things-we-actually-like Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Adam Greenberg Finally Got To Swing The Bat In A Major League Baseball Game
Adam Greenberg finally got his first official MLB at-bat tonight, seven years after getting hit in the head in his only plate appearance. Unfortunately, it came against R.A. Dickey, who whiffed him on three pitches, something the presumptive NL Cy Young Award-winner specializes in. Regardless, good ...

Falcons Safety Thomas DeCoud Played The Meow Game During An Interview On <em>SportsCenter</em>
Super Troopers has long been a cultural touchstone for shaggy-haired college dudes who like to watch movies when they're stoned. Spend enough time in any dormitory, and you're bound to hear someone yell, "He's already pulled over, he can't pull over any farther!" and then laugh before taking anot...

Seven Years After Getting Concussed By The First Pitch He Saw, Adam Greenberg Gets A Second Chance
Adam Greenberg's career slash line is .000/1.000/.000. On July 9, 2005, Greenberg made his debut with the Chicago Cubs when he entered a game against the Marlins as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning. His major league debut ended abruptly, though, when Valerio de los Santos's first pitch, a 92-mph f...

Before Last Night's Game, A Rays Infielder Played Catch In The Parking Lot With Some Tampa Fans
A reader named Chris and his friends got to last night's Red Sox-Rays game several hours before the first pitch. Who knew people actually tailgated at Rays games? Anyway, Chris sent a tweet to pitcher David Price and shortstop Elliot Johnson, inviting them to come play catch. It was a lark, but wh...

What If Baseball's Foul Lines Ran On Forever?
In W.P. Kinsella's novel, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, the narrator's father muses upon a loophole in the rulebook. There's nothing that specifically states the foul lines end at the fence....

When High School Football Meets The Campaign Trail, The Results Are A Lot More Awesome Than You'd Expect
We're well into high school football season, which means you've probably been exposed to your local newspaper's special edition highlighting the region's top teams and star players....

How Do You Make Oregon's Offense Even More Colorful? Broadcast Them In Spanish
While American football still has plenty of inroads to make south of the border, its growing popularity can't be denied; there's a strong Mexican college football league featuring the best-named football team anywhere, ever, and Roger Goodell keeps nudging owners toward hosting a regular season NF...

Man Steals Ball From Small Child, Quickly Gives It Back
This afternoon's game in Cleveland between the Indians and Yankees presented us with a very important teachable moment—one Michael Kay evidently chose to ignore....

A DeLorean Hovercraft Appeared At Last Night's Giants-Rockies Game
Our friends over at Productive Outs let us know about this, one of the more astounding things of the many bizarre ones we've seen in McCovey Cove. It's a DeLorean DMC-12 hovercraft, live and in action....

L.A. Kings Donate $10,000 To Scholarship Fund In Memory Of Jessica Redfield, The Hockey Writer Killed In <i>Dark Knight</i> Shooting
Last week we told you about Jessica Ghawi (who wrote under the name Jessica Redfield), an aspiring journalist and one of the 12 people killed in the Colorado movie theater shooting. Peter Burns, a Denver radio host who worked with Ghawi, established a scholarship fund in her memory to help aspiring...

Ichiro's First At-Bat As A Yankee: A Double Bow To Mariners Fans, Followed By A Slap Single Up The Middle
It's a little weird to see Ichiro sporting a Yankee cap (especially the custom low-profile 5150 they seem to have given him) but how his first plate appearance for the Yankees went couldn't have been more predictable. And, yet, it was wonderful, as the veteran gave a respectful bow to both sides of...

Soccer Announcers Make Everything Better, Even Hockey
On an utterly sportsless evening, let's spend a few minutes reliving two that recently concluded their respective seasons: hockey and top-tier international soccer. To that end, some enterprising YouTube user synched up some 15 different hockey goals with relatively corresponding broadcast calls f...

Steve Zakuani Returns To Action 15 Months After Gruesome Injury, Embraces The Man Who Pulverized His Leg
Sounders winger Steve Zakuani wondered if he'd ever play soccer again in the months after a brutal sliding tackle from Colorado midfielder Brian Mullan in April 2011 snapped both lower bones in his right leg. (Here's video of that incident, for those of you with strong and empty stomachs.) More t...

Why Bernard James Should Be Your New Favorite NBA Player
The first round of the 2012 NBA Draft was a surprisingly dramatic affair, with one NBA scout equating most all pre-draft analysis to "blowing smoke up each other's asses for weeks." But the best story, arguably, came near beginning of the second round when Florida State center Bernard James was se...

Woman Plans On Running 52 Marathons In 52 Weeks
A Santa Monica woman, Julie Weiss, just finished her 10th marathon in as many weeks. According to her mission statement, she's got 42 more to go. Last week in Minnesota, she finished the 26.2 mile race in Duluth in four hours and forty minutes....

Brandon Jacobs Pays Back Six-Year-Old Who Mailed $3.36 From His Piggy Bank
When we last heard from six-year-old Joe Armento, he had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade running back Brandon Jacobs, who had just signed as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, to stay put in New York. More precisely, he tried to lure him back by enclosing in the envelope $3.36 from his ...

Josh Cribbs Organized A Kent State Fan Road Trip To Watch The College World Series
As Kent State and Arkansas get under way in the College World Series, let's pause for a moment to discuss something we actually like. Josh Cribbs, Cleveland Browns kickoff return wizard and Kent State alum, organized a bus trip for the Kent State family, shuttling diehard baseball fans 14 hours to ...

The PA Announcer From The Bulls Dynasty Did The Intros At This Wedding Reception
Sigh. Wedding receptions—tasteful, romantic, and boring. Unless you're at the Jaquette and Perkins wedding, in which case, legendary Chicago Bulls PA Ray Clay is there to Get. You. Pumped....

Six-Year-Old Sends Brandon Jacobs $3.36 To Stay With The Giants
Brandon Jacobs is not what you would call a great running back. But that doesn't matter when you're six years old, and you attach yourself to a player for the least rational of reasons. Maybe young Joe saw Brandon Jacobs score a single touchdown on a particularly formative viewing day. Maybe Joe's p...

This Is How Blind People Play Tennis
"Most blind kids just don't get early experience interacting with flying projectiles," says Daniel Kish, president of World Access for the Blind, an organization that teaches echolocation and mobility skills worldwide. Which is why it's hard to imagine children who are blind or even partly blind pla...