ryan Page 134 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Kobe Bryant's Slightly More Frivolous Lawsuit
The words "Kobe Bryant Lawsuit" is enough to make tongues wag — or, uh, other things do, er, other things — but the most recent Bryant lawsuit doesn't involve Aspen hotel rooms or inappropriately tossed T-shirts; instead, a Memphis Grizzlies fan — proof of their existence! — has slapped Bryant with ...

Free Darko Previews: Carmelo Anthony
As established, we're dangerously close to the start of the NBA season, with all its drama storylines and sturm und drang and months of madness. To us, part of the beauty of the NBA is that its focus, while ultimately on the team, falls on the individual. The plight of one player becomes an epic tal...

Free Darko Previews: Kobe Bryant
As established, we're dangerously close to the start of the NBA season, with all its drama storylines and sturm und drang and months of madness. To us, part of the beauty of the NBA is that its focus, while ultimately on the team, falls on the individual. The plight of one player becomes an epic t...

The Brave Soldiers Of The Smoking Gun
This here is Joe Morgan. No, obviously, not that Joe Morgan; this is Joe Morgan, an 18-year-old kid who was arrested with aggravated sexual abuse in Peoria, Illinois. He's part of The Smoking Gun's all-star lineup of mugshots of people with famous baseball players' names. Our favorite is Bobby Bon...

The Daily Closer: Red Pinstripes In Morning, NL Take Warning
Notes from a day in baseball:...

Cultural Oddsmaker: Bryant Gumbel's Burden
AJ Daulerio's Cultural Oddsmaker runs every Friday. Email to let him know what you think of him....

More Fun With The G-Man
We have no inherent dislike of Bryant Gumbel, but sometimes we think there's some sort of slow gas leak in his home. Greg Gumbel's wacky brother has really done it this time, angering his NFL overlords (he was hired to do play-by-play on eight NFL Network games this season) when he made a rude com...

Ryan Freel's Little Friend
As we deal with the psychological ramifications of last night's backbreaking Cardinals walkoff loss to the Reds, and try to inspire ourselves to watch another game this afternoon, we turn our attention to Reds outfielder/infielder/drunken driver/scrappy hustler Ryan Freel. He's the Pete Rose-type of...

Greg Maddux, Wise Man In The Clubhouse
Earlier, we talked about new Dodgers pitcher Greg Maddux's pretty debut for Los Angeles, tossing a no-hitter for six innings and generally showing why it's always a pleasure to have a Greg Maddux on your team....

Not Shaq And Kobe AGAIN?
The Christmas Day NBA doubleheader is the unofficial kickoff of the NBA season; it's typically the first nationally televised network game, the league's highest-profile moment, its chance to shine....

You Will Not Be Represented By Kobe Bryant This Summer
Reports (from no less than the awesome "ESPN.com news services") are surfacing that Kobe Bryant had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee this summer, and thus, won't be suiting up for Team USA's training camp, or pre-World Championship tour. The surgery itself is described as minor, but it is go...

Baseball Players Wiping Each Other Down
After half-heartedly flipping back and forth between the Home Run Derby and doing some lingering DVR maintenance — new, kind of depressing "Chappelle's Show," the "Law & Order" where they see the guy executed and then everyone all loses their minds — we can say one thing about the big made for TV ...

Favre, Jeter, Kobe, Barry... All Your Favorites
Harris Interactive conducts a poll every year to determine America's favorite athletes. Michael Jordan has occupied the top spot every year since 1993, but this year, Tiger Woods shoved him out of there like Bryon Russel, and Tiger took MJ's top spot. I guess the people of America really loved tha...

...And The Sex Boat Sails Out Of Our Lives
It looks like we may be officially closing the cabin door on the Minnesota sex boat incident. Both Bryant McKinnie and Fred Smoot pleaded guilty yesterday to disorderly conduct and being a public nuisance on a watercraft. They'll both get fines and community service. And here's a nice quote from t...

Kobe Bryant's Dazzling Ensemble
Via YAYSports!, here's video of Kobe Bryant's appearance on TNT last night. We're not sure what much more we can add to Free Darko's live-blogging of the experience, except to marvel in that soon-to-be-infamous blue sweater vest thing. As one reader emailed us last night, "Jesus, he looks like Rapey...

Kobe Bryant, Talking Head
We'd suggest tuning in for the NBA on TNT tomorrow night: It's going to turn into a text messaging frenzy!...

Kobe Bryant: Future Member Of The Tribe?
A while back, we mistakenly referred to then-Chicago White Sox third baseman Geoff Blum as Jewish. Within seconds, we received dozens of emails saying that wasn't true. Point is, as Jews In Sports can attest: People take this stuff seriously....

The NFL Network's Brilliant Idea
On the list of entertaining moves by a network, The NFL Network's decision to pursue Ryan Leaf as an analyst for this year's NFL Draft is a rather brilliant one. We love this idea; bringing back old athletes to provide commentary at the site of their biggest failures/embarrassments....

The World's Biggest Pickup Basketball Game
Our friends at Bodog.com have the West listed as 4-point favorites for tonight's NBA All-Star Game, which makes sense. The West has won three of the last four All-Star games (though the East won last year). And the players from the hometown team seem to always want to give it a little bit more tha...