owl Page 238 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Won't Somebody Remind A.J. Pierzynski There Are Only Two Outs?
Top of the eighth, none on, one out, and Matt Thornton catches David DeJesus looking for strike three. The White Sox are well on their way to avoiding a sweep. OK. Looks like Starlin Castro is up next, and—hang on. A.J.? Yo, A.J.? What the—where's he going? Hey! Wait. Did everyone forget? Don't they...

Todd Helton's Heartbreaking Moment Of Staggering Forgetfulness Leads To Walk-Off Loss
It was a bad night for Todd Helton, the cornerstone of the Rockies for 16 seasons, he of the .321 lifetime batting average and 58.7 WAR (good for 11th among active players and higher than Vlad Guerrero, Ichiro, and a slew of others you'd expect to be above Helton). But tonight in Philadelphia, when ...

Remember: Umpires Are Only Human, Especially When They Trip And Fall On Their Faces
When is a routine chopper that bounces harmlessly down the third-base line before rolling foul worth watching again and again? When the home-plate umpire trying to follow the play up and trips over the catcher's foot, as Derryl Cousins does in the video below. The fun begins at the 30-second mark, w...

The BCS Name Is On Its Way Out
Here's a deceptively tricky question: Just what is the BCS? It's a series, of some kind, or an organization. That exists inside a computer, maybe? A magic computer that spits out teams and those teams have to play each other in a BCS game, which is just a regular national championship game, but it's...

Beach Soccer: Come For The Niche Sport, Stay For The Disgusting Knee Injuries
This....I don't know what to say about this. It is, let's call it, unnatural. To my untrained eye it looks like one of two things happened. Either the knee was wrenched in such a way that it dislocated itself from the rest of the leg and that is just straight up femur sticking out or, alternativel...

Dee Gordon Ends A Dodgers Threat By Running Into A Ground Ball
For an instant, it looks like the Dodgers are going to execute a hit-and-run, and that they might even score on the play. Dee Gordon breaks for third, and Bobby Abreu punches a ground ball toward the hole, right to where Alberto Callaspo is no longer positioned because he's broken toward the bag....

Temple Basketball Player Celebrates 21st Birthday By Getting Busted For Allegedly Soliciting A Prostitute
Depending on the traffic, Atlantic City, N.J., is a little more than an hour from Philadelphia by car, which makes it the perfect sort of getaway for college students from the city looking for some harmless mini-Vegas bacchanalia. Temple guard Khalif Wyatt, who turned 21 over the weekend, probably h...

The Rays Need To Upgrade Their Bullpen Phone Plan
Joe Maddon had some instructions for his bullpen, but the landline call at Marlins Park just wouldn't go through. He couldn't use a carrier pigeon, and he couldn't send a telegram, so Maddon improvised as best he could: He dispatched infielder Will Rhymes to deliver the message. The human element be...

You Can't Lose A Playoff Hockey Game More Excruciatingly Than This
I've probably watched this video 10 times, and I still can't understand how the puck, shot from the red line, hits the side boards in the corner, and somehow finds its way back to the goal mouth and into the net. In a 0-0 game. In overtime. In the AHL Calder Cup finals. On a goal that may have bee...

Derek Lowe Lets Everybody Know He's Done For The Day By Slamming A Cooler Full Of Ice
After he gave up seven earned runs on nine hits in five innings against the Tigers this afternoon, Derek Lowe was probably going get lifted by Indians manager Manny Acta. The Cleveland broadcast crew noticed that someone—Scott Barnes?—had begun warming up in the bullpen, but they didn't know for sur...

Watch Mark Reynolds Strike Out 100 Times In Two Minutes
Last week, Baltimore Orioles first baseman/third baseman/designated hitter Mark Reynolds broke the record for fastest player to 1,000 career strikeouts. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the record had belonged to Russell Branyan. But Branyan didn't get to set the record until 2010, when he w...

Look Mom, No Hands: Home Run Edition
Old Man Moyer will be shaking his cane at kids for days after this one. On a day when he gave up four home runs and allowed seven runs against the Cincinnati Reds, this right here will stick in his craw most. Todd Frazier hit a home run in the bottom of the fourth by essentially throwing his bat at...

Indians Reliever Joe Smith Was Forced To Retreat Because No One Summoned Him From The Bullpen
Manny Acta wanted to calm Justin Masterson down, so he waltzed out to pay him a visit during yesterday's Tigers-Indians game. Joe Smith took that as his cue, even though no one had signaled for him. Umpire Gary Darling noticed and let Acta know. But the best part of the video below is the sight of S...

Property Owners Suing Kellen Winslow Jr. For Leaving Behind Shit-Stained House With $133,000 In Damages
Kellen Winslow Jr. is basically a deadbeat tenant, according to a lawsuit recently filed by property owners of a luxury home he rented for six months last year in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif....

Poor Ump Gets Hit In The Nuts, And All The Men At Chase Field Cross Their Legs
Willie Bloomquist tried to get down a bunt in the eighth inning last night, but it didn't go the way he wanted. It was much worse for home-plate umpire Dale Scott, though. And then there's the look on the face of third-base ump Vic Carapazza. At the 13-second mark, Carapazza can be seen stifling a...

The Pro Bowl May Survive For Another Year Of Uselessness By Moving To New Orleans
Just when it looked like the NFL was ready to do right by the Pro Bowl by putting it down, at least for next year, the league has decided to reconsider its attachment to pointless all-star football....

Rickie Weeks Would Have Tried To Turn A Double Play, But He Forgot
The situation: Giants-Brewers, top of the second. Runners on first and second, one out. Brandon Crawford bounces one toward Cesar Izturis at short, but a chance to turn an inning-ending double play instead becomes a routine 6-4 putout because Rickie Weeks has a brain fart and thinks he just recorded...

Livan Hernandez Showers Abuse On Rays Ballboy For Booting Grounder
There are a lot of obvious perks to being a ballboy for a big-league team: a snazzy uniform, the chance to occasionally field a ball, the close proximity to players. But yesterday, the gig turned out to be a bit of a bum deal for the poor kid stationed near the Braves' bullpen at Tropicana Field....

Osi Umenyiora Falls <i>Just</i> Shy Of Goal To Get Lawrence Taylor His Super Bowl Ring Back
Lawrence Taylor's son went ahead and auctioned off his father's 1991 Super Bowl ring last night and when all the numbers were tallied, it went for a cool $230,401.20. Further details of the transaction, including who made the winning bid, were not released. But we do know that it was not Osi....

Twitter Aficionado Osi Umenyiora Promises To Buy Lawrence Taylor's Super Bowl Ring If He Gets One Million Followers
This Osi Umenyiora guy is a weird cat. A week after calling LeSean McCoy a woman on twitter as an insult, he is now pledging to buy Lawrence Taylor's 1991 Super Bowl ring that is currently being auctioned off, but only if he gets one million followers. Initially he said the millionth follower would...