rain Page 54 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Cardio And Pooping: A Chart Of Every MLB Player Who Reportedly Lost Or Gained Weight This Offseason (And Why)
Every spring training, seemingly every other ballplayer shows up to camp and declares himself "in the best shape of my life." Our pal Craig Calcaterra over at HardballTalk has done yeoman's work on this phenomenon over the years, but we wanted to know more: Who gained weight? Who lost weight? How mu...

Giants Eject Angels Scout From The Ballpark, And Now Everybody's Angry
You might not realize it, but the most interesting place in the baseball universe is Scottsdale, Arizona. Last week saw a mass bee attack hold up a Giants game, and yesterday brought us our first feud of the 2012 season as Giants manager Bruce Bochy kicked out an Angels scout....

The Data Behind Yu Darvish's Brief But Devastating Debut
Texas Rangers hurler Yu Darvish made quite the spring training debut today against the San Diego Padres. (Of course, he cost the team more than $107 million, spent the last seven years pitching competitively in Japan, and these were the Padres, so you'd think he would do OK.) Still, thanks to some f...

Dave Duerson Had Less Than $20,000 In Assets When He Committed Suicide
Dave Duerson was a millionaire and a successful CEO after the conclusion of his 11-year NFL career. But when he shot himself in the heart last year, leaving behind a note that asked his family to donate his brain for dementia testing, Duerson was going through bankruptcy proceedings. He owed hundred...

Aw, Hell, Here's One More Tim Kurkjian Imitation From Rays Infielder Elliot Johnson
With Linsanity dying out, we needed something new. Call it Kurkjianomie....

Red Sox Minor Leaguer Pete Ruiz Has His Own Tim Kurkjian Impression
It's more understated than Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia's, we'll argue. Arencibia's is perhaps funnier—he brought Kurkjian's voice to a comically high pitch—but Ruiz's seems more precise. He's Darrell Hammond to Arencibia's Will Ferrell....

Inside The Spring Training Market For $4 Porn
Excerpted from former Padre and Blue Jay Dirk Hayhurst's splendid new book, Out of My League, a true chronicle of life as a pitcher bouncing between the minor leagues and the show. Some names have been changed....

Giants And Diamondbacks Wait Out 41-Minute Bee Delay
A cloud of bees settled near the Giants dugout at the D-Backs training facility in Scottsdale, halting play until the grounds crew came up with a brilliant plan. They bought a bunch of lemonade and cotton candy from the food stands, smeared it on two golf carts, and used that to lure the bees away. ...

Needing A Nine-Goal Swing To Qualify, Bahrain Wins Match 10-0
Here's every goal in Bahrain's 10-0 thumping of Indonesia, which was already fielding a bunch of junior players due to internal suspensions. Indonesia's goalkeeper was sent off in the third minute, and the floodgates opened....

Jeff Samardzija Would Like To Eye-Hump You For A Moment
Spring training photo day is a second (or fifth) chance to make a first impression. No matter that Jeff Samardzija had had four largely irrelevant seasons in Chicago. This is 2012, and it's a new start, and a hairy intense Samardzija wants you out of those pants and in his bed before he's done smell...

Sadly, Albert Belle Could Not Drop Father Time With A Forearm On The Basepaths
Quick, guess how old Albert Belle is, without looking it up. He's 45. This is what happens when you chug coffee like water and are angry all the time....

The Chargers Sent A Concussed Player Back Into The Game, And Then He Had A Seizure, And Now He's Retiring
Union-Tribune beat writer Kevin Acee is reporting that the Chargers' Pro Bowl guard Kris Dielman is going to call it quits. He's just 31, but doctors are advising Dielman that his future quality of life could seriously suffer if he suits up again. Let's recall week seven:...

Cubs Fan Cybersquats The Red Sox
The Red Sox's new spring training facility is called JetBlue Park. But if you go to Jetbluepark.com, you end up at the Yankees official website. What's the big idea, here? A Cubs fan with $8, of course. [News-Press]...

The Bad Spring Training Twitpics Site Is The Best Thing On The Internet Today
Every baseball beat writer has a cameraphone and a Twitter account, and they've all descended on lush, verdant camps without direction. Bad art happens. Bad Spring Training Twitpics has captured the best of it, with hostile captions. It's great. [BadSpringTrainingTwitpics]...

Only A Fool Would Want His Kid To Play Football
I had to go get my watch fixed the other day, and the watch fixing place that I go to is one of those old school clockmaker shops that looks like it's run by a serial killer. There are old clocks all over the place and random magazine clippings tacked to the wall, with all kinds of strange tools sca...

Learning The Secret Of Rugby, Nine Concussions Later
I once drank so much weight-gain powder that I couldn't go 40 minutes without peeing. I was an intern in San Francisco, trying to play rugby with the big boys, and working part time clearing tables. Whoever designed Mass XXX surely did not intend for it to provide 50 percent of my daily calories, us...

No One Knows Exactly How Boxing Broke Ken Norton's Brain
LAS VEGAS—Ken Norton never fell down in 39 rounds of professional boxing with Muhammad Ali. But Ken Norton did fall down on Jan. 23, 2012, while posing for a picture after a press conference at the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. I saw it happen. Ken Norton, the esteemed special guest...

What It's Like When An NFL Linebacker Nearly Knocks Your Head Off
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....

"They're Just Waiting Until We Die": Former NFL Players Suing The League Describe Its Indifference Toward Injuries
On a coffee table at his suburban Dallas home, Tony Dorsett recently laid out two pages of color-coded images for a reporter from the Associated Press, saying they show how his brain is slowly dying. The images were brain scans, and Dorsett said doctors told him the red parts indicate his brain's l...

Why Are Ray Lewis And <em>Friday Night Lights</em>' Peter Berg Shilling For The NFL On Player Safety?
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....