mat Page 132 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Can Science See Inside An NFL Player's Skull Before It's Too Late?
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a diagnosis for dead people. Last month, Junior Seau was found in his home in Oceanside, Calif., with a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. A familiar sequence unfolded: His brain was requested by both the Brain Injury Research Institute and ...
Charles "Peanut" Tillman Scornfully Responds To Local Teacher's Anti-Bears Math Homework
The Bears' Pro Bowl corner Charles Tillman was promoting his Cornerstone Foundation in a suburban Chicago runner's shop, when he was approached by a teenaged girl. She was the daughter of the store's owner, and she was just killing time doing her math homework, when she came across a problem she tho...
Matt Cain Threw MLB's 22nd Perfect Game, And Here's The Final Out As Called On TV, Radio, And <em>En Español</em>
With a dominating 14-strikeout performance, San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain dispatched all 27 Astros hitters he faced tonight at AT&T Park in earning this season's second perfect game, the first in Giants history, and the 22nd in official baseball history. ...
So, Who Embarrasses Himself The Most In <em>Rock of Ages</em>?
The central appeal—or anti-appeal—of any Hollywood adaptation of a musical is not about the music or the choreography or the set pieces; it's about watching actors who don't usually sing, sing. One of the most fun aspects of Chicago was learning how charming and deft Richard Gere was; it was equally...
Kenyan Schoolchildren Reenact Game 6 Of The 1986 World Series
This has been going around for a week (we saw it when Keith Law tweeted it this morning) and it is picture perfect. From "Mookie Wilson" waving Kevin Mitchell to the plate, to "Bill Robinson" jumping up and down as the ball rolls through Buckner's legs, to "Ray Knight"'s hands on the back of his h...
How Judges Score A Boxing Match (And How Manny Pacquiao Got Screwed)
Manny Pacquiao got beaten by ghosts Saturday night. That's what boxing judges are. They are not necessarily former fighters, or coaches, or other knowledgeable figures. They are not necessarily anything. They are people chosen by opaque and obscure boxing commissions to decide the outcome of fights ...
How A Career Ends: I Was The No. 1 Pick In The MLB Amateur Draft, And Now I'm A Cautionary Tale
Tell Me When It's Over is an interview series in which we ask former athletes about the moment they knew their playing days were over. Today, with the MLB amateur draft beginning in a matter of hours: Pitcher David Clyde, the No. 1 pick in the 1973 draft and now an object lesson in how not to handle...
Japan Is Still Nutso About Hideki Matsui
This is the pregame media scrum around Hideki Matsui, who was called up from Triple-A and will make his Rays debut in St. Petersburg tonight. The spectacle of Japanese fellows swarming their prey with cameras and notebooks is not a new one, and it's something we've come to expect every time a new NP...
Jon Kitna Loves Being A Math Teacher
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Some players' post-NFL careers are a little different....
How Readable Are Bill Simmons, Jason Whitlock, Rick Reilly, And Other Sportswriters? Science Investigates
The last time we played around with sportswriter analytics, we wondered if we could algorithmically determine a column's author based on his favorite words. (We could!) For a followup, I decided to look at the readability of different writers. Reading level is a nebulous concept and hard to define p...
How I Threw My Hair-Perm Superfly Spitball, By Dock Ellis: A New Animated Short
The video above is "Superfly Spitball," an animated short that grew out of the same interview—conducted by Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel—that gave us Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No. Animated by Heidi Perry and co-produced by Thor Swift, the short will appear in a forthcoming iBook, Beyond Ellis D....
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."...
Brian Downing, Krystal Restaurant Named In "Alabama Teabagger" Lawsuit
Remember Brian Downing? He's the gentleman alleged to have been caught on video performing a certain sexual act on a passed-out LSU fan in the hours after the BCS Championship game this year in New Orleans. (See our full coverage here.) That act, which the New Orleans Times-Picayune describes as "p...
The Dodgers Have The "Worst Fans In Baseball," Says Giants Beat Writer
The Dodgers and Giants rivalry has been ugly for 50 years, and nothing will probably change that. Certainly, after the Bryan Stow attack of last March, diplomatic relations between the two definitively plowed past some point-of-no-return (though peace was likely always a lost cause). Animosity betwe...
Matt Hendricks's Hit On Ryan McDonagh Was Playoff Hockey At Its Best
We say it all the time: the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the best postseason in sports. Tonight's Capitals-Rangers game is headed to the second overtime, a fitting outcome in this year's OT-happy postseason, but the extended game hasn't dialed down any of the intensity....
Did Hideki Matsui Really Watch 55,000 Adult Videos?
I was fucking around on Twitter yesterday and I realized that Twitter should be able to allow you to block entire SUBJECTS. So if you really want to see The Avengers but don't want some asshole to spoil it for you, you just enter a block for any tweets that have the word "avengers" or "nick fury" or...
Tim McCarver Blames Global Warming For The Increase In Major League Home Runs
We'd normally save this sort of thing for McCarve'd Up (which will be back next week after being pre-empted for NFL draft coverage) but Tim McCarver said one of the stupidest things ever spoken on a television broadcast today, blaming global warming for "making the air thin" and thus leading to a...
Jeff Francoeur Gets 100th Assist Off Ryan "Doormat" Line Drive
We're not sure if someone has got it in for Ryan Doumit over at Yahoo, but as you can see, a typo (??) credits Jeff Francoeur with his 100th assist after doubling up Joe Mauer on "Ryan Doormat's liner to right-center."...
Reports: Matt Leinart To Sign With Oakland Raiders
Look out Bay Area, here comes the party (and lifetime 57.6 completion percentage). Friend of the program, Matt Leinart is ready to move on from his backup role in Houston to a new backup role with the Oakland Raiders. According to Adam Schefter, Leinart will sign with the Raiders and immediately be...
PGA Tour Lawyers Try Really Hard To Scare Us Into Taking Down Their Dumb Video
Way back in January we posted this low-quality video, filmed off some schmo's TV screen, of a sound guy tripping and falling as Ryuji Imada prepared for his drive. It was not the pinnacle of sports commentary, but it was a guy falling down, and I thought it was pretty funny....