ti Page 1860 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

To Watch Tonight
What to watch while remodeling Bubble Man's dorm room... • 5 p.m. — NASCAR: Coca-Cola 600, Concord, North Carolina. In a blind race test, what's more exciting: this race or the Pepsi 400? [FOX] • 7 p.m. — NCAA softball: Georgia at UCLA. There's no crying in softball, but there's no by-laws applicabl...

Marion Barber Unaware Of Marion Barber Rule
Keeping with the obliviousness-to-rules motif — hey, it makes us feel better about ourselves — Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber III, esq. has made a name for himself by stiff arming the defenders in the face. Apparently that's always been a rule. But now the league will begin to clamp down ...

Beckett And Boston Get ________ed
Justin Duchscherer was joking around before his start against the Boston Red Sox: ''I said, 'Those guys don't want none of me today 'cuz I'm going to pull a Lester on 'em,'' Duchscherer recalled with a grin. ''In the sixth inning, I was thinking, 'Did I really say that before the game?' '' Yes, Just...

Pistons Lose Despite Home Court, Insane Fans
The NBA Closer is written by Matt McHale, who's hoping that Spring will eventually come to Chicago. Not that 40-degree weather isn't fun...in, like, December. When he's not hating the hell out of the Midwestern weather, he can be found doing a sunshine dance at Basketbawful. Enjoy! There's no place...

Vince Young Is Doing It For The Kids, You See
Well, this is exciting. Tennessee Titans quarterback and part-time shirtless dancing zombie has come out and apologized for those photos that popped up online last week. Young explained himself to the throngs of Tennessee media after practice on Thursday....

This Is Much Easier Than E-Mailing
Hey! Who's handling the editing duties this weekend? Would the party in charge please step forward and drop me a line....

Is Baseball Ready For Its Closeup?
As much as I dislike the idea of umpires with their heads stuck under black hoods to make games even longer, the momentum of force and time may finally be giving baseball instant replay whether we like it or not. Thank you, umpires, for being so consistently, stupidly wrong on outfield home runs cal...

Canadian Lady Sports Anchor Is A Hockey Expert In All Of Its Various Forms
Obviously, these Media Approval Rating things seem to be extremely popular with many readers far and wide over the vast ball-filled spectrum of the wild and woody sports blogosphere....

Media Approval Ratings: Charissa Thompson
Charissa Thompson has gone from yappy, distracting eye candy to the Dibble seat on Fox's "Best Damn Sports Show Period." This fall, we'll also see her every Sunday as Fox's new NFL sideline reporting princess. Even though she's equipped with a striking visage and obviously knows her way around a spi...

Latina Mary Pickford, First Lady Of The Cagers
Slate's Robert Weintraub, like many of us, loves the old purple prose of early 1900s sportswriting, the Grantland Rices, the men who painted epic tales of warriors, grizzled combatants and lardywarks too manly to wear gloves. In an occasional series, Weintraub writes about the week's best baseball g...

Another Reason For Stern To Fix The Western Conference Finals
At this point, the adage that "David Stern doesn't want a Spurs-Pistons final" has become so commonplace as to become tired. But if you live in a world that pretends that Nielsen boxes actually mean anything — because no one's ever met anyone with a Nielsen box and you could track actual viewing pat...

Media Approval Ratings: Mike Breen
Mike Breen, it seems, almost came out of nowhere to take over as the lead NBA broadcaster. It took an odd confluence of circumstances for the guy to go from ski jumping in 2002 to the NBA Finals in 2008....

Jim Leyland Gets HIs Jim Mora On ... But Awesomely
it's not a classic Lea Elia rant, but it's still fun to listen to Leyland pop off. "I'm a fucking man!" "Don't look at the fucking guy next to you." "Weak fuckin' shit!" "You can put that in your paper!"...

Celtics Use Rhythm Method, Belichick Craftiness To Beat Pistons
The NBA Closer is written by Matt McHale, who's still wondering why the Celtics were all up in LeBron's junk last series. When he's not focusing on the sordid past, he can be found mocking the laughable present at Basketbawful. Enjoy!...

About Last Night
What you missed after being arrested for having Wii in your pants ... • NBA: Celtics stubbornly refuse to give up plan to win all home games, lose all on the road. Boston 88, Detroit 79. • NFL: No salary cap in 2010? What could possibly go wrong? • MLB: Now that Lacckkkkey's, back in toowwwwnnn ... ...

NBA Playoffs: A Tuesday Night Viewer's Guide
And on the second day, Basketbawful gave them a preview of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics. And it was good....

Could This Be The End For Our Pedro?
First off, all of you Mets fans who are saying "Pedro who?", just stop it. Pedro Martinez, who is on the verge of returning to New York's starting rotation, says that this season might well be his last. And you don't know it now, but you'll miss him when he's gone. Yes, you will....

Use Your Urine To Kill Space Aliens
If you're like us, the art of urinating in a public restroom has become a rote, empty, stale ritual. We mean, come on: You just stand there. Where's the sport in that? Alas, we must now thank the fine people of Belgium for turning the act of urination into the competitive event we've all been beggin...

Media Approval Ratings: Tim McCarver
We're not sure we're going to still be doing these Media Approval Things in October, which is why we have to do Tim McCarver now. Because fans' opinions of McCarver are never more polarized than in October....