john Page 171 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Better Know An Umpire: John Hirschbeck
Welcome to Better Know An Umpire, an effort to educate ourselves on the human elements who have ultimate decision-making power over some 2,500 Major League Baseball games a year. (All cumulative statistics are through the 2011 season, unless otherwise stated.)...
Tony La Russa Explains Decision Not To Put Johnny Cueto On All-Star Team By Admitting To Violating MLB CBA
Uh oh, we got ourselves a scandal, or something. Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker and former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa have never been especially fond of each other. Their relationship got even testier over the weekend when La Russa, who was in charge of making final selections f...
Nick Johnson Keeps Alive Most Impressive Streak In Sports, Goes On DL
Orioles 1B/DH/ticking time bomb Nick Johnson left Wednesday's game after feeling pain in his right wrist, and after an MRI yesterday was placed on the 15-day DL. Finally! The season's nearly half-over, and we were getting worried that Johnson might finally, after 13 years in MLB, make it through a s...
Jets Owner Woody Johnson Is An Expert On Constitutional Law, In His Mind
Woody Johnson is the Jets owner, a big Mitt Romney fundraiser, and a complete moron....
What Happened To John Van Benschoten? The Former Pirates Pitching Prospect Laments The Hitting Career He Never Had
John Van Benschoten, the Pirates' first-round pick (eighth overall) in 2001, didn't have a good big-league career. In 90 innings of work spread over three seasons, Van Benschoten, mostly as a starter, racked up 65 strikeouts against 68 walks and a 9.20 ERA. We ranked him 76th on our list of the 100...
How To Build A 21st-Century Bullpen With Failed Hitting Prospects And A Radar Gun
Earlier this month, Sean Doolittle made his major-league debut for the Oakland Athletics. It wasn't an obviously momentous event: The left-hander took the mound with two outs in the top of the fifth, with the A's trailing Texas 5-0. He struck out Nelson Cruz to end the inning, then pitched a perfect...
Clyde Drexler Denies He Said Dream Team "Kept Waiting For Magic To Die"
Dream Team, Jack McCallum's exhaustive account of the life and times of America's 1992 Olympic men's basketball team, was already looking like the most anticipated sports book of the summer when we ran a brief excerpt yesterday, one that dealt with Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler and his comments on how...
John Rocker Is Now An Unsurprisingly Bad Political Columnist
If you are a fan of John Rocker and third-rate conservative internet rags, today is a big day for you. WND.com, which is essentially an even stupider version of The Daily Caller, has brought the infamous former Atlanta Braves closer onto the site as a political columnist. Based on what happened the...
Clyde Drexler: Everybody On The Dream Team Felt Sorry For Magic, Everyone In The NBA Was Waiting For Him To Die
Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum followed the Dream Team around during the 1992 Olympics, and he has a new book, Dream Team, which covers the team in great detail. McCallum writes about the NBA climate before Barcelona, the team's various selection controversies, their legendary practices, and the...
John Hollinger Had The Best NBA Preseason Predictions, Jon Barry's Were Nearly The Worst
With the NBA season concluding last week with a Miami Heat championship, let's revisit how those pre-season pundit predictions turned out. We tracked the picks from 30 ESPN pundits across 11 categories (6 division winners, 2 conference champions, NBA Finals champion, MVP, and rookie of the year)....
Joe Maddon Vs. Davey Johnson Is A Great Old Man Fight
"The most boring ejection in baseball history?" No way, man. Davey Johnson and Joe Maddon, two feisty and erudite managers representing the oldest of old and newest of new schools, have moved into their second day of sniping after Johnson alerted the umps to some pine tar on Joel Peralta's glove. Th...
Who Will Win This Year's U.S. Open? Probably Someone You've Never Heard Of
Golf's major tournaments just haven't been that interesting lately. Over the last 17 majors, there have been 16 winners. In theory, this could be nice! A little diversity, a little surprise. But since Tiger's sabbatical, we've lost any hope of narrative. Individual sports thrive on story lines, riva...
Charlie Villanueva Says He's Not Overweight, Tweets Photo Of His Bathroom Scale
John Calipari is once again coaching the Dominican national team, because he's John Calipari and fuck you. (Also: recruiting.) Olympic qualifying begins in a few weeks, so it's time to make some cuts. First up: one of only three NBA players on the preliminary roster....
Random Dude Who Insists He Used To Be The Bullpen Coach Scams Braves' Alumni Weekend
The Atlanta Braves held an alumni reunion over the weekend. They played softball, they went out for drinks, they honored John Smoltz, and they got scammed by a random guy claiming to be John Sullivan, a former major leaguer who was briefly the team's bullpen coach in the early 1980s....
Should Brent Musburger Apologize For Calling John Carlos And Tommie Smith "Black-Skinned Storm Troopers" 44 Years Ago?
John Carlos and Tommie Smith, each raising a fist on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, have become an icon of that decade, and that climate, and of the changes that were a-coming. They're heroes now, but that the time they were seen by many as traitors, and agitators, and by at least one up-and-...
"Athletic" Shawn Johnson Retires: How Gymnastics Talks About Bodies In Code
On Sunday, former world and Olympic champion gymnast Shawn Johnson, 20, retired from gymnastics. Citing a bum knee, she withdrew from this coming weekend's national championships, the first competitive step towards the 2012 Olympic team....
Better Know An Umpire: Adrian Johnson
Welcome to Better Know An Umpire, an effort to educate ourselves on the human elements who have ultimate decision-making power over some 2,500 Major League Baseball games a year. (All cumulative statistics are through the 2011 season, unless otherwise stated.)...
Twitter Banned From Jerry Sandusky Trial, Which Starts Next Week
Jury selection will begin tomorrow in Jerry Sandusky's trial, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Lawyerin' Joe Amendola's latest motion to postpone proceedings. That leaves opening arguments on track for next week. But John Cleland, the presiding judge, made a pair of rulings today will hav...
Johnny Tapia Died, Died, Died, Died, Then Died, And Lived Hard In Between
New Mexico police are saying that boxer Johnny Tapia was found dead at his house on Sunday. They do not suspect foul play. Apparently he was the victim of having been Johnny Tapia for 45 years. ...
Calvin Johnson Goes Yard At Comerica Park
Fine, it was during batting practice—if you want to get technical about it—but impressive nonetheless for the Lions freakishly talented wide receiver. According to Johnson his power display was no fluke, he was approached by the Reds while in high school before he committed to Georgia Tech and foot...