list Page 32 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

What Dock Ellis Taught Me About Drugs, Spitballs, Hair Curlers, Office Culture, Race, And America
Be sure to watch the accompanying animated short, "Superfly Spitball."...

A Tour Of Sports' Least-Coveted Auction Items
Do you want a game-used rake from Cleveland Municipal Stadium? No? Are you sure? It could be yours. (Really, it could be. It's a nice thing to have.) Josh Levin explains how, and lists other excellent bits of memorabilia you might acquire, on this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen pod...

This Incredible Paralympics Commercial Was Shot In One Take With No Special Effects
Yes, it's a commercial. Yes, it concerns the Paralympics. Yes, it's from Canada. Let no preconceived notions you might have about any of these areas preclude you from watching and being generally astounded by this one-minute ad featuring short-distance runner Alister McQueen. They've also posted a...

What Movies From the '90s Will Critics Include In <em>Sight & Sound</em>'s Top 10 (AKA The Only Poll That Matters)?
These days, there are so many film polls and online Top 10 lists that the idea of ranking movies can seem rather old hat. But amid all that list-bait, there is one movie poll taken more seriously than all others: Sight & Sound's once-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. The British film ...

What Does The New Beach Volleyball Dress Code Have To Do With Sharia Law?
The eminences grises of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball laid down their decree for the London games not so long ago: female beach volleyball players could, if they wanted, ditch their bikinis for shorts or bodysuits. According to the internet, this is yet another Olympic concession to ev...

This 10-Year-Old Quarterback's Parents Made Him A Ridiculous Blog
Meet 10-year-old quarterback Daron Brydon. He has a blog. DaronQB.blogspot.com, in fact. His blog has plugs from famous quarterbacks about his quarterbacking. Those famous quarterbacks include Ryan Perriloux and Marcus Vick. Really. On this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast, ...

Who Needs <em>Magic/Bird</em>? This Is What A Real Basketball Musical Looks Like
Magic/Bird has premiered on Broadway, and, according to NPR's Mike Pesca, it underwhelmed. So Pesca, on this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast, envisions—and, uh, sings—his ideal basketball musical. It's a wild ride. Join us, won't you?...

Raise A Pint For The Short, Fat, Drunk, And Dead Darts Legend Jocky Wilson
On this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast, Mike Pesca tells the story of Scottish dartsman Jocky Wilson, who died in March. Wilson dominated the sport in the early 1980s, and spent the rest of his career as a wonderfully larger-than-life sort. Just one line from his obituary i...

What Do The Frozen Four And Hepatitis B Have In Common?
This year's Frozen Four has a lot going for it. For the first time ever, it's being held in the South: Tampa, to be exact. And one side of the bracket features two untraditional hockey powers: Ferris State and Union College. Do you even know what state those schools are in? In this week's excerpt ...

10 Historical Events That Would've Been Completed In The Interval Between MLB's First And Last Opening Days This Year
1. Anglo-Zanzibar War (38 minutes) 2. Death and resurrection of Jesus (according to Bible) (36 hours) 3. October Revolution (2 days) 4. Bay of Pigs Invasion (3 days) 5. Operation Desert Fox (4 days) 6. The ground conflict of the Gulf War (4 days) 7. February Revolution (5 days) 8. Six-Day War (6 day...

Hurler Outman Injured While Hurling Something Out
To land on the disabled list, some players might strain a calf muscle while working out at the gym or sprain their wrist in pursuit of a shallow flyball....

Inside The Messy World Of Minor-League Show Basketball
You know the Harlem Globetrotters. You probably don't know the Harlem Wizards or the Harlem Ambassadors. They, like the Globetrotters, are barnstorming show-basketball teams, appearing in every corner of this weird nation. Unlike the Globetrotters, they play in tiny gyms. But, as Stefan Fatsis exp...

Six Sandwiches More Fitting Than The Carnegie Deli's New Tebow Sandwich
The Village Voice's intrepid Robert Sietsema taste-tested the 3.3-pound Tebow Sandwich at the Carnegie Deli. It's roast beef, corned beef, pastrami, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo on white bread. Wrote Sietsema, "What a way to ruin good pastrami and corned beef. They were warm, but the r...

7 Ways <i>The Hunger Games</i>'s Bleak Future Is Exactly Like All Other Bleak Sci-Fi Futures (Except With Lenny Kravitz)
The Hunger Games finally comes out today, but already the movie's been analyzed from every angle: its potentially huge box-office numbers, why Katniss Everdeen is a female role model, whether or not it's the new Twilight, and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not Lenny Kravitz's stylist characte...

The NCAA Tournament, As Narrated By Weird Tweets That Got Past Its Filters And Appeared On The Bottom Of The Screen
Tweets stream below March Madness Live online in something called the Coke Zero Social Arena. Apparently, all you need to get into the Coke Zero Social Arena is a hashtag. You can't be profane, but that's about the only rule. So Josh Levin, on this week's excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen po...

Let's Recall 32 Teams That Made Deeper Tournament Runs Than The 2011-12 Duke Blue Devils
Now that their season is over, it's time to place the accomplishments of Austin Rivers, Seth Curry, the Plumlees, and all the rest of this year's unforgettable Duke Blue Devils in their proper historical context. Below is a list of 32 teams in the past decade whose tournament glory outshone that of ...

Tragically, The Best Mascot In March Madness Has Been Eliminated
On this week's video excerpt from Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast, Mike Pesca of NPR tells you everything you might want to know about WuShock, the wheaty Wichita State Shockers mascot. The real Shockers fell to VCU, 62-59, last night, but WuShock lives on with all of us....

There Is A Rich History Of Fans Shining Laser Pointers In Athletes' Eyes, Especially Cristiano Ronaldo's
Perhaps you heard about the latest hockey dad behavior, in which a maybe-well-meaning father shined a laser pointer in the eyes of the other team's goalie. But you probably hadn't heard that there's a long, fine tradition of shining lasers in pro athletes' eyes. Cristiano Ronaldo, naturally, gets ...

A Conversation With The Coach From <em>Undefeated</em>, The Oscar-Winning Football Documentary
Undefeated, Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin's documentary about the 2009 Manassas (Memphis) Tigers season, won the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday. It's like that Friday Night Lights series you treasured so much recently, but it's real, and grittier. Perhaps it's even better: the Tigers'...

There Is A Cricket-Themed Horror Movie Called <em>I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer</em>, And It's Awful
I Know What You Did Last Summer. Fine pulpy film, from 1997, with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt sharing the screen in their primes. I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer, the 2008 Australian film following up on the original, about a former cricket player bullied by his teamma...