open Page 50 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Your College Basketball Open Thread, Just In Time For Miami At Duke
It's March! College basketball really started mattering last weekend, during the bracket buster match-ups, but we weren't ready. Now we're ready. It's time to start getting to know these teams, so your March Madness picks can be ill-informed, instead of uninformed....

Your All-Star Saturday Night Open Thread
All-Star Saturday is fun, but it unfolds super...slowly. For the hours between the skills contest and the three-point contest, the decades between the three-point contest and the dunk contest, and the eons between individual dunks in the dunk contest, an open thread....

There Was A Kangaroo Delay At The Australian Open
This fantastic photo was taken on the ninth hole of the LPGA Australian Open at Canberra, as Karrie Webb waited for a troop of kangaroos to clear the fairway. This is the same tournament where a Swedish golfer suffered a Black Widow spider bite while attempting to qualify. Australia, you're terrifyi...

Your Super Bowl 47 Open Thread
Well, this is officially it. In a few hours some lucky players will get their sweaty, greasy fingerprints all over the Lombardi Trophy and then it's Mel Kiper and Todd McShaysville for the next two-plus months. Get yourself caught up to speed on the various players in tonight's story lines and be p...

Phil Mickelson Came <em>Thisclose</em> To Shooting A 59 Today
This is sort of agonizing. On the last hole of the Phoenix Open today, this birdie putt lipped out for Phil Mickelson. Had he holed it, he would have shot a 59, which is golf's answer to baseball's .400, i.e. the outer bound of human ability. Only five golfers have shot a 59 on the PGA Tour. Micke...

Justin Gimelstob Would Like You To Watch The Australian Open Mixed Doubles Final
Former professional tennis player and all-world manly man—as in sex-with-ladies manly man—Justin Gimelstob is at it again (here, "at it again" is open to interpretation, but most likely means "reminding you he is a thing that exists"). Gimelstob is currently an announcer for the Tennis Channel and l...

Can Anyone Think Of Another Reason Sloane Stephens Is Considered Serena Williams's "Protégé"?
This evening, Serena Williams plays 19-year-old American phenom Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. The two played for the first time just three weeks ago in Brisbane, when No. 3 Williams cruised past No. 25 Stephens, 6-4, 6-3. But tonight's match has something of a differen...

Your Divisional Playoffs Open Thread
Baltimore at Denver, 4:30 p.m. (CBS): It'll be cold and probably lopsided, but the first thing might negate the second thing, so who knows. It'll also either be the last game of Ray Lewis's career or the last game of Peyton Manning's much-ballyhooed comeback season, so there are good schadenfreude ...

Your Open Thread For The USA-Sweden World Juniors Final, Which We Think Is Going On Right Now
What a country we have here! The Americans stumbled a bit in the early rounds of the 2013 world junior hockey championship—they went 2-2, with losses to Canada and Russia—but they're in the final nonetheless. (Canada and Russia, you'll notice, are in the consolation game. USA! USA! USA!) If you want...

The Poor Astros Will Be Sent To Slaughter On Baseball's Opening Night
MLB just announced which two teams will be facing off in the first game of the 2013 season, and the matchup is a curious one. On one side there are the Texas Rangers, a team that has proven itself to be one of the most exciting and watchable squads in baseball over the course of the last three seas...

Your New Year's Day Bowl Games-And-Whatnot Open Thread
The Gator Bowl and the Heart of Dallas Bowl are on now, with the Capital One (1 p.m.), Outback (1 p.m.), Rose (5 p.m.), and Orange (8:30 p.m.) Bowls coming later today, and with a great crater in the TV schedule where the Winter Classic used to be. Discuss below. And be sure to read our guide to all...

Your NBA Christmas Day Spectacular Open Thread
Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, you can still celebrate five NBA games on Dec. 25! Unless you don't like basketball. In that case, you're probably low on reasons....

Here's R.A Dickey's Farewell Letter, In Case Any Mets Fans Were In The Mood For A Good Cry
R.A. Dickey wrote a farewell letter to Mets fans this weekend, just as they always dreamed he would (it's in the Daily News instead of under their pillows, but you take what you can get), in which he thanked everyone from his old teammates to the head groundskeeper at Citi Field....

Tennis Ref Accused Of Killing Husband With A Coffee Mug Did Not Kill Husband With A Coffee Mug Or Anything Else
This summer we told you the odd tale of Lois Goodman, a 70-year old tennis official that had been on her way to officiate a day of matches at the U.S. Open when police re-routed her to jail, arrested on suspicion of bludgeoning her husband to death with a coffee mug. Today, Goodman is a free woman,...

Saturday Night Football Open Thread: Drunk Off Eggnog Edition
There's football tonight! No, no—not Tivo'd Las Vegas Bowl, though that was a good game—NFL football, where they wear pads and get paid. Watch it with us, talk trash about the family members you see once every year on Christmas (*cough*), count the many times Jon Gruden refers to Matt Ryan as "this ...

Tonight's <em>Saturday Night Live</em> Cold Open: The New York Children's Chorus Singing "Silent Night"
Given yesterday's devastating events in Connecticut, it seemed impossible for NBC to put together a Saturday Night Live cold open that could be seen in any way as appropriate for the mood. In the end, they eschewed any attempt at making the audience laugh—instead going with a touching performance f...

Your Monday Night Football Open Thread
Houston at New England (ESPN): This has all the makings for a legitimate barn burner and as they look ahead to next week's matchup, Tirico and Gruden must be doing somersaults. Alas, this game will play out the only way an ostensibly exciting game involving the Patriots can play out: crushing, no-do...

Your Sunday Night Football Open Thread
Detroit at Green Bay (NBC) : Plenty of things to yak about during this game. For instance: the Packers started the day tied atop the NFC North with the Chicago Bears. With a win tonight they will be all alone after Chicago lost to the Vikings. Lose and they are back tied with the Bears. And oh, God...

Your College Football (And Conference Championships) Open Thread
This is the place if you wanna yak about any of the conference championship games or any of the final-week-of-the-regular-season games in leagues wherein the NCAA's byzantine rules prohibit a title game. Something to ponder: the NCAA mandates that leagues only schedule championship games when they ...

Your Monday Night Football Open Thread
God bless you if you are watching this game. Or may he have mercy on you, whichever. It's the Andy Reid farewell tour and...shit, I don't know, Cam Newton will probably do something that someone finds objectionable? Yakspin!...