in Page 4063 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Obviously, Tom Gordon Didn't Get His Balls Blessed
Yesterday morning, right in front of the Mike Schmidt statue at Citizens Bank Park, the Philadelphia Phillies had their balls blessed by a priest, a rabbi and a pastor with the hopes of giving 2007's team to beat an extra boost of godliness to kick off 2008. Well, God was napping yesterday, as the P...

Meet The Future Mrs. Andy Roddick
This little lassie just got herself engaged to Andy Roddick (the one on the left.) Her name is Brooklyn Decker, a 20-year-old Sports Illustrated swimsuit exhibitionist, who's been dating Mr. Roddick for a little over a year now. Decker and the former Mr. Mandy Moore met in New York last year, where ...

Media Approval Ratings: John Buccigross
We've noticed an awful lot of John Buccigross on "SportsCenter" lately, and that's probably a testament to his abilities to maneuver over there. He somehow escaped hockey jail....

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 ......

Finding Harry Pujols
OK Brian Suksomwong, you've got some competition. Meet Harry Pujols — he's Albert's cousin — who is a graphic artist from San Francisco. OK, OK, simmer down, class. It's not nice to make fun of people's names. Although, Harry chose to call himself that; he could have gone with Harold but didn't....

Not Much Worse Than An Opening Day Rainout
While at the Cardinals bar yesterday for Opening Day — the one from the book — we sat through an hour-and-a-half Cardinals rain delay just to hear that a 5-1 third-inning lead had been wiped out. The Cardinals aren't going to have many four runs leads this year. So losing one yesterday was unpleasan...

Your AL Central "Preview"
All right, well, the season has supposedly started, though rain on Opening Day has to be some sort of cruel trick from God. So let's wrap up the last division....

Shaq's New Diesel
The black Perez Hiltons over at Media Take Out unveiled some photos of Shaq and his post-divorce hook-up, who if memory serves me correct, looks alarmingly similar to Shaq's ex-wife, Shaunie. (It seems Shaq has a thing for cinnamon-colored ladies with Legend of Billie Jean haircuts. )...

The Nationals' New Stadium Looks Rather Spiffy
I've been to two new stadium opening days in my life — Safeco Field and Pac Bell (now AT&T) Park — but I wish I could have made it a third in D.C. on Sunday. There's nothing like that new-stadium smell; even the restrooms are minty fresh. Following the jump, a few photos from the Nationals' Opening...

Mayweather Practically Unbeatable When Armed With Metal Furniture
Remember the good old days, when boxers waited until they were old and washed up before turning up on the professional wrestling circuit? Of course then you don't make $20 million just for showing up, as Floyd Mayweather did on Sunday at WrestleMania XXIV in a completely legitimate not-at-all script...

Baseball Season Preview: St. Louis Cardinals
For the third consecutive season, we are proud to introduce the Deadspin Baseball Season Previews. Yes, baseball is starting today....

Apologies All Around For The Memphis Tigers
In a tournament in which all No. 1 seeds, you have to look for your upstart stories where you can find them, so perhaps the Memphis Tigers will be the best we can do....

Media Approval Ratings: Rick Reilly
You might know this already, but in case you don't: Rick Reilly, late of Sports Illustrated and soon to be everywhere on ESPN to justify that enormous contract, is one of the co-writers of Leatherheads, that new George Clooney movie that's opening Friday. Supposedly Clooney had to dramatically rewri...

It's Opening Day: Time To Hump A Chair
Anyway, kids, baseball is starting, in full force, like, right now. The first two games of the day are Toronto vs. the Yankees and Kansas City visited Detroit. (Easy there, Coach: The Rays don't play at Camden until 3 p.m. ET.) Our Cardinals are at 4:15 p.m. ET ... if it doesn't freaking rain....

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 ......

That Scrappy Underdog In Westwood
Perhaps we just don't follow this as closely as we should, but we really weren't aware that this UCLA team was supposed to be considered the most hated team in college basketball? We thought Duke had that title for life?...

The NBA Playoff Hunt Continues, Predator Style
The NBA Closer is written by Matt McHale, who thinks you should go rent The Predator again. Immediately. Oh, and he also thinks you should read his stuff at Basketbawful. Enjoy! So you cooked up a story and dropped the six of us in the meat grindah! Michael Finley's shooting slump hit a low point l...

President Bush's One Night Away From It All
President Bush is never more likable, engaging or, frankly, informed as he is when he's talking about baseball. He lights up, displaying a breadth of knowledge that, uh, we never sense when he's discussing the Al-Anbar Province. He threw out the first pitch at the new Nationals Stadium last night an...

Matt Leinart Is Taking His Offseason Film Work Quite Seriously
Before we get into all the NCAA Tournament and Opening Day business, we thought we'd start your morning off with Matt Leinart doing his Matt Leinart thing. The Dirty has details of this whole evening, which included Nick Lachey, under-21 ladies and, of course, hot tubs....

Behold Your Nameless Sporting Edifice
There may be no parking and no development around it, but, by cracky, the Lerners got their stadium. And D.C. got to chase all the gay clubs and small businesses away from the Navy Yard. Hooray! Gentrification isn't just for Columbia Heights! America's past pastime gets underway on its own shores an...