ti Page 1572 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Why Is An ESPN Vice President Spreading Rumors That I'm Straight? [UPDATE]

"I don't know your personal life," ESPN vice president and executive editor John Walsh told me, on the phone. "I wouldn't comment on anyone's personal life."...

Jim "Jimbo" Leyland Was The Most Popular Boy At His High School 50 Years Ago

Jim Leyland held court for the media today at baseball's winter meetings, and by all indications, he put on quite a show. Craig Calcaterra over at Hardball Talk has all of the highlights—Leyland on the World Baseball Classic: "I support it because the Commissioner gets mad when I say I don't support...

West Virginia Won't Let Its Mascot Kill Things With His School-Issued Musket Anymore

Yesterday we brought you West Virginia, in video form: the WVU mascot killing a black bear with his musket, while the fight song played and the hunters whooped and hollered....

Nobody Wants To Watch The Eagles: Last Week’s TV Ratings, In Context

A weekly feature wherein we contextualize TV ratings for national sports broadcasts. Data via Nielsen, Sports Business Journal's John Ourand and @TVSportsRTGS. Viewership numbers represent approximate number of persons tuned to a given program; ratings share refers to the percentage of all household...

Soccer Writer Fantasizes About Joey Barton Being Gay, Because He Despises Joey Barton

This brief column, written by Martin Samuel for the Daily Mail, is one of the most head-scratching pieces of sportswriting you will read all year. As far as we know, there's been no indication that English soccer player Joey Barton is gay. That's why Daily Mail columnist Martin Samuel finds it so ap...

Why Does Eagles Backup Quarterback Trent Edwards's Locker Look Like It Belongs To Tim Tebow?

The picture above was taken at the Philadelphia Eagles' practice facility today and sent to us by a friend of the site who covers the team. According to our tipster, that's Trent Edwards' locker with the makeshift Tebow nameplate on it....

Tulsa Fires AD For His Role In Sports Betting Ring

Tulsa athletic director Ross Parmley was suspended last week, after his name appeared in FBI documents concerning an ongoing probe into an Oklahoma City gambling ring. Parmley told investigators that he had bet on both college and pro football games, but claimed he had stopped in 2010, when he was i...

Are You A Terrible Person For Wondering How Death Impacts Your Sports Team?

In the wake of the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide this weekend I got this email from reader Tom:...

Robin Yount Shot Dale Sveum In The Ear While Quail Hunting

Baseball's winter meetings haven't been a huge source of excitement so far this year. The Nationals made a splash by signing Dan Haren, but the big names like Josh Hamilton and Zack Greinke are still waiting to be snapped up, and no blockbuster trades have happened....

Bob Costas: The Shill Becomes A Journalist [UPDATE]

Taking potshots at Bonnie Bob Costas, America's premier sports broadcaster, is a national pastime almost as popular as the spectacles he fronts. And why not? In these cheesy and uncertain times, he seems too comfortable, too confident and, at 60, too cute. He does his job better than you will ever d...

West Virginia Student Mascot Shoots A Bear; Bear Falls Out Of A Tree; Everyone Hollers

According to the YouTube description, this is Jonathan Kimble, the senior who's spending this year as the Mountaineer, WVU's (human) mascot. The costume includes coonskin cap, buckskin jacket, and a usually-unloaded musket. It's black bear season and Kimble proved, at the expense of a bear driven ...

The Vikings' Christian Ponder And ESPN's Samantha Steele Are Engaged

It is confirmed, per Richard Deitsch. ESPN's newest star, the lady who worked her way from being a ESPN Zone hostess to college football sideline reporter, is getting hitched to the Vikings' second-year quarterback. Will Ponder's quarterbacking over the last few weeks of the season be a distraction ...

A Guide To The Baseball Players On The Ballot Who Won't Make The Hall Of Fame

It's the silly season for baseball, as winter meetings and free agency combine with Hall of Fame debates to take up way too much of our free time. But this year's HOF ballot is especially fascinating—a crop of elite players tied to PED use are eligible for the first time, and will compete with some ...

Gus Malzahn will be Auburn's head football coach. Let's all watch that crazypants interview his wife did last year....

<em>SI:</em> Jovan Belcher And Kasandra Perkins Had A House Full Of Guns, And Belcher Was Joking About Them On Friday Night

Jovan Belcher and Kasandra Perkins kept "about eight guns" in their house and liked to go shooting together, according to a new report from Sports Illustrated. SI talked to Reggie Paramoure, a former teammate of Belcher's at Maine, and Paramoure provided them with a text-message exchange he had with...

Georgia Woman Exposes Self, Molests Bar Patrons While Watching SEC Championship Game

Watching a big football game at a bar can be fun. You get to drink beer, cheer loudly, and share in the joy of victory or the pain of defeat with other like-minded fans. That experience is probably what patrons of El Jinete and Friends Sports Grill (!) in Dacula, Ga., were looking for when they set...

Animated Infographic: Watch As America's Stadiums Pile Up On The Backs Of Taxpayers Through The Years

When Jeffrey Loria decided to once again blow up his Marlins, it sparked a brief outrage over the $500 million in public money that had been spent on the team's brand new stadium. These outrages happen every couple years or so and are forgotten in time for the next bond issue. Public financing of st...

Haunting New Details Emerge In The Jovan Belcher Murder-Suicide

The Kansas City Star has an exclusive story with chilling new details concerning the final moments of both Kasandra Perkins and Jovan Belcher, gleaned from multiple police sources as the investigation continues....

The Gift For The Grizzlies Fan Who Has Everything: A $13,000 Practice Basketball Court

$5,000 for a college basketball court? Amateur hour. This holiday season you want the real deal and you're willing to pay top dollar. Or at least several thousand dollars more than you would for some crummy college one, right? Bummer is, the only such court available, as far as I can tell, is the ol...

2006 Police Report: Jovan Belcher Punched Through A Window

CBS's Mike Freeman has tracked down documents from the University of Maine—where Belcher earned a degree in child development—that appear to confirm a story related by one of our commenters on Saturday, when news of the Belcher murder-suicide first surfaced....