inf Page 31 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

FBI Docs: George Steinbrenner Thought The FBI Was The "Nearest Thing To Perfection"
When we published my October profile of Howie Spira, the gambler who tangled with George Steinbrenner and wound up in prison, I knew the story wasn't over. In the course of my reporting, I'd submitted a few Freedom of Information Act requests to the FBI. These things can take a while for the federal...

The Boston Red Sox Who Stole Christmas
Aww, that's cute! Cute and a violation of copyright, per Character Arts, the company that represents licensing concerns for the Rudolph character (officially owned by the cleverly-named Rudolph, LLC). You can get the full story over at Boston Sports Then And Now, but the gist is that the Red Sox pro...

Homemade Infographic: When's Your Bowl Season?
Congratulations! Your football conference got invited to some bowl games. But "bowl game" covers nearly four weeks' worth of possibilities—from the MAC-WAC showdown in last week's Famous Idaho Potato Bowl to the SEC-on-SEC Alabama-LSU rematch in the national title game on Jan. 9....

Why Albert Pujols Really Doesn't Care About The Money
Infographics: we have them! Click to enlarge. Turns out that by moving to a state with one of the highest income tax rates in the nation, Albert Pujols has a legitimate claim to not worrying about the extra "$3 or $4 million a year" he's getting from the Angels. Meanwhile, the zero state income tax ...

Jose Reyes Seinfeld The Puppy Begs Jose Reyes The Human To Stay With The Mets
Jerry Seinfeld is a Mets fan, for some masochistic reason. Being a Mets fan means always having to say they’re sorry. But one silver lining is the very real chance of re-signing Jose Reyes, so that they can pay him $15 million when he’s 36 years old, which is the soonest possible time the team will ...

Jets Owner Makes Shocking, Unprecedented, And Wrongheaded Claim About Jets Fans
Owner Woody Johnson tells Steve Serby, "Bring your passion to the game. The Jets fans are very intelligent, they're the smartest fans in the country, so they know how important it is." [NY Post]...

The Howie Spira Audio Archive
At nearly every turn in Howie Spira's tangled and antagonistic history, there was a phone call. And on the phone calls, he had his tape recorder. Howie's cassettes captured his rift with Dave Winfield, his conniving with George Steinbrenner, and his turn against Steinbrenner. They captured threats f...

The Last Act Of The Notorious Howie Spira
Howard Spira appeared in the Gawker offices one summer day as if summoned from the beyond, which in some sense he had been. He just stood there, anxiously clutching a black plastic bag, his enormous green eyes sweeping the room. His skin had the hue of a life spent mostly indoors and in poor health....

Howie Spira's Letters
Click in the lower right corner of the image to see it all....

Coming Tomorrow: The (Mostly) True Story Of The Guy Who Got George Steinbrenner Banned From Baseball
Remember Howie Spira? He sold dirt on Dave Winfield, extorted George Steinbrenner, and got the Yankees owner banned from baseball. The mob wanted to kill Spira. The FBI kept him alive. Now, almost 30 years later, Spira has given us the full story about his role in one of the most shameful events in ...

Homemade Infographic: Is The World Series Famous Enough For Dirk Nowitzki?
Maybe Major League Baseball is preventing Dirk Nozitzki from throwing out the first pitch for the Texas Rangers for some reason other than as a courtesy to NBA owners, an intersport extension of the basketball lockout. Maybe it really is that as they weighed "what makes sense for the team and a good...

This Year, Ryan Howard's Season-Ending At-Bat Resulted In Physical Injury
Your morning roundup for Oct. 8, the day we learn that it's best just to plead guilty when caught handing out semen-tainted yogurt at the market. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Homemade Infographic: Where Are ESPN's Naked Jocks Hiding And Tucking Their Bits?
The conceptual problem with ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue leads directly into the practical problem with it. Conceptually, as soon as you strip off the athletes' clothing to call more attention to their forms, you diminish the function that's supposed be integral to those forms, and you call attent...

A Homemade Infographic To Help Explain Who Is Still Chasing The Pennant And Who Is Not
Adrian Beltre, who the Boston Red Sox decided not to keep around this year, hit three home runs this afternoon, carrying the Texas Rangers into the American League Championship Series. That's two more homers than any Red Sox third baseman hit in any game this year. Just one of those subtle statistic...

A Homemade Infographic Explaining How Badly Mark Sanchez Played Last Night
Here's a breakdown of the 235 yards Mark Sanchez produced in Baltimore, as he powered the Ravens past his own New York Jets....

More Leaked Shaq Emails: "We Dnt Want Them Do What They R Doing To Tiger"
If we all thought we might be in danger of having our emails leaked to the general public, we might write our emails differently. We might, for example, not exchange hypothetical emails with our hypothetical agents asking him to cover up hypothetical stories relating our infidelity. We might, hypoth...

More Leaked Shaq Emails: "Where Can I Cum At When I C U"?
Dominica Westling is famous for being, in her own website's words, "a gorgeous Swedish model turned Hollywood actress." For the past few years, she's also been referred to—by news reports and cash-hungry publicists alike—as Shaquille O'Neal's mistress....

This Evening: Hideki Irabu Highlights Are In High Demand
Your p.m. roundup for July 28, the day we learned only losers live in Brooklyn. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Ricky Rubio Of The Habsburg Empire: Picturing The NBA's Europe Through Geopolitical History
Saturday in Vienna, the remains of Otto von Habsburg — would-be Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, (presumably non-apostolic) King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria, and so on, had all those jobs not been downsized when he was two years old — we...

A Magical Infographical Tour Through Baseball
Englishman Craig Robinson runs the excellent Flip Flop Fly Ball site, which has, for some time, provided us with infographics much more stunning than those you'd find in USA Today. And now the powers that be have wisely published a collection of those infographics. You can find a few below, but you'...