origin Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Rugby Fight Gets Right To Lots Of Punching
The State of Origin, which annually pits New South Wales (Blues) against Queensland (Maroons), is hailed as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry." And when tempers flare, niceties like staring each other down and talking shit while being held back don't apply....

This Footage Of White Dudes Playing Basketball In 1932 Is A Thing Of Beauty
Feast your eyes on the Original Celtics and their mastery of the fundamentals of basketball. Watch in awe as Davey Banks demonstrates a proper set shot. Try to keep your jaw from hitting the floor as Joe Lapchick (who was awesome, by the way) uncorks a vicious rejection. Ready a fist pump for the m...

James Naismith's Original Rules Of Basket Ball, Ranked
13. "6. A foul is striking at the ball with the fist, violation of Rules 3, 4, and such as described in Rule 5."...

The Time I Tried To Get Tim Tebow To Sign <i>The Origin Of Species</i>
Earlier this week I went to a New York Jets open practice in Florham Park, NJ. I brought with me a copy of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species with the plan being that I get Tim Tebow to sign it. It would have been a fun little bit of Gotcha! shmournalism, I suppose. Sadly, I was not successful....

There's A Great Salad Bar At Maple Leaf Gardens: The Second And Third Lives Of The Original Six Arenas
While we're on the topic of the sad fates of arenas without teams, it's worth noting that this week saw the beginning of a rebirth for the old Maple Leaf Gardens. The art deco masterpiece, which the Leafs abandoned for new downtown digs in 1999, is a National Historic Site. But lying largely dormant...

Here's A Nice Lady Fan Peeing In Her Seat (NSFW)
We know. The line to the ladies room is long. We sympathize. But still: ew ew ew....

My Workout Partner is a Role-Playing Game
Two hundred bucks. My health insurance company will give me $200 if I just go to the gym, 50 times in a six-month span. That's about two times a week. Coming into May, I only needed seven more visits to… [Kotaku] ...

A Walk-On Who Made the Team Wants You to Know What It Really Means
Alex Howell was the only freshman in the tunnel that Saturday, his chinstrap so tight it fused his jaw shut, 89,000 people packed into to the last row at Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium. Earlier in the week the graduate assistant… [Kotaku] ...

A Study Returns Easy Answers to Questions Not Yet Asked
Poring over the data, sifting through more than 1,700 specimens, a team of MIT researchers is, as we speak, cataloging the species known as the sports gamer. The data is, so far, unsurprising.… [Kotaku] ...

Addicted To What The Sticks Did
Golf, in real life, never took root in me. I had friends who played, and invited me along. As a young sports writer I covered a couple of exciting tournaments. In college, I enrolled in a golf class my senior… [Kotaku] ...

EA Sports' "Football Czar" Opens With A Two-Month Drill
In the two and a half months since he traded Canada's weather for Florida's, and titles like FIFA for Madden, Cam Weber has read that he delayed Madden's release for three weeks because of the NFL lockout; that he's adding… [Kotaku] ...

The Epic Story Of A New Jersey Prosecutor Who Stole My Idea And Made Fantasy Baseball History
Loved and loathed, the Sweeney Plan is perhaps the most notorious fantasy baseball strategy ever devised. The man who "invented" it, a self-styled eccentric named Hugh Sweeny, would have it no other way, writes Bruce Buschel, the real father of the Sweeney Plan. READ »...

The Epic Story Of A New Jersey Prosecutor Who Stole My Idea And Made Fantasy Baseball History
"I got Rickey Henderson and Roger Clemens."...

Ten Days of Grace Brings Golf's Church to the Masses
Most golf fans, if they're lucky, will get to spend four days in early April at the venerated Augusta National Golf Course, scene of The Masters Tournament. Shannon Yates was on the course, sunup to sundown, for 10 straight library-quiet… [Kotaku] ...

Taking a Punch Like a Man — Just Not From One
Felice Herrig has taken a punch from a man before. Many. She's also hit back. Hard. She's a mixed martial arts fighter, in a comparatively small population of women professionals, and, like it or not, in many gyms her only… [Kotaku] ...

The Waiver-Wire Prospects of <em>MLB 2K11</em>
I'm thinking of a famous, very touching monologue by Earl Weaver, the Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles, talking about cutting players during spring training.… [Kotaku] ...

<em>MLB 11 The Show</em> is Still The Finest in the Field
I've seen the big leagues, son. I've squinted at the lights at Fenway as the sun makes a cotton candy sky behind the Citgo sign in left. But I ain't there right now. I'm down here chewing on grass, pitching… [Kotaku] ...

This SportsCenter Anchor is Dedicated to a Different Show
To get their playing styles correct, Berthiaume matches certain stats from that player's year with ones similar to players in the current roster, then uses the latter's ratings in building out the player. For example, to derive Ott's contact rating… [Kotaku] ...

Baseball Rivals Play Dueling Cameras
Kotaku may have kicked off a fad last year, with our post on how to make your video game baseball presentation conform to real life broadcasting angles. MLB 2K11 directly cited the work as an inspiration behind its new broadcast… [Kotaku] ...

A Million Dollars and No Change for a Perfectly Humble Gamer
You can do a lot of crazy stuff when you win a million bucks. When he did, Wade McGilberry was approached by a long-lost relative with a pitch for buying into a pineapple farm. No thanks, Wade said. What he really wanted was a Harley. And with the dough he won from MLB 2K10, you're damn right he bou...