sports Page 631 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Measuring The Ridiculous Physics Of Disney's <em>Hercules</em>
Two years ago, our friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective applied their usual rigorous statistical scrutiny to a series of basketball movies. We pick up the idea again with this analysis of Hercules, by Anthony Zonfrelli and Dmitri Ilushin....
Can Jason Whitlock Save Sports Broadcasting?
Originally published in Bloomberg View...
You Can't Play A World Cup In A Hospital: Brazil 2014, Argentina 1978
On June 30, Brazil dismantled Spain before a rapturous home crowd in the final of the Confederations Cup, the test run for next year's World Cup. The hosts' surprise win—and what it augurs for 2014—temporarily displaced massive protests as the story of the tournament. June saw hundreds of thousands...
Bringing It All Back Home
Grantland's Director's Cut series began with this gem from Tony Kornheiser: a 1980 Inside Sports cover story on Nolan Ryan:...
A.J. McCarron Scoreboards Johnny Manziel
The tweet has, naturally, been deleted already but here it lives for eternity. McCarron, it turns out, was also Manziel's roommate at the infamous Manning camp where the Heisman winner was sent home for being hungover or a heavy sleeper or whatever....
A Gentle Giant
Jack McCallum is a terrific reporter and writer. He was with SI for many years and still does the occasional piece for them. He is also an author and runs a blog. The blog has lots of fun posts. This one, a tribute to the late Robert Creamer, is tender:...
How Fox Faked Crowd Enthusiasm For Neil Diamond Last Night
Last night's MLB All-Star Game in New York featured a few high moments, several low moments, and one weird moment. Neil Diamond's distorted, off-tempo rendition of "Sweet Caroline" just prior to Mariano Rivera's final appearance as an All-Star was one of the worst—but Fox did its best to cover that...
ESPN Never Had A Golden Age: The Real Meaning Of Olbermann's Return
So Keith Olbermann is returning to ESPN, which a) has to be one of the more expensive press releases in history and b) shows that the company really has come to that age where you start getting deeply sentimental. It all makes sense....
LeeRoy, He Ain't Here No More
Pete Dexter's 1980 story on LeeRoy Yarbrough for Inside Sports has a chilling lede:...
A Champ Looks At A Champ
From Leonard Gardner's 1971 New York Times review of the Jose Torres book, Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story:...
The Sportswriter Who Left Her Job After Finding A Million Dollars
You may remember Selena Roberts from her days at The New York Times, where she became notorious for her crusading columns about the Duke lacrosse rape case. Or maybe you know her from her stint as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, where she was part of the rotation that replaced Rick Reilly in...
What Exactly Is Happening In This Old Photo Of Mike And The Mad Dog?
This amazing photograph comes to us from reader Ryan, who says he found it in an old Giants program from the early '90s. Please bask in the glory of Mike Francesa's jacket, Mad Dog's shirt-tucked-into-the-jeans look, and the fact that it's impossible to tell which one of them is supposed to be the r...
Fox Sports Pundit To Fan: “Speak English, I Don't Speak Ghetto”
As previously noted here, Fox Sports pundit/middling professional fighter Chael Sonnen is an asshole who does all sorts of things that one has a hard time imagining, say, fellow Fox Sports pundits Terry Bradshaw or Tim McCarver getting away with. There even seems to be a pattern to these things! He...
Lamar Odom Went Nuts On The Paparazzi
Lamar Odom went kind of bonkers on the paparazzi today, pawing through the backseat of a photographer's car and throwing all of his shit, including camera equipment, in the middle of the street. ...
And Now We're Going To Return To The Classics
From my man Eric Nusbaum:...
Reporter Gets Run Over By Football Player While Conducting Interview
Here's Fox Sports Next reporter Amy Campbell conducting a run-of-the-mill interview while at a showcase for the nation's top high school football recruits. Everything is going fine until HOLY SHIT AMY LOOK OUT!...
ESPN Dudes Ogle Courtney Force's Body Issue Pics, Call Them “Honor”
ESPN announcers Dave Rieff and Mike Dunn almost got through a whole segment involving a naked woman without assessing her as "attractive" and ogling her. Almost!...
Put The Needle To The Groove: Viva Cepeda
Here's two versions (studio and live) of Cal Tjader's record, Viva Cepeda:...
90% Half Mental
There's a nice piece by Reeves Wiedeman over at Buzzfeed on Timothy Gallaway's 1972 book, The Inner Game of Tennis:...