mo Page 635 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

If March Madness Were Only About Spending Money, Syracuse Would Be National Champion
Mike Dang at Bundle calculated March Madness's most tournament-obsessed colleges, using basketball program expense and revenue, game attendance, and school spending. Syracuse wins, but not in everything: George Mason students spend 257% more at bars during the tournament. [Bundle]...

Bill Simmons, Malcolm Gladwell, And The Dirty Secret Of The MIT Sports Analytics Conference
The Joke That Started It All Shortly after 9 a.m. Friday, in a big gray conference room in a big gray convention center, 1,500 people—mostly white, mostly male, mostly clad in business suits—roar with laughter. Jeff Van Gundy, the former Knicks and Rockets coach and current ESPN analyst, has just cr...

More Details About The Alleged Meriweather Shooting From The Victims' Attorney: "If It's A Scam, It's Elaborate As Hell"
John Morgan, the attorney for the two men who claim to have been shot by Brandon Meriweather in Apopka, Fla., called me back today to clarify those "doubts" he expressed on WEEI earlier today and to reiterate a few things — namely, that he's not saying that Meriweather shot anyone. He's not saying M...

Montreal Is So, So Mad At Zdeno Chara
Let's take one more look at Zdeno Chara's hit on Max Pacioretty that sent Pacioretty crashing into the stanchion face first, concussing him and fracturing a vertebra. Different people see different things. Some see a dirty play; the NHL doesn't see anything worth a fine or suspension. But the peop...

Boom Goes The Student Sportscast: America East Report Is Uncomfortable, Hilarious
There is a lot going on in this America East basketball report from the University of Hartford's student-run TV station — so much, even, that tipster Christopher declares it "the next boom goes the dynamite." There's no instant catchphrase in this 30-minute segment (we've cut it down to the real h...

Max Pacioretty Was Seriously Injured In Last Night's Zdeno Chara Hit
Pacioretty suffered a severe concussion and a fractured vertebrae in last night's hard collision with Boston's Zdeno Chara. Montreal's left wing remains in the hospital and is out indefinitely. Chara will not be punished beyond the game misconduct. [ESPN]...

We've Been Spelling Kendry Morales's Name Wrong For Years
It's Kendrys, you see, but that last S was left off his Angels contract in 2004, and he just never bothered to tell anyone. To be honest, we will probably continue to get this wrong for years to come. [LA Times, via HBT]...

The Devil In Tampa: Remembering The Penny-Pinching, Snack-Policing, Nut-Cutting Days Of Vince Naimoli
In his new book, author Jonah Keri covers the rise of the Tampa Bay Rays under the stewardship of two Goldman Sachs alums and a private equity banker, who in 2008 managed to do to the rest of the American League what some of their former colleagues were doing to the U.S. economy. Before their arriva...

Blake Griffin Shows Hint Of Personality, Channels Mars Blackmon To Hype USC's Jordan Cameron
Mars Blakeman, nee Blake Griffin, took the time to film this promotional video for NFL hopeful Jordan Cameron, who played both football and basketball at USC. I'll leave the commentary here to tipster Brian, who wrote in with the link (sic): "This is kind of an odd thing, Why does this exist?" I a...

Max Pacioretty Carted Off Ice On Stretcher After Scary Zdeno Chara Hit
In the second period of tonight's Bruins-Habs game, with Montreal leading 4-0, Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara delivered this blow to Montreal wing Max Pacioretty, riding him headfirst into the stanchion between the benches....

"There Are About 3,500-5,000 Students Righthanding To Porn": BYU People Respond To Our Honor-Code Story
Last week, an anonymous BYU grad offered his take on the Brandon Davies situation. (Davies was suspended from the BYU basketball team for having consensual sex with his girlfriend.) Our source described Davies's suspension as hypocritical and a preemptive public relations strike. Our readers had a f...

Hockey Player Misses A Check, Sails Directly Through Sheet Of Plexiglas
Minor league hockey player Patrick Bordeleau of the Lake Erie Monsters missed a hit and slammed straight through the Plexiglas on Friday night. Bordeleau went through the entire pane, raining down shattered glass and hellfire all over the scorer's bench....

Women Surfers Shouldn't Be Judged By The Beauty Of Their Skin, But By Their Talent On The Board
Your morning roundup for March 6, a day of toeing the "No shark's fin soup, you're cheap" classist line....

Cockblocked By Hot Tub Cripples!
Welcome to Great Moments in Drunken Hookup Failure, where we showcase five heartwarming true stories of drunken love gone horribly awry. Off we go....

American Diplomat Calls Ahmadinejad The "George Steinbrenner Of Iran"
In a State Department document released by Wikileaks, an American diplomat is credited with referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the "George Steinbrenner of Iran." The official was referring, of course, to Ahmadinejad's dealings with the country's national soccer team, and his attempt "to use the pop...

The Messy History Of Charlie Sheen's "Winning" Ring
As part of his relentless media odyssey this week, Charlie Sheen introduced himself to Twitter with a message that had a Chappelle-esque, "Kiss the rings, bitches" quality to it. It was an image of Sheen's shimmering 1927 World Series ring that was once worn by another winner with an equally insatia...

Six Degrees Of NBA Separation; Or, Why Buddha Is The Center Of The Basketball Universe
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Today: Connecting Blake Griffin and Charlie Parsley in eight easy steps....

Extremely Intoxicated Priest Offered Himself Up As Sex Slave To Some Cops
When Brimfield Township, Ohio police came up upon the Very Reverend Canon Ignatius J. Kury, Pastor the other night, the holy man was laying down in the back seat of his ride, hammered. This much was confirmed when he blew three times the legal limit. That's around the time that they decided to star...

A BYU Grad On Brandon Davies, Sex, And The University's Double Standard
The more I think about what happened to Brandon Davies, the more I think it's hypocrisy. I was listening to Jim Rome and he was praising BYU for sticking to its principles. Pat Forde on ESPN was doing the same thing. But it is a double standard. If you're a regular student and you have any sort of s...

Deadspin Presents An Interpretive Rendering Of Cal Ripken Jr.'s Young Adult Book
We received an email from Cal Ripken Jr.'s publicity team at Random House, which will release his three-CD audiobook, HOTHEAD, next Tuesday. HOTHEAD (the caps are apparently intentional) is about a Babe Ruth League shortstop named Connor Sullivan and is "loosely based on challenges Ripken himself ...