ns Page 2043 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Court-Ordered Community Service With Big Van Vader: More Wrestler Run-Ins
Inspired by the saga of "Wrestling Superstar Virgil," we continue with readers' encounters with the titans of the squared circle. If you've had your own run-in with wrestlers past or present, e-mail us, subject line "Virgilbag."...

At Last, A Women's Final Worth Watching: The Serena Williams-Aggie Radwanska Match Will Be Awesome
When the Serena Williams-Victoria Azarenka Wimbledon semifinal started today, Mike Tirico and Mary Joe Fernandez made it pretty clear that they considered the match the de facto final. This was a popular theory, but it's wrong. Serena's straight-set victory put her into the final against Agnieszka ...

Zach Parise And Ryan Suter Slip Through A Massive NHL Loophole, Before It Closes In A Few Months
The Minnesota Wild signed both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter yesterday, and more power to them. Hockey's always better when a Minnesota team is good. The formerly thrifty Wild already have the second-highest payroll in the league, but their salary cap hits won't be nearly as brutal as they ought to be....

How Do You Get The Contest Out Of Your System? Trying To Answer The Only Question On Anybody's Mind At Nathan's
The Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest is a lot of things—patriotic, promotional, repellant—but above all, the contest is a study in misdirection. Like so many of Coney Island's storied card sharks and freak shows, the contest succeeds by distracting its audience, pl...

Players Sue NFL Over Bounty Punishments
Grab your popcorn. Two days after upholding his own disciplinary rulings against four Saints players for their roles in the bounty scandal, the NFLPA has filed a lawsuit challenging both the decision, and Goodell's authority to make it. The union is suing on behalf of Anthony Hargrove, Will Smith, a...

Appreciating The Genius Of Joey Chestnut Requires Watching Him Eat In Super-Slow Motion
Joey Chestnut retained the mustard-yellow belt at Coney Island today with a command performance, consuming 68 hot dogs (and buns) in ten minutes and falling just shy of setting a new "official" record....

Hanley Ramirez Does Most Hanley Ramirez Thing Ever, Takes A 30.3 Second Home Run Trot
According to Baseball Prospectus, which is home to the wonderful Tater Trot Tracker, Marlins third baseman Hanley Ramirez—no stranger to taking his time on the diamond—took one of the longest home run trots in history on July 1st. It took Ramirez 30.3 seconds to make it around the bases, which is on...

Joey Chestnut Downs 68 Hot Dogs To Win Sixth Straight Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest
Well that was gross. Joey Chestnut just wrapped up his sixth straight championship at the world's most popular eating contest by mashing 68 hot dogs down his gullet in ten minutes. Chestnut had the contest in hand from start to finish, and gets to go on being called the world's best competitive eate...

The Minnesota Wild Land Zach Parise And Ryan Suter
As reported by the Star Tribune's Michael Russo, the Minnesota Wild have pulled off quite the NHL free agency coup. The team has agreed to terms on a 13-year contracts with defensman Ryan Suter and forward Zach Parise...

How To Eat 1 Gallon, 9 Ounces Of Ice Cream In 12 Minutes Without Getting A Headache: The Secrets Of Ed "Cookie" Jarvis
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: Ed "Cookie" Jarvis, a 46-year-old real estate agent, married father of two, cancer survivor, and retired competitive eater....

Bristolmetrics: Amid College Football Chaos, ESPN Reports On Which Games Will Be Seen On ESPN
When last we met, Roger Clemens was the most important defendent, the NBA ended but continued to dominate, and Rick Reilly continued to lift his own material. What would this week bring? ...

5 Times As Many People Watched The BET Awards As Watched ESPN <em>Sunday Night Baseball</em>. Sports TV Ratings, In Context.
A weekly feature wherein we contextualize TV ratings for national sports broadcasts. Data via Nielsen and Sports Business Daily. Viewership numbers represent approximate number of persons tuned to a given program; ratings share refers to the percentage of all households using a television who are tu...

Congratulations, You Are Chris Broussard's Source
Perpetual late-comer Chris Broussard hasn't had a good evening with his "sources." Earlier this evening, he was comically slow on the news that Deron Williams had re-upped with the Brooklyn Nets to the tune of five years and $100 million. How did we know Williams had agreed to stay with the Nets? W...

The Joe Johnson Trade Doesn't Yet Mean Anything For The Nets
The Nets have spent the last 48 hours either assembling a superteam that will contend immediately for a championship, or ruining their first half-decade in Brooklyn. Since last night, the team finalized a deal with the Atlanta Hawks to send just under a third of their roster south in order to acquir...

Roger Goodell Upholds Own Ruling In Decision That Cannot Be Appealed
The NFL announced today that Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld discipline against four Saints players for their roles in the bounty scandal, despite not letting them see all the evidence against them, and despite legitimate questions over whether Goodell had the authority to rule in the first place....

Records Suggest PSU Officials Knew In 2001 That Sandusky Shower Incident Involved More Than Just "Horsing Around"
The meeting supposedly took place in 2001 in response to the now infamous shower incident reported by Mike McQueary. As we learned from CNN, Penn State's trio (VP Gary Schultz, president Graham Spanier, and athletic director Tim Curley) had initially devised a three-pronged approach to dealing with ...

Dontrelle Willis Retires. Mark Prior Tries To Make A Comeback. Baseball Remains A Sadistic Bastard.
Dontrelle Willis retired on Monday at the age of 30, bringing to an end one of the most baffling baseball careers of the past decade. The day before, Mark Prior, nursing an oblique strain, threw a bullpen session for the Pawtucket Red Sox. He hadn't pitched in a game since June 21, when he scuffled ...

"I'm Gay," Says Megan Rapinoe. "That's Nice," Says Everyone.
Entertainment Weekly just had a big story on the new art of coming out—quietly, almost as an afterthought. And it takes nearly 300 words into Out's story on U.S. midfielder Megan Rapinoe to touch on her oreintation. And even then it's subtle, almost as if an athlete's sexuality isn't their defining ...

What If Joe Paterno Was Innocent? Hypothetical Dialogues From A Dark Time At Penn State
Circumstantially, the Jerry Sandusky case keeps getting worse and worse for Joe Paterno. Circumstantially. This past weekend, CNN described an email that Penn State's now-former athletic director, Tim Curley, allegedly sent to other university officials in 2001, canceling plans to report Sandusky to...

Why Do We Have Sideline Reporters? The Original Sideline Reporter Says The Job Is "Just Nonsense"
With Erin Andrews moving to Fox, now's a good time to revisit this 2009 interview with television's first sideline reporter, Jim Lampley. Originally published July 28, 2009....