ow Page 869 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

After Being Leveled By Darwin Cook, The Orange Bowl Mascot Will Never Juice Again
This actually came at the end of the 99-yard fumble recovery we showed you last night, and raises a greater paradox than Schrödinger's cat: how do you decapitate a mascot that is only a head? Darwin Cook tried his damndest with a clothesline on Obie, the anthropomorphic Orange Bowl orange....

The Orange Bowl Brought Us The Schrödinger's Cat Of Touchdowns
One thing is sure: a touchdown was scored on this play. Regardless of the officials' final verdict (they ruled in favor of West Virginia) there's still plenty of doubt as to exactly which team scored it. [ESPN]...

FBI Docs: How George Steinbrenner Made An Ass Of The FBI Director
The year was 1989. A group of luminaries had gathered to schmooze aboard the USS Intrepid, the World War II-era aircraft carrier on the west side of Manhattan. Among them: Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and then-FBI director William Sessions. The two men couldn't have been more dissimilar. Steinb...

Jerry Jones Repeatedly Insists That Tony Romo Was The Fourth-Best Quarterback In The NFL This Year
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: sometimes numbers don't tell the whole story....

Tim Howard Just Scored A Goal
In the game featuring Landon Donovan's Everton debut it was another American, goalkeeper Tim Howard, who stole the show, scoring a goal to put his side up 1-0 on Bolton Wanderers....

Your Complete Guide To Which Republican Presidential Candidates Are Like Which Quarterbacks
OK, now Michele Bachmann has backed up her claim at being the Tim Tebow of the 2012 presidential campaign by being nearly shut out in the Iowa Republican caucuses. The results are in; here's how the rest of the field shapes up:...

ShortCenter: Michigan's Kicker Was Thinking About "Brunette Girls" Before His Game-Winner
What is ESPN prattling on about right now? We condense your morning SportsCenter to its essence....

Holly Rowe Will Beat Up Anyone Who Tries To Steal Her Interview
Holly Rowe wasn't going to let anyone get between her and the post-Sugar Bowl interview with the winning coach, Michigan's Brady Hoke. That includes the Detroit News' Angelique Chengelis somebody who is not Angelique Chengelis, who came out on the wrong end of Rowe's elbow. [ESPN]...

No, Brad Nessler, West Virginia Is Not A City In Virginia
This just in from the Allstate Sugar Bowl featuring Michigan vs. Virginia Tech: In tomorrow night's Orange Bowl, the Clemson Tigers will "take on another team from the state of Virginia: West Virginia." (H/T Jeff Q. and Cyrus the Virus)...

Here's Mike Ditka Calling Dan Orlovsky A Polack, Then Apologizing
Mike Ditka comes from a Ukrainian family and grew up amongst people of various Slavic extraction in western Pennsylvania. He inevitably had friends who were Slovakian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovenian, or Czech. He also probably knew some Polish people, whom he and everyone else he grew up around cal...
![Mavericks Play-By-Play Voice Mark Followill Will Not Tolerate Your Online Criticism [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18j4opz3qbkx6jpg.jpg)
Mavericks Play-By-Play Voice Mark Followill Will Not Tolerate Your Online Criticism [UPDATE]
NBA X's & O's maven Sebastian Pruiti (formerly of NBA Playbook, now at Grantland) watches a lot of basketball on television—as much, I'd wager, as anyone in the country. An experienced observer of local NBA broadcasts, then, he's within his rights to offer the tame criticism of the Mavericks broadc...

Michele Bachmann Is Just Like Tim Tebow, Says Most Inevitable Campaign Ad Ever
One won the Iowa straw poll five months ago and is now trending in single digits on the day of that state's caucus vote. The other made the playoffs despite a three-game losing streak to end the regular season with a .500 record. See? They're exactly the same! [The Hill]...

Mike Milbury Referred To The New York Rangers As "The Blue Shits" Yesterday
It wasn't deliberate, and he quickly corrected himself, but we can all still have a laugh at it. [NBC; h/t to Roe H.]...

ESPN Thinks Helmet-To-Helmet Hits Are Pretty Great
The Worldwide Leader did away with its "Jacked Up!" segment some time ago, but it's still not above marveling at and even promoting footage of a good old-fashioned helmet-to-helmet blast, as this tweet to its 2.4 million followers clearly indicates....

Dwight Howard To The Nets Is Almost A Done Deal, Reports... Jermaine Dupri
You can have your Wojnarowski, your Broussard, your Aldridge. We've got early-2000s hip hop producer and frequent Mariah Carey and Usher collaborator Jermaine Dupri, thank you....

Yep, It Looks Like A Wisconsin Assistant Coach Ate A Booger At The Rose Bowl
We think this is Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Rudolph pulling a Spaulding in the first quarter of the Rose Bowl; here it is in full forensic-quality slow-mo and zoomed-in just for your enjoyment. [ESPN]...

The Capital One Bowl Brought Us The Rare Defensive PAT
You won't see this play in the No Fun League (defenses cannot score on a PAT in the NFL) but college football still permits the glory that is sprinting the length of the field with a measly two points as reward, an opportunity of which South Carolina's Stephon Gilmore made the most....

License Plate Guy Hates The Cowboys And Has The Banal Novelty License Plates To Prove It
Your morning roundup for Jan. 2, the day we learned you're not that tall. Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors....

Here's Another One Of Those 105-Yard Kickoff Returns We Were Told We'd Never See Again
When the NFL moved kickoffs up prior to the start of the season, long returns were nearly declared extinct. While the number of return TDs is down significantly, there have been a good number of surprises, like this one from San Diego's Richard Goodman. [CBS]...

Your Dumbass NFL Play Of The Season Stars Packers KR Pat Lee
The Packers' usual kick returner is Randall Cobb, but he's out with an injury. In stepped Pat Lee, who has completely bungled his kick returns so far today—the most egregious example of which came after Detroit's opening touchdown in which Lee drops the ball out of the end zone, then downs it back...