ing Page 1627 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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....

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...

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...

What In The World's In That Case? What'chu Got In That Case?
Da Meat Hook brings some interesting luggage to Nationals Park [Mister Irrelevant]...

Cowboys' New Exxon Field Sounds Slick
Fanhouse highlights a Dallas Morning News report that the Cowboys could get as much as $20 million a year for the naming rights for the new stadium the team will move into in 2009. Though conspicuously missing usual JJ shills like Papa Johns and Pepsi, the clubhouse leaders are the more non-junk fo...

Earth Hour? How's About Earth 20 Minutes? Preferably During Halftime
As Awful Announcing points out, at 8 p.m. this evening the fine leafy folks at the World Wildlife Fund are asking everyone to turn off nonessential lights (does a strobe light count?) to call attention to climate change. Of course, they couldn't've asked us to do that in, say, mid-February when the...

Your NL East "Preview"
As mentioned in New York Magazine this week, the Mets have a promotional flyer that says "It's Time For A Little Revenge." As NY Mag pointed out ... hey, you're the ones who choked....

President Bush Would Never Associate With Such Unsavory Characters
The mainland Major League Baseball season kicks off Sunday night, with the Nationals opening their new stadium. President Bush is slated to throw out the first pitch. Usually, he throws it to the home team's starting catcher. Unfortunately for him, this year the home team starting catcher is all ov...

Um, Someone Tell The Italian Sausage That He's Doing It Wrong
Hey, they told me that there would be no food allowed on the ski lift. Thank you Home Run Derby, for making us laugh at costumed baseball mascots attempting winter sports once again....

Media Approval Ratings: Pat Summerall
We know that Pat Summerall isn't on television that much anymore, because of all his health issues and, you know, the bottle. (Summerall will be 78 in May.)...

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 ......

Sweet 16 Pants Party: North Carolina Vs. Washington State
North Carolina Tar Heels (34-2) vs. Washington State Cougars (26-8) When: 7:27 p.m. ET Where: Charlotte...

Media Approval Ratings: Jim Rome
To be honest, we don't listen to much sports talk radio. It's not out any particular inclination against it — at least, not entirely — and more because we live in New York. We don't have a car, which means we don't listen much to any kind of radio....

Crying For The Kings During Duck Season
The NHL Closer is written by Greg Wyshynski, of FanHouse and The Fourth Period. He is also the author of Glow Pucks And 10-Cent Beer....

About Last Night
What you missed while Herb Peterson was laid to rest on a toasted, buttered English muffin ... • NBA: Ha. People are starting to call them the C's, now. (Please stop it). Boston 117, Phoenix 97. • Soccer: Beckham reaches 100-game milestone, is awarded a nice shiny yellow card. • NHL: Presenting your...

Chasing Jose, By Pat Jordan
Pat Jordan is the author of 13 books, including "A False Spring," hailed by Time as "one of the best and truest books about baseball, and about coming to maturity in America." A prolific freelance journalist for 40 years, Jordan was recently dubbed "a national treasure" by Booklist in a starred revi...

To Watch Tonight
What to watch after you have the Easter Bunny arrested ... • College basketball: National Invitation Tournament, quarterfinals: Mississippi at Virginia Tech (7 p.m., ET), Dayton at Ohio State (9 p.m., ET) . From the Division of Obscure Statistics: "The Flyers seek their first trip to the NIT semifin...

The Wit And Wisdom Of Alexander Ovechkin
As an American hockey writer, the language barrier hinders both ease and access with Russian players in the NHL. So it sometimes falls to the Russian sports media to ask the goofy-ass questions we'd rather be asking someone like Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin, such as "What smells do you like?" an...

So, Does Anybody REALLY Care About Jose Canseco And Alex Rodriguez?
So something interesting happened yesterday, in the wake of all those Canseco stories. The "mainstream" sports world went nuts — poor Joe Lavin, the guy who bought the book, found his name on the freaking ESPN crawl — but you guys, the actual sports fans out there, responded with shoulder shrugs and...