john Page 155 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
ESPN Gets Defensive About Ratings Drop
Earlier this week we told you about ESPN's recent ratings woes. The numbers dropped significantly in the second quarter this year. They were down in the first quarter, too, and they were flat last year. Now that the news is getting around, ESPN PR—which usually projects an air of lordly remove in t...
Was Baseball More Fun During The Steroid Era?
That's what John Rocker said on a radio interview, and, messenger aside, he's got a point:...
It's What You Do With The Gift That Counts
There was a good story by John Le Carre in theNew Yorker earlier this year (subscription required) about the making of his novel The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. The piece centered on the tense relationship between the film’s director, Martin Ritt, a left-wing Jew who’d been blacklisted, and its s...
As I Was Saying---
Dan Barry takes the mickey out of John Sterling in the New York Times:...
Don't Look Now, But John Lackey Is Good Again
All of the signs were crossed when the Angels and Red Sox faced off last night. Los Angeles of Anaheim is now the club struggling to reach .500 despite its massive payroll; Boston, lean and mean (in comparison to previous years, anyway) after its salary dumps last August, is back in first place....
Nobody Knows Anything
Via Cinephilia and Beyond, check out this post about William Goldman. It features the following interview with Goldman and John Cleese: ...
Lost in Translation
Dig this blog post by Lawrence Block about the difficulty of adapting books for the big screen:...
BBC Apologizes For Shitty Thing It Said About Bartoli And Her Dad
Today, gentlemen, we were reminded why we lug our reputations as troglodytes well into the 21st century. A woman named Marion Bartoli proved athletic enough to win a singles title at Wimbledon and was thereupon described to BBC Radio 5 listeners as something other than "a looker." Because, you see, ...
John Daly's Pants Are Why God Continues To Bless The U.S.A.
Today we salute the sartorial choice of one John Patrick Daly, age 47, professional golfer, recreational smoker, University of Arkansas dropout, lapband surgery patient, puller of muscles, designer of golf courses, breaker of cameras, personal friend to Hootie and assorted Blowfish, Vegas whale, tos...
How A Great Boxing Novel Got The Movie It Deserved
"Sometimes you only get to win one championship."—Leonard Gardner...
You Should Absolutely Not See <em>The Lone Ranger</em>
I just moved halfway across the country and didn't get a chance to see The Lone Ranger. I figured it was probably terrible and figured I'd ask Grierson to make sure. Thus, a conversation between someone who hasn't seen The Lone Ranger but suspects it's lousy and someone who has seen it and therefor...
New ESPN Ombud Finds Breezy Forgetfulness Over Broussard Fracas
Robert Lipsyte's first column as ESPN's ombudsman dissected the squirmworthy Chris Broussard-LZ Granderson showdown when Jason Collins came out. It's just as ombudsy as you like it, 3,300 words of media-ethics spinach. Lipsyte swings his prose like a lead pipe when he sees a deserving target; his re...
Anthony Bennett Explains His Meteoric Rise: "I'm A Great Guy"
A news conference starring a 20-year-old is generally doomed to devolve into scripted platitudes unless the 20-year-old in question strays into honesty. Therein, we prod Anthony Bennett into discussing the reasons the Cleveland Cavaliers made him the surprise top pick in this week's NBA Draft. His ...
The Art of Storytelling
There’s a fine post on John Huston over at Cinephilia and Beyond, which has quickly become one of my favorite all-time sites. They give us a 1965 interview with Huston inFilm Quarterly. Dig this:...
"So," ESPN Prez John Skipper Says, "We Eliminated A Bunch Of Jobs"
ESPN has been very quiet about the hundreds of workers they've sent packing over the past month. There wasn't any word circulating about the job cuts until the morning they came, and ESPN president John Skipper has kept communication about the job cuts to the bare minimum. ...
Kevin Sumlin Helped Johnny Manziel Overturn His Suspension
There was almost no Johnny Football. No Heisman Trophy. No two-loss season culminating in a Cotton Bowl win for the Aggies' successful SEC debut. After being suspended for the entire 2012 season, Johnny Manziel started making plans to transfer from Texas A&M. That's when the coach stepped in....
Someone Wrote The World's Dumbest Column About John Wall's New Tats
This, from the Washington Post's Jason Reid, is not so much a column as it is an extended pageant answer. It's as if someone had just asked: "Miss DC, do you think the Washington Wizards should give John Wall a max contract in light of his recently revealed predilection for body art?" And Miss DC h...
Bet a Million
I once had dinner with Vic Ziegel and asked him to name the most literate sports writer. And he laughed at me, laughed at the idea that someone working on deadline would stop to consider what they were doing literate. ...
The Toronto Blue Jays Are Out Of The AL East Basement, Barely
The Blue Jays were so far south of their preseason projections that even after a 10-game winning streak they're still the most disappointing team in baseball this season. But! After a wild 11-day charge, they've gone from 12 games back in the AL East to 6.5 back. They're now above .500 for the first...
Cheaters Are Winning The Bucci Overtime Challenge (Update)
Damn it, this is important....