawne Merriman Gave Away Super Bowl Tickets On Twitter, And Nobody Seemed To Care
"However, according to the Twitter analytics tool Topsy, only five people even submitted videos to Merrman's Twitter handle. And one wasn't even clearly a Lights Out dance." [Daily Dot]...

Bill Belichick Was Once A Starter Jacket Model
Bill Belichick has been so successful as the head coach of the Patriots, it's easy to forget he spent five years in charge of the Browns in the early 1990s. Or that four of those seasons in Cleveland ended with losing records, including '95, when the team more or less mailed it in after then-owner ...

Jerry Sandusky Will Soon Learn The Names Of His 10 Accusers
The alleged victims' names had not been disclosed in the grand jury report. So Sandusky's attorney, Lawyerin' Joe Amendola, has asked for them, and the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office filed a court document yesterday stating it will provide them to the defense by the end of the week....

Russell Westbrook's Dunk Attempt Did Not Go As Smoothly As Blake Griffin's
This might be a bit tough to watch after seeing Blake Griffin consume and excrete Kendrick Perkins, but every yang needs a yin and if there's anything other than that dunk to serve as synecdoche for last night's 112-100 Clippers win over Oklahoma City, it's Russell Westbrook being stuffed by the ...

Grading The NFL Pundits: Yahoo's Mike Silver Is The Best, And ESPN's Adam Schefter Is The Worst
Republished with permission from PunditTracker.com....

Here's The AOL Column That Got Bill Simmons Hired By ESPN, In Which He Calls The ESPYs A "TV Holocaust"
ESPN's initial courtship of Bill Simmons has the air of an urban legend. Simmons wrote a column excoriating the bloated and self-congratulatory ESPY Awards, and that column was rapidly forwarded around Bristol, putting the Boston Sports Guy on ESPN's radar. Much like Aeschylus's lost plays, the ESPY...

Pat Burrell Is Retiring, But "The Machine" Just Might Live On
MLB Trade Rumors had it first, and noted rich guy Jon Heyman confirmed on Twitter: Pat Burrell is retiring. The thumping, lumbering outfielder posted a .253/.361/.472 line in 12 MLB seasons, most of them with the Phillies. He had ranked 25th among active players in home runs. He won two World Series...

Former New York Rangers GM Neil Smith Wants The World To Know He Doesn't Suck "Nearly As Good As You"
Neil Smith, most famous for constructing the Edmonton Oilers Version 2.0 while the general manager of the Rangers during the glory days of the mid nineties, is still alive! So alive in fact, that he is causing trouble on Twitter. His handle, for the curious few is @bigdealneil94. Big deal. Neil. 94...