review Page 748 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
This Guy Died This Year: Clarence Clemons, Big Sideman
When Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died this year at 69 after a stroke, a lot of the remembrances, including Hickey's in this very webspace, cued up his solo in "Jungleland." "Jungleland" is a great song, one of Bruce's best, filled with lyrical drama and e...
The Highlights (And Assorted Lowlights) Of 2011, In Under Three Minutes
A collection of highlights and occasional lowlights from 2011, a year of triple plays, juggling catches, buzzer beaters, record-setting performances, Abby Wambach, "We will see you tomorrow night," fathers dropping daughters to catch foul balls, and old men punching each other silly. Enjoy...
This Guy Died This Year: George Shearing, Music's Original Hipster Taste
Jack Kerouac was into George Shearing before it was cool to be into George Shearing (or into Jack Kerouac, for that matter). Kerouac wrote a great deal about the near-orgasmic experience of listening to jazz, and one of his more notable passages on the subject appears in On the Road. It's drawn fr...
2011: The Year We Became The United States Of Trolling
Well, that about wraps up yet another shitty year of the new millennium. I don't know about you, but I personally can't wait to see what future shitty years have in store: rising water prices, a sharp growth in armed RoHoWa militias, a new Pitbull album ... everything shitty is on the table, people....
The Faces Of 2011: A Gallery Of Derp Portraiture
Roger Goodell Is Going To Be A Big Baby About This Lockout Until The Very End...
<em>SportsCenter</em>'s Lowlight Countdown Is Always Fun
ESPN aired its annual countdown of the year's worst plays, including a few you've probably forgotten about. It's a rare list where No. 1 actually deserves the honor....
The Year In Animals Running Onto The Field, Adorably: A Video
Humans weren't the only creatures invading our sporting events this year. There was the squirrel that interrupted an NLDS game, the fluffy owl who is sadly no longer with us, and a strangely high quantity of dogs running around soccer pitches. Here are some of our favorite animal trespassers from ...
The Year In Fans Running Onto The Field: A Video
Is there anything more life-affirming than watching a fan—likely drunk, possibly naked, probably a moron—jump a barrier and dash onto a field in the middle of a sporting event? The responsible authoritarians who run the TV networks won't show you these occasional bursts of the anarchic spirit, but...
This Guy Died This Year: Shrek, The Unshearable Sheep
There is only meaning in life if there is revelation in death. Billions of generations have come and gone, and most are meaningless for the purposes of the living if we can't take some sort of lesson from their brief time on earth. It's why we scour the obituaries and mourn the famous and infamous a...
This Guy Died This Year: Bil Keane, Comics Paterfamilias
Bil Keane was known, among his fellow professional cartoonists, as a funny, funny man. His life's work, in The Family Circus, was to hide that fact from as many people as possible. Day after day, decade after decade, The Family Circus delivered the mildest gags imaginable—observational humor minus t...
The 11 Worst Grantland Long Reads Of 2011
11. Wesley Morris, "On Brady's Hair"...
ShortCenter Special: The Best Of Herm Edwards Being Completely Unhinged
Or maybe the worst. Either way, Herm Edwards has certainly set himself apart from the rest of the SportsCenter gang with his firm convictions, bizarre tangents, and generally unhinged behavior. Here is a collection of some primo Herm moments from his SportsCenter appearances this fall....
The 50 Most Popular Deadspin Posts Of 2011
Transparency time. Here are the 50 or so most popular Deadspin posts from 2011, ranked in order, beginning with the year's most popular. The list has a little of everything: sports, fights, sex, fights about sex, sex during sporting events, and whatever it was Glen Rice did with Sarah Palin in the c...
30 Paragraphs About 30 Teams From The Basketball Prospectus Guide To The Truncated NBA Season
The following is an abridged preview of an abridged NBA season, culled from the team chapters of the ever-incisive Pro Basketball Prospectus. Buy the book as a PDF for $9.98. ...
Kobe Bryant Is A Predator, According To Nike, And His New Christmas Shoe Looks Like Grinch Vomit
This is a regular feature in which we take a look at recent sneaker releases....
This Year In Angry NFL Coaches: A Video
Coaching in the NFL is undoubtedly a very stressful job, and sometimes the camera catches you while you're letting that stress out. We've compiled some of the best of clips of NFL coaches letting their anger out this season for you above....
Nyjer Morgan Was On The Red Carpet For The L.A. <i>Twilight</i> Premiere Last Night
Nyjer Morgan—or his alter-ego Tony Plush, depending on your take—is a tremendous weirdo. He flies kites when he gets prompted by his Twitter followers. He gives interviews in character. He might actually be a little bit insane. And to add to the tally: he appears to be a legitimate fan of the Twilig...
A Rugby World Cup Final Preview For Americans Who Don't Know Shit About Rugby But Like Hakas
Chris Benz and Dave Shireley will be filing dispatches from the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, in the odd moments that they are sober. For a rugby glossary and position guide, click here....
The Undervaluing Of <em>Moneyball</em>; Or, What You Can Learn By Watching With A Bunch Of Old People
Although advanced baseball analysis had been around for years, Michael Lewis's 2003 book Moneyball, about the Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane's using it to build their roster, helped to start an online industry of carping about player evaluation and team structure. The release of the 2011 fi...
How Sportswriters Became Obsessed With NCAA Scandals
The following is excerpted from Daniel Libit's story "The Scandal Beat" in the September/October issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. Read the whole thing on CJR.org....