the Page 824 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Paint Your Corners. Clint Eastwood's Baseball Movie, <em>Trouble With The Curve</em>, Reviewed.
1. Pretty much everything about Trouble With the Curve is a crock, but I couldn't help but like it anyway. It has a hackneyed, painfully overstructured screenplay; its motivations for its characters are stock at best and embarrassingly obvious at worst; and it knows so little about the game of baseb...

The NHL Lockout's First Casualty: Florida Has Laid Off Mascot Stanley C. Panther
A work stoppage in sports, obviously, affects more than the players and owners. It takes a ton of people to make hockey go, from referees and broadcasters to concessionaires and janitors. And it's always the little guys who are first to go when the money stops rolling in....

Everton Fans Would Be Happy To Take Some NFL Replacement Referees Off Our Hands
While two different goal-line technologies are approved for use by the world's top soccer organizations, neither are implemented in the English Premier League yet—the limeys electing to stick with the power of the human eye for the time being. That's unfortunate, because EPL assistant referees are ...

Under Penalty Of Perjury, Gregg Williams Says Jonathan Vilma Pledged $10,000 To Knock Out Brett Favre in 2009 NFC Championship Game
On September 14, 2012, Gregg Williams executed a written declaration detailing and confirming much of the information previously referenced by the NFL regarding the New Orleans Saints bounty program, including the $10,000 pledge....

Stephen A. Smith Thought An Article About Him In <i>The Onion</i> Was Real
Earlier today, The Onion posted a rather harmless, totally fictional article entitled, "Stephen A. Smith Thinking Son Is Finally Ready For The Sex Argument." This wouldn't normally be news; but when Stephen A. Smith finds it, thinks it is a real article, and yells about it on Twitter? Yes, then it ...

Idiot On The Field During Jacksonville Game Actually Outgained The Jaguars, Thanks To Security Ignoring Him
Late in yesterday's embarrassing Jaguars performance at home against the Texans, a presumably beer-fueled fan took to EverBank Field to perform the usual jackassery of an Idiot On The Field. As the crowd cheered his antics, though, yellow-shirted security completely ignored what was happening on t...

When Officials Blew A Call Even After Looking At The Replay, Rex Ryan Was Flabbergasted
Late in yesterday's Steelers-Jets matchup, New York challenged a play in which Steelers running back Isaac Redman was ruled down on a tackle by safety Yeremiah Bell. Rex Ryan challenged the call, believing Bell might have forced a fumble, but several replays showed Redman was actually down in the b...

The Iron Sheik And Jose Canseco Had Twitter Beef Last Night
Pro wrestler and occasional Deadspin contributor The Iron Sheik went after more-than-occasional Deadspin subject Jose Canseco last night, calling the steroids proponent a "dumb Mexican" who is, additionally, "dumber than dead dog."...

Beer Of The Week: Hoptimus Prime
The further we get from the '80s, the less defensible the hero-toys look. G.I. Joes might've delivered creepily timed PSAs - oh, don't mind Doc hanging around outside your bathroom window, kiddos - but in setting up a reflexively force-oriented response to terroristic threats probably helped set the...

Deadspin's Sign Of The Apocalypse
For nearly two decades now, Sports Illustrated has stirred the tea leaves to discern a weekly Sign of the Apocalypse. Deadspin salutes the magazine's ongoing effort to head off the end of times, but declines to quietly cede to SI the scoop on the biggest event in world history....

"Horse Crap": Oddly Enough, The Amazon Reviews For The Freeh Report Are Mostly Pretty Negative
That is to say, as negative as possible, in every case: the Freeh Report has 44 reviews on Amazon right now, and they are all one star. I mean, that sort of makes sense—who goes on Amazon to give a positive review of the report stemming from an extrajudicial review process?—but on the heels of Franc...

Bill Simmons Said Something About "Biggest Boners" On <em>PTI</em> Today, So Here's Four Minutes Of Him Saying It
It's Friday, and we can't think of any better way to spark the weekend than pouring a stiff drink, relaxing into a thick, comfortable chair, and engorging your ears by playing this recording of Bill Simmons repeatedly saying the word "boners." It's the perfect way to relax after a long, hard week....

Toronto Film Festival: In Praise Of The Shamelessly Trashy <em>Spring Breakers</em>
For the past week, Grierson has been at the Toronto Film Festival seeing the movies we're all going to be talking about for the next few months. Today is his second of two dispatches....

There's A Lot Going On In This Photo Of A Passed-Out Oregon Ducks Fan Being Ogled By A Creepy Clown
Tipster Natalie sends along this incredible/weird image from the Oregon-Arkansas State game a couple of weekends ago in Eugene. It really requires no further explanation, but Natalie says the photo was taken by her son, whose friend is the creep in the crown mask. (Sorry, if you're in a clown mask f...

Rich Eisen's So Excited For Thursday Night Football, He Might Need New Pants
So we have a full season of Thursday Night Football on NFL Network (for those of us fortunate enough to receive that channel, at least) and that means plenty of action our favorite ego wrangler Rich Eisen. It can be hard to manage a set featuring personalities like Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin, ...

Toronto Film Festival: Who Cares That Terrence Malick's <em>To The Wonder</em> Is Minor?
For the past week, Grierson has been at the Toronto Film Festival seeing the movies we're all going to be talking about for the next few months. Today is his first of two dispatches....

Bake-Off At <em>Sports Illustrated</em>! Jon Wertheim, Chris Stone Battle To Take Over Weekly Magazine
Who's in charge at Sports Illustrated? Earlier this summer, longtime editor Terry McDonell told his staff that he was dialing back on some of his responsibilities. Last month, he got a new office on (SI's parent company) Time Inc.'s corporate floor, fueling even more talk that he was on his way out....

The Quasimodo Of Fenway: A Creation Of The Devil, Keeper Of The Monster, Sad About The Red Sox
He keeps his watch at night, working the ancient machinery that signals to the public the fortunes of the times. Some call him a monster, but it is within the Monster he hides from the visitors who curse him for the bad news he brings evening after evening. Some say he has gone deaf from the vitrio...

Everything You Could Possibly Want To Know About The Iconic <em>SportsCenter</em> Theme
ESPN seems to be pulling back a lot of curtains recently. A couple of months ago, we finally got a glimpse at Chris Kelley, the "This ... is SportsCenter" dude. Now, ESPN has done a short (albeit informative) interview with John Colby, the composer who wrote the ubiquitous SportsCenter theme that'...

The Specialists: What's In It For Oregon's Quarterbacks?
Finished in 2010 and funded by a $41.7 million gift from Phil Knight, the John E. Jaqua Academic Center rises from a reflecting pool like the pyramid of the Louvre, a monument to student-athletes gilding a busy Eugene, Ore. thoroughfare. This past August, the unveiling of the University of Oregon's ...