ing Page 1309 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Why Do Players Choke? Oddly Enough, Because They Hate Losing.
The New Yorker poached science writer Jonah Lehrer from Wired, and what do you know? His second piece is sports, and it is timely. Lehrer seeks to explain the plague of every duffer and NBA superstar since the beginning of time: Why do we choke? Why do we freeze up under pressure? Why do things that...
Who Will Speak Up For The Victims Of Flopping? Jeff Van Gundy Will
Jeff Van Gundy was mad enough when Mickael Pietrus stuck Mario Chalmers with a bogus technical foul down the stretch of last night's Celtics-Heat Game 5. But then, as he fumes about the damage a single unjustly awarded free throw could do in a close game, he accidentally sends his partner Mike Bre...
Behold Shin-Kicking, An Actual Competitive Sport In England
Says The Daily Mirror: "The rules of shin kicking are very simple. Kick your opponent to the ground and you win. No throwing, tripping or pulling—the 'fall' must be precipitated by a kick to the shins." Very well....
Yankees Tickets Are A Dollar, Seats Are Empty, And They're Trying To Blame StubHub
I'm going to tell you something, and then I'm going to ask you a question. The Yankees are having attendance issues. They aren't selling enough tickets, and for the ones that are being sold, they're being undercut by StubHub, which offers them for well below face value. Now the question: do you feel...
One More Clueless L.A. Media Moment: "Kings Goalie Jonathan Swift"
The Stanley Cup itself will be at the Staples Center tonight, and the Kings look all but unstoppable. (Up 3-0, Kings merchandise is flying off the shelves, because L.A. is filled with more bandwagoners per capita than any other North American city.) You'd think by now the local media would have go...
Why Is No One Watching The Stanley Cup Finals?
It's not news that Stanley Cup Finals ratings are utterly abysmal, but here we are talking about them again because it's another year and the NHL has decided to hold another annual round of playoffs. Hooray for us, because the hockey has been really great! But not so good for NBC, which saw Games 1 ...
Does Jim Gray Drive A Car With A Jim Gray License Plate? Jim Gray Won't Say.
The photo you see here was sent to us two weeks ago by a reader named Dan, who works in Manhattan Beach, Calif. This is the message Dan sent with it:...
Women's Tennis Player Plays Like A Man, Says Women's Tennis Player
Oh no. Dominika Cibulkova lost to Australian Sam Stosur earlier today, and here's what she had to say about it:...
The L.A. Kings Taunted The Devils With Giant <em>Jersey Shore</em> Cutouts Yesterday
We already knew that the L.A. Kings were the most fun team to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals in recent memory, thanks in large part to the team's playful and hilarious Twitter feed and their unique style of play. They're also probably the best team to make it to the Stanley Cup finals in a while—...
Our Readers' Run-Ins With Virgil, Pro Wrestling's Saddest Man
Yesterday we discovered the wonder and depression of Lonely Virgil, a single-serving Tumblr chronicling the descent of the onetime WWF and WCW "superstar" into a deserted wastleland of comic conventions and indie show parking lots. And then we heard from readers. You people have met Virgil over the ...
If You're In NYC Tonight, Come Listen To Tim Burke Explain The Art Of Motivation
Deadspin video editor Tim Burke is a man of many talents. Among them: The art of making people excited to do your bidding, which is what he'll talk about at Adult Education at Bookstore Cafe on Crosby between Houston and Prince at 7 p.m. tonight. Other wise people will join him. Go!...
When You Kiss The Ladies, Do It On Camera: How Richard Dawson Beat Bob Barker And Everyone Else
Richard Dawson is not dead. He is available on Television, which is now available on the Internet....
This Is How Blind People Play Tennis
"Most blind kids just don't get early experience interacting with flying projectiles," says Daniel Kish, president of World Access for the Blind, an organization that teaches echolocation and mobility skills worldwide. Which is why it's hard to imagine children who are blind or even partly blind pla...
"Let's Clean This Thing Up. Let's Not Hurt The Game": Red Auerbach's Anti-Flopping Video
It was the mid '70s, and Red Auerbach wanted to teach the basketball world to stop flopping. To get his message across, he called in a dream team of Elvin Hayes, Clem Haskins, Wes Unseld, Paul Silas, Mike Riordan, and referee Mendy Rudolph, who was named head of officials and inducted into the Hal...
The Internet Has Uncovered The Single Saddest Former Pro Wrestler
Mike Jones spent most of his 25-year career wrestling around the world. His only brush with what could charitably be called "fame" was a four-year stint in the WWF as Virgil, the sadsack "bodyguard" of the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase. He rarely wrestled, instead settling for escorting DiBiase to...
Watch Charlie Manuel Read Phillies Players' Tweets Out Loud
I went to the MLB Fan Cave about a year ago. The place bummed me out. Two aspiring actors—actors, in the sense that they'd be good fits to play Turtle in Entourage: the Musical—sat before a lot of TV screens and Pepsi Max ads. Now I think back on it, there was bottomless Pepsi Max. And Bud Light, in...
Who Loves You And Who Do You Love? Richard Dawson, Fantastic '80s Movie Villain
If you were to rank the movies I have seen more than any others in my life, you wouldn't find many classics on there, no Kurosawa, no Kubrick, no Billy Wilder. (Though Some Like It Hot might come close.) The movies I have seen repeatedly are the ones I saw because they were my only options; they wer...
Todd Frazier Can Do Anything Better Than Anyone
OK, this is getting ridiculous. After telling you all about Reds third baseman Todd Frazier's Herculean accomplishments on and off the field, and uncovering his status as the prodigal son of Toms River, N.J., we were pretty certain that the man couldn't get any more like like Bill Brasky. We were wr...
Hockey Killed Derek Boogaard
Hockey doesn't show up on a toxicology report. The coroner will tell you that it was too much alcohol and too much oxycodone that stopped Boogaard's heart on an early morning last May, and the NHL will tell you the same. But it was hockey that caused Boogaard to turn to pills, hockey that caused him...
How The Kings Toughened Up And Conquered The NHL
There are two central oddities in the New Jersey Devils-Los Angeles Kings Stanley Cup final, which the Kings lead 2-0 after two overtime wins. One is that the Kings were an eight seed with a meager plus-15 goal differential during the regular season, an eight seed that went 5-2-3 in its last 10 game...