rookie Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Victor Oladipo And Cody Zeller Posterize Their Fellow Rookies
The posterizing meme lives on, thanks to NBA rookies and former college teammates Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller. ...

Tony Sanchez Is Really, Really Excited To Be A Pittsburgh Pirate
Pirates catcher Tony Sanchez, the fourth overall pick in the 2009 MLB draft, made his big-league debut yesterday as a DH against the Angels. His first plate appearance came with two outs in the second inning, and it was especially memorable. Neil Walker was on first and Joe Blanton was pitching. San...

The Warriors Hazed Rookie Festus Ezeli By Removing His Car's Tires
They also hid the tires in different spots, and even filmed Ezeli's reaction. Still not as bad as what they did last week to Kent Bazemore's car. Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green are hereby warned to keep an eye on their rides....

How The Panthers' Luke Kuechly Salvaged A Seemingly Lost Season
The Panthers played a strange game against the Saints on Sunday. The final score makes it look like a potential classic: The Panthers won 44-38. So does the attached statistical story: Drew Brees cleared 5,000 yards on the season, completing 29 of 43 for 396 and four touchdowns. But then one looks m...

The Weirdest And Worst Ballots Of MLB Awards Voting
Just because voting is subjective does not mean voters can't be wrong. So, with the knowledge that no ballot will make everyone happy, and with sincere appreciation for the BBWAA making all ballots public, let's hand out some awards to the most mystifying, inexplicable, and just downright terrible M...

Why Don't The 49ers Use Their Rookies?
There's something weird going on with the San Francisco 49ers: They don't use their rookies at all....

The Utah Jazz Had A Rookie Dance Off And 7-Foot Non-Rookie Enes Kanter Did The Worm
Look, a lot of sports are happening. MLB playoffs everywhere you look, NFL games up and down the line, college students still hungover from yesterday's football games—it's been a busy weekend. Bet you didn't even know that the first NBA games of the regular season are a mere 23 days away. Let one ...

The Time Tampa Bay's Rookies Put On Wigs, Dressed In Bikinis, And Danced In Front Of The Green Monster
Oh, to be a Major League Baseball rookie. Tampa Bay Rays ace David Price recorded this video yesterday, and while some teams will make their newbies carry children's luggage or dress funny to and from the stadium, that won't fly for Tampa Bay. You've got to get in bikinis and dance around in front...

Chipper Jones Tries To Disguise How Fat He Is By Dressing As A Rookie Being Hazed
That's the conclusion we're drawing from this photo, which was tweeted yesterday by Braves pitcher Pete Moylan. Either that, or Chipper just dresses like that for every Braves road trip. Has to be one or the other....

Vikings Rookie Placekicker Forces Tie, Breaks Tie, Receives Tie
Week one of the NFL season was full of strong debuts. But the best rookie quote came, to no one's surprise, from the Vikings kicking unit. Blair Walsh nailed the first four field goal attempts of his career on Sunday, all of them coming after the third quarter. His third was a 55-yarder as time exp...

Fab Melo Is Huge And Brazilian And Crushed A Folding Chair
Melo was in New York this week with the rest of the 2012 class for a rookie photo shoot. Then this happened, and it was good....

The Raiders' Rookie Hazing Includes A Dong-Shaped Haircut From Carson Palmer
Our friends at Busted Coverage actually bothered to watch last night's Cowboys-Raiders preseason game, but by doing so they were able to make an intrepid discovery: several Raiders players sporting some spectacularly awful haircuts, which the crew at BC instantly pegged as some standard Raiders rook...
![Undrafted NFL Rookie Andrew Sweat Is Making A Mistake By Going To Law School [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/17mmm3dk37u4ijpg.jpg)
Undrafted NFL Rookie Andrew Sweat Is Making A Mistake By Going To Law School [UPDATE]
This is Andrew Sweat. He was a linebacker for Ohio State, and he recently signed as an undrafted rookie free agent with the Cleveland Browns. "Andrew Sweat" is the perfect name for an undrafted linebacker on a Midwestern team who makes lots of frenzied tackles, but Sweat has decided to forgo the NFL...

Steelers' First-Round Pick Mistakes Ben Roethlisberger For Travel Coordinator
That's according to Roethlisberger, who said as much during what the Altoona Mirror called his "first-ever speaking engagement" Saturday night. Roethlisberger said when he called David DeCastro shortly after Pittsburgh took the Stanford guard with the 24th overall selection, DeCastro began asking hi...

NHL Rookies Draw Like 4-Year-Olds
That up there is the handiwork of Avs rookie Gabriel Landeskog, and it's a hell of a medical textbook cross-section of a watermelon. Except it's not that. It's Landeskog's favorite pregame meal of spaghetti (we assume he pronounced it "pasgetti") and Swedish meatballs. This is acceptable because he ...

The 2011 MLB Rookie Hazing Costume Collection
Forcing rookies to dress in costume is an MLB tradition that's as childish as it is time-honored. A gloriously dumb reminder that most baseball players are manchildren, forever stuck in high school. We are too; it's a major reason baseball players are perhaps easier to connect with than athletes in ...

Blake Griffin's Rookie Card Is Quickly Becoming Very Expensive
"[C]urrent asking prices for that card, or variations of it, have reached as high as $14,999."[The Knight's Lance]...

The Twins Joined The "Humiliating Rookie Costume" Parade
September call-ups are probably the best thing about the waning days of the MLB season, whether you're a contender or a basement dweller. It's all thanks to the time-honored tradition of humiliating the rookies....

Dez Bryant Could Learn A Lesson
Travis Ivey didn't seem to mind carrying six sets of pads after Dolphins practice yesterday. Alternate caption: the NFL takes steps to prevent neck and spinal injuries. [Photo: AP]...

These Big Leaguers Are A Bunch Of Mamas' Boys
The already-outstanding Wall Street Journal sports section brings us profiles of MLB rookies who still live at home. Well, there's always the road beef. [WSJ]...