owns Page 229 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Today's Phrase That Pays: "Hockey Taliban"
Comparing overly loyal hockey fans to vile religious dictators should probably not cause any problems for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Bob Smizik. Seriously, those people are capable of anything! (Hockey fans, I mean.) [Post-Gazette; guy who is not Taliban via]...

Taiwan CGI'ers Take On Leno vs. Conan
Fresh off interpreting the Tiger Woods follies, Taiwan's considerable technological might comes to bear on the late night wars. Except Jay, Conan and Zucker are superheroes here, for some reason. This medium is the future of journalism, by the way....

Mike Greenberg Is Not The First Man To Accidentally Say "Martin Luther Koon"
It turns out the former mayor of Selma, Ala., Joseph Smitherman, also accidentally slurred his words but he probably didn't get half the grief poor Greeny received yesterday....

Mike Greenberg Would Like To Clarify Something
"I would never say anything like that," Greeny says of today's little slip-up, "not in public, or in private, or in the silence of my own mind ..." The silence of my own mind. Beautiful....

Cum On Feel The Poise
Mark Sanchez threw for 100 yards and a pick yesterday, but he also managed not to light himself on fire or dance the hoochie coochie at midfield, so once again everyone has termed his performance — sigh — poised....

Peter King Gets To The Core Of The Gaines Adams Tragedy
"[O]ne of the sad football things about the death of Gaines Adams, the Tampa Bay-turned-Chicago defensive end who died Sunday of cardiac arrest at 26, is that he was about to be coached into his potential by Rod Marinelli..."...

Mike Greenberg Celebrates MLK Day With Just About The Worst Slip Of The Tongue Imaginable
Video below. Um, whoops. [BlackSportsOnline, video by Ryan Fields]...

Today In Euphemizing Johnny Weir's Gayness: <em>Chicago Tribune</em>, ESPN, And Many More
An occasional series in which we document — and evaluate — the sports media's pained efforts to call the sexually undeclared figure skater gay without quite calling him gay....

Ex-NBC Sports Employee: Dick Ebersol Is The Biggest Failure Of Them All
We were fortunate enough to receive a scalding take down of Dick Ebersol from a former NBC Sports employee who took "great offense" when his ex-boss called Conan O'Brien an "astounding failure." Here's his (anonymous) counter-argument....

Poise To Men
Mark Sanchez went 12-for-15 and threw for 182 yards in his first playoff victory, and because at no point during the game did he chuck the ball into the Ohio or crap himself, he was deemed a model of poise....

Mediocre Daytime Host And Mediocre-QB-Turned-Mediocre-Analyst Switch Jobs
Tim Hasselbeck and his infinitely-more-famous wife will swap places on Tuesday, meaning he'll host The View while Elisabeth fills in on NFL Live. Though their respective performances will be necessarily uninformed, you might not notice a difference. [AP]...

Five Offensively Stupid Reactions To Mark McGwire's Steroid Admission
Would the following people kindly shut the hell up about Mark McGwire?...

Today In Poor Photo Choices
Curse you, Huffington Post, for having a sense of humor about Jermaine Phillips's spousal abuse arrest. Or maybe the person in charge of selecting a picture just felt pressured for time and...choked. [HuffPo]...

Presenting The Absolute Worst Hall Of Fame Voter (Update)
In all the foofaraw over the HOF elections, one voter stands above the rest in terms of sheer ineptitude and self-promotion. Let's ridicule them! But first, the runners up:...

Mike Ditka Was Not A Fan Of Post-Game Interviews Or Pants
Behind the scenes post-game video, circa 1988, shows a young, spry Coach Ditka bickering with the host and generally being, well....Mike Ditka. Fascinating artifact. (Bad language, but thankfully no Mini Ditka revealed.) [Kap's Korner, via]...

Buster Olney Gets Scooped By His Own Story
Reader Pete sends along this screengrab of poor Buster "breaking" the news of ongoing Holliday/Cardinals negotiations...a mere minute after Holliday announced said negotiations were complete. Twitter can be a cruel mistress....

The 2009 Cleveland Browns: A Season Of Failure
The Cleveland Browns are not the worst team in the NFL. Yet, front office chaos, locker room drama, and a lot of lousy football have made them exemplars of what it means to be a terrible sports franchise....

Breaking: Buzz Bissinger Says Provocative Thing On Television
Watch as the ol' shit-pisser, speaking with Matt Lauer, deems Tiger a narcissist for doing pull-ups in front of Annie Leibovitz. Then he calls Lee Trevino a drunk. Just like W.C. Heinz used to do! [Courtesy Gawker.TV]...

There Must Be Some Mistake Here
"White Kid Wins Dunk Contest"? Don't ask me. I'm as confused as you are. [Rivals - Thanks, Tom L.]...

Today In Euphemizing Johnny Weir's Gayness: <em>ESPN The Magazine</em>
An occasional series in which we document — and evaluate — the sports media's pained efforts to call the sexually undeclared figure skater gay without quite calling him gay....