the Page 963 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

How Matthew Stafford Is Spending His Summer Vacation
Clearly, these photos were taken far from Detroit. If you have any more information — where Stafford is, or why he's not surrounded by the Detroit Lions — let us know. That's all for now. Petchesky Fantastico is here tonight....

Starred Commenter Theater: The Watermelonheads
Fans, wearing watermelons on their heads, watch the Rays-Blue Jays game in Toronto on Saturday. [Canadian Press/Associated Press via WSJ]...

NHL Exec Shoots And Misses With Fox News Ice Queen
When a Florida Panthers executive went on Fox News to talk about unemployment, he did what we'd all like to do, if we had no sense of decorum or shame: he macked on their anchor like nobody's business....

Omar Minaya: Mix Master No More
It was just two years ago that Omar Minaya was a Sports Illustrated cover boy and subject of a fawning profile in which he was referred to simply as O. As in: Oh my, how things have changed....

Starred Commenter Theater: Water Polo Roughhousing
Show your open caption abilities, please. [A Hungarian water polo player, right, and his Serbian opponent in the quarterfinals of the world championships in Rome; image via European Pressphoto Agency via NYT]...

Jay Mariotti, Making Children Cry
Jay the Joker one-ups Woody Paige with a human prop. The baby's tears represent America, except America would have tried to poop on him. [H/T reader Dan]...

Dr. James Andrews Giveth and Taketh Away
Orthopedic Hall of Famer Dr. James Andrews has saved the careers of countless athletes with his special brand of ligament justice, but occasionally he makes an oops and cripples healthy people for the rest of their lives. No one's perfect....

A Comprehensive Ranking Of The Products Inside A Good Humor Truck
One of the good things about being a parent is that, during the summer, you're fully justified in eating all the goddamn ice cream you want....

Once More To The Pool
Summertime, oh summertime, when on Sundays, pointless galleries seem to make some sense. So, voila! Now go do a cannonball....

Cop Who Arrested Henry Louis Gates Not A Racist Because He Once Put His Lips On A Dying Black Athlete
The Cambridge, Mass., cop who arrested (black) Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the same guy who tried to resuscitate a dying (and black) Reggie Lewis 16 years ago and is therefore in no way a racist, OK?...

Jay Mariotti On Erin Andrews, AutoSummarized
"Why was the Internet ... giving semi-lives to people with no lives?" thunders Mariotti, who writes for the Internet. The column goes on in this vein for 1,500 words. Let's send this through Microsoft Word's AutoSummarize function, shall we?...

Red Sox Trading For Players They Don't Even Want
The Red Sox, in full panic mode and mistakenly believing they were allowed a 45-man roster, are now collecting baseball players the way most people collect baseball cards: They don't have the space or use for them....

Mascot Intolerance Is A Shark Sandwich
It's 2009, and shark mascots still aren't permitted in a snooty British cricket club. Get PETA on the line — and dial the emergency number. It's urgent!...

Christine Brennan Offers Underminey Advice To Erin Andrews
Says the USA Today columnist: "I also would suggest to her ... that she rely on her talent and brains and not succumb to the lowest common denominator in sports media by playing to the frat house." [Big Lead]...

Hooded Dicks Vs. Unhooded Penises
Via Jeffrey Goldberg, this is a story from the Sept. 1, 1926, edition of the Washington Post. No word on who won. Fun fact: The Povich you see there is Abe Povich, brother of Shirley, uncle of Maury. [Jeffrey Goldberg]...

GET HAMMERED! Tad Kubler Of The Hold Steady On The Deadcast
This week's Deadcast guest is Hold Steady guitarist Tad Kubler (Listen here, iTunes here.) DOUBLE WHISKY COKE NO ICE....

Simmons Bids Farewell To <em>ESPN The Magazine</em>
After seven years, the Sports Fella is taking down his shingle at ESPN The Periodical. His final column is a nice tribute to his father (at left), who wrote Huck Finn. [ESPN]...

The Agony Of Upkeep
There are many shitty things about growing old. But here's one of the shittiest: paying lots of money simply to maintain the shit you already have....

Actively Consuming ESPN Would Probably Help The ESPN Ombudsman
With the latest news that ESPN is well on its way to world domination, it would make sense if the man with the expressed authority to critique ESPN inhaled its media as voraciously as the rest of its core demographic....

From The Desk Of Gary Belsky: Altruism Edition
Gary Belsky is the EIC of ESPN The Magazine, which you probably know as the strange, unwieldy object wedged into your mailbox every other week. Sometimes, funny things happen at Gary's magazine, and employees tell us about them....