sports Page 732 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Somehow Josh Cribbs Woke Up And Walked Away From This Brutal Head-Crunching Hit
On a day the NFL celebrated the end of its most pressing controversy, its lingering one rose again to prominence as Browns returner Josh Cribbs took a brutal hit from Dannell Ellerbe at the end of a first quarter punt return and lay motionless on the turf during tonight's Cleveland-Baltimore game ...

Tonight's Referee Crew Walked Out To A Standing Ovation In Baltimore
Referee Gene Steratore and his officiating crew, with a combined 70 years of professional experience, walked out of the M&T Bank Stadium tunnel to a standing O and cheers from everyone on hand. (For the record, the first penalty of tonight's game came just 2:41 in: Illegal contact on the Browns de...

Maurice Jones-Drew Still Sounds Pretty Ticked Off At Jags Management
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: The issues that prompted his holdout? They're still issues....

Justin Timberlake Opened The Ryder Cup By Reading A Shitty Poem About Golf
Justin Timberlake is serving as a Team USA "Ambassador" for this year's Ryder Cup at Medinah, a job title apparently created especially for the pop singer, actor and golf lover. Timberlake's appearance at today's opening ceremony was preceded by an introduction by Olympian Michael Phelps and accom...

Americans' Favorite Soccer Clubs, As Determined By <i>FIFA 12</i> Plays
ESPN FC had a neat piece this week on the ties between soccer video games and soccer fandom, and the idea that even in the days of satellite television, nothing's done more to grow the sport in the United States than gaming. Here's the money quote, from social scientist Rich Luker:...

Pirates Outfielder Travis Snider Just Made "One Of The Best Catches You'll Ever See"
In a meaningless game between Pittsburgh and the Mets on a day during which the attention has focused more on Keith Hernandez's facial hair than actual baseball, Pirates outfielder Travis Snider made a bid for defensive play of the year in robbing Mike Baxter of a towering homer at Citi Field....

Watching Keith Hernandez Get His Mustache Shaved Is Painful For Many Reasons
Mets legend and current SNY announcer Keith Hernandez dispensed with his mustache of 25 years today in a charity stunt outside Citi Field today, emerging as a young- if freakish-looking man unsure in his certainty of having made the right decision....

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...

As Playoff Dreams Drift Away, Phillies Fans Will Do Anything To Mask The Stench
With the Nationals and Braves storming to guaranteed playoff spots, it stands to figure that the teams would leave some division foes in the wake of their success. Sure, the Marlins and Mets found themselves buried with regularity this year, but for Phillies fans accustomed to the team's success, b...

The NFL's Replacement Referees Will Not Be Missed, But They Did Entertain Us
Here's a greatest hits compilation that surfaced on YouTube within minutes of the news that the NFL and its referees had come to agreement on a new labor deal. Seeing all these lowlights strung together in one sad clip after another does give an appreciation for the unprecedented levels of suckitu...

ESPN Wanted To Do A "Character Study" On Jonathan Vilma, Who Then Conducted His Own
A word to you sports television producers out there: Be careful who you contact for certain segments, as sensitive info has a way of making its way back to the source, and the results may not be pretty. In this case, it's Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma, who was none too happy to hear that Eric Bar...

Tonight's <em>South Park</em> Featured Tom Brady And Peyton Manning In Taking On Concussions And Replacement Refs
On the night we learned replacement officials are finally getting the heave-ho, Trey Parker and Matt Stone sent up Monday night's disgrace in Seattle alongside the brain injury debate in an NFL-themed South Park that also featured Tom Brady drinking semen and a mockery of Cee-Lo's shitty new NFL ...

Charles Barkley Lost Money On Packers-Seahawks, And He's Mad As Hell
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: Barkley learned a valuable lesson about replacement refs and bad breaks....

Six Times As Many People Watched A Rerun Of <i>The Vampire Diaries</i> As Watched MLS On ESPN2: Last Week’s TV Ratings, In Context
A weekly feature wherein we contextualize TV ratings for national sports broadcasts. Data via Nielsen and Sports Business Journal's John Ourand. Viewership numbers represent approximate number of persons tuned to a given program; ratings share refers to the percentage of all households using a telev...

Bristolmetrics: Everybody Hates Lane Kiffin
This is a regular feature breaking down, minute-by-minute, the content that appears on ESPN's 11 p.m. edition of SportsCenter throughout the week....

Which MLB Pundit Makes The Worst Predictions? Grading ESPN And <em>Sports Illustrated</em>
Republished with permission from PunditTracker.com, which just launched its fancy new site....

Rays Fans Have Found A Unique, Horrifying Solution To The Attendance Problem
The Rays extended their winning streak to six in beating the Red Sox last night at Fenway, on a night that attempted to take Bostonians' minds off this year's misery and focus it instead on the glory of 2004. It brought out the rich and famous, as well as these Rays fans who brought along a few hea...

Tonight's Yankees Broadcast Was Temporarily Invaded By A Mysterious "Fucking"
The top of the fifth inning of tonight's Yankees-Twins bout in Minneapolis was extra-spicy for Yankee fans viewing on WWOR (or on MLB Network's simulcast) as a voice seemed to interrupt Jayson Nix's at bat to talk about "play-in games" and someone or something being "fucking hot."...

You Know NFL Officiating Is Shit When Tim Donaghy Thinks They Have An Integrity Problem
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: A disgraced ref thinks the replacements are a disgrace....

Who Was The Winner In Last Night's Scab-Ref Debacle? <em>SportsCenter</em>, With Its Highest Rating Ever
OK, so Twitter went nuts last night and TJ Lang's "fuck it" tweet has been retweeted more than 84,000 times. And SportsCenter, with more than 50,000 previous episodes under its belt, has what looks to be its highest rated-show ever with a 5.0 rating....