ti Page 1718 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NFL And Players Association Agree To Seven-Day Deadline Extension
Before the initial 24-hour extension was up, the NFL and the NFLPA mutually agreed on a seven-day deadline extension. The negotiations will now end next Friday, March 11 at 5 p.m. President Barack Obama remains totally over it. [EPSN]...

Kicking A Fan In The Face Is Eric Cantona's Most Treasured Memory
Cantona, on his famous flying kick of an abusive fan: "I think that maybe it's like a dream for some people sometimes, to kick these kinds of people. So I did it for them. So they are happy." [The First Post]...

Six Degrees Of NBA Separation; Or, Why Buddha Is The Center Of The Basketball Universe
This is Regressing, a numbers-minded column by our clever friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Today: Connecting Blake Griffin and Charlie Parsley in eight easy steps....

Oregon Paid For Recruiting Services, But That's Probably Okay
There have been rumors over the past few weeks that the NCAA was investigating a top program for possible recruiting violations. Then it comes out that Oregon's been cutting checks to recruiters/trainers/scouts/mentors of prospects who eventually committed to the Ducks. That sounds bad. It isn't....

Watch LeBron Throw The Ball Right In Chris Bosh's Face, Blow A 24-Point Lead
Your morning roundup for March 4, the day Northwestern students remain engaged in the idea of human sexuality....

Every Last Player And Coach Got Red Carded In A Single Soccer Match In Argentina
Quite a bit of scrapping went down in a recent Argentinian lower-level soccer match between Claypole and Victoriano Arenas. So much scrapping that referee Damien Rubino issued 36 red cards. One was for bad behavior during the halftime break....

Undercut On Breakaway Dunk Leaves High Schooler Temporarily Paralyzed
Alex Etherington, a 6'5" small forward at Hamilton Heights High School in Indiana, had an open look at the basket just minutes into a game against Peru High on Saturday. The score was just 2-0, but a Peru player still attempted to stop Etherington's dunk attempt with a vicious undercut push from b...

Celtic V Rangers Madness — Everyone Goes Crazy!
El Hadji Diouf playing for Rangers against Celtic. What could go wrong?...

NFL Requests Deadline Extension For Labor Negotiations
SI's Jim Trotter reports that the League has requested a deadline extension of "a week or two" past Friday's midnight deadline and is now awaiting a response from the Players Association. [SI.com]...

Elijah Dukes Is In Jail For Slapping His Pregnant Ex-Girlfriend
"Dukes, 26, was arrested Wednesday on charges of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman and driving with a revoked or suspended license... He was being held without bond." The rap career must be on hold, then. [AP]...

Hockey Enforcer Bob Probert Suffered Degenerative Brain Disease
The brain researchers to whom Bob Probert donated his postmortem brain will announce Thursday that the late NHL tough-guy suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) when he died of a heart attack last summer. CTE is the condition in which concussion concerns from the NFL on down to youth ...

Bo The Bailer And His Ex Sara Were On Tosh.0 Last Night
Bo "the Bailer" Wyble and Sara Saco-Vertiz were the subject of a 6:28 "Web Redemption" segment on last night's Tosh.0. The "Foul Ball Couple" shared some lovely tidbits....

Why The NCAA Tournament Is A Metaphor For Human Evolution
The same handful of college basketball teams always seem to do well in March Madness, and the deeper reasons behind that might actually tell us something profound about human evolution. [io9]...

Deadspin Presents An Interpretive Rendering Of Cal Ripken Jr.'s Young Adult Book
We received an email from Cal Ripken Jr.'s publicity team at Random House, which will release his three-CD audiobook, HOTHEAD, next Tuesday. HOTHEAD (the caps are apparently intentional) is about a Babe Ruth League shortstop named Connor Sullivan and is "loosely based on challenges Ripken himself ...

Chelsea Owner Roman Abramovich Relieved To Still Have The World's Biggest Symbolic Penis
Thought we couldn't put a sports spin on the recent revelation that Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, had commissioned a yacht with a movie theater on board? Wrong....

Rick Reilly Rips Off Rick Reilly ... Again
You have to wonder about the return on investment for Rick Reilly. ESPN pays Reilly millions to squeeze out meconium-scented goo like this piece on the Caltech basketball team. You could literally automate this kind of hackwork. And Reilly often does....

We Are All Dave McKenna XXVI
Here's your daily link to Dave McKenna's brilliant "Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," which we'll be posting until Snyder's dumbass libel suit disappears down an Iraqi spider hole. Today: D.C. Sports Bog remembers a few of Clinton Portis's words upon his arrival to Washington and into the ...

Mets Ask For $50 Million More In Loans, Tell Mom They're Doing Fine, Just Need Some Money To Join A Gym
On Friday, we learned that the Mets had received $25 million in funding from Bud Selig's secret piggybank, on top of $75 million they'd already borrowed from Major League Baseball. Surely this meant the Wilpon family would finally have to explore selling the team. Or at the very least turn themselve...

Soccer Player Who Killed Fluffy, Defenseless Owl May Get Jail Time
Luis Moreno, the defender for Deportivo Pereira of Colombia's Primara A who kicked an opposing club's pet owl off the field on Sunday, could get up to three months of jail time for the incident. The owl was treated for traumatic stress at Zoosalud veterinary clinic in Barranquilla, Colombia, but die...

The First Look At The Mustachioed Mopper From Texas
Your morning roundup for March 1, the day Charlie Sheen rode a mercury surfboard on the media tsunami....