the Page 772 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Did <em>Anyone</em> Get Into The NASCAR Chase Fair And Square?
Just as NASCAR was cleaning up its mess, booting Martin Truex Jr. from the Chase for the Sprint Cup after his teammates conspired to bone Ryan Newman, comes more controversy! Was there more collusion afoot at Richmond? Did Jeff Gordon get screwed? Is NASCAR infinitely more fun with these shenanigans...
Has Any Coach Ever Done Less With More Than Lane Kiffin?
Watch enough football for long enough, and eventually you'll see everything. I believe this: In this calendar year alone we've seen a one-point safety, a Heisman finalist cop to having an imaginary girlfriend, and a 300-pound left tackle score on a hook-and-lateral, among other improbable feats. And...
Is The NFL Blacklisting Kerry Rhodes?
Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Email Drew here....
All The Quoted Players Who Are Backing Away From <em>SI's</em> OK State Story
Sports Illustrated is now more than halfway through its big dumb investigation into the Oklahoma State football program. Since the magazine began rolling out its five-part series, many of the former OK State players who were quoted by co-writer Thayer Evans have claimed that they were misquoted in t...
Is Everything You Know About Soccer Wrong? Ask David Sally
We're joined now by David Sally, co-author with Chris Anderson of The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong. It's an argument for the power of analytics in soccer that's full of surprising conclusions about issues like the value of a goal scored relative to that of one saved, w...
College Team Limits Media Access. Paper Says <em>OK, We Won't Cover You.</em>
This is the exact reverse of the Steve Spurrier/The State kerfluffle that saw the newspaper bowing to the coach's wishes and taking a critical reporter off the beat. But where in the world does a local newspaper have more power than the football team? The SWAC, obviously....
WWF-Themed Fantasy Football Draft Features Impressive Costumes
On Tuesday, we brought you pictures from a reader who recently held a Game of Thrones-themed fantasy football draft. To our surprise, there are other people out there who like to play dress up while drafting a fantasy football team. This is a apparently thing that people do, and it's a thing that th...
Sean Penn Would Have Been A Great Ty Cobb
It's fun to recast movies. After watching Mystic River I wished it could start again with the leads exchanging roles. Harry Dean Stanton would have made a great Billy Martin if The Bronx is Burning was made 15 years earlier. If I could have one wish it would be to see Art Carney reprise his stage pe...
Fame And Obscurity
I found this over at Longform (and if you haven't bookmarked this site by now, whadda ya waiting for?)—Robert Draper's 1992 Texas Monthly story on Cormac McCarthy. I'm not drawn to McCarthy's writing but I'm a sucker for profiles of writers and this is a good one:...
Report: NFL Agents Funneled Money To College Players
A big Yahoo report dropped today, presumably to ride/torpedo the momentum of SI's flawed Oklahoma State exposé. It claims that NFL agents and financial advisers funneled tens of thousands of dollars to five college players, including Alabama tackle D.J. Fluker....
Pride Of The City
Over at SB Nation Longform, Joe DePaolo has a strong piece on the annual baseball game between the NYPD and NYFD:...
The Man Who Doesn't Exist: How Canelo Álvarez Became A Myth
Juanacatlán, Jalisco, sits on the slopes of lush foothills, 20 miles southeast of Guadalajara. To reach the town from the highway, you have to pass through its industrial neighbor El Salto, then cross the Río Grande de Santiago, one of Mexico's most polluted rivers, on a two-lane bridge adorned with...
She's Leaving Home
Mournful cover by Syreeta Wright, Stevie Wonder's ex-wife and collaborator. ...
Oklahoma State? Pffft. Here's What A Real Sports Scandal Looks Like
If you're a scandal-porn aficionado as I am, you are bound to be left wanting by Sports Illustrated's beyond-exhaustive expose of Oklahoma State football. It's a story that promises, in bold type, lots of shit that I like in a scandal: MONEY (follow the money!), DRUGS (I like drugs!), and SEX (the c...
Long Jump to Glory
Dig Pat Jordan's 1975 Sports Illustrated profile of Willye White:...
Blindsided
Michael J. Mooney's a good one. I remember liking this GQ story he did a couple of years ago:...
Rob Ryan Saunters Into New Orleans Dive Bar, Buys Everyone A Round
Here's reason number 3,489 why the Ryan brothers are the best....
Why Lionel Messi Is Even Better Than You Think
One of the key findings of The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong is that soccer, more than any other team sport, is a weak link game: matches are won and lost, and championships and relegation are secured, by the genius and quality of a club's superstars, but even more so b...
The Most Important Part of <em>SI's</em> Oklahoma State Shamestravaganza
Beneath all of the handwringing and pearl clutching that is laced throughout Sports Illustrated's story on Oklahoma State's pay-for-play schemes is this, the final paragraph:...
That Time Jim Harbaugh Broke His Hand Punching Jim Kelly
Coach/angry person Jim Harbaugh is still talking about an incident in yesterday's Niners-Packers game where Clay Matthews took some slaps at the head of Joe Staley during a scrum. "Come with some knuckles," Harbaugh said. He would know....